The following article by Jennifer Jacobs and Bill Allison was posted on the Bloomberg News website January 18, 2018:
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Tickets for dinner event start at $100,000 per couple
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Unclear whether government shutdown would affect travel plans
President Donald Trump will mark the first anniversary of his inauguration on Saturday with a celebration at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, with tickets starting at $100,000 a pair.
That amount, according to the invitation, will pay for dinner and a photograph with the president. For $250,000, a couple can also take part in a roundtable.
Trump told reporters in November that he had thought about having a celebration that month, a year after his victory over Hillary Clinton, but he was touring Asia at the time.
The event, hosted by Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, and the casino mogul Steve Wynn, will benefit the Trump presidential campaign and the RNC.
McDaniel’s maiden name, Romney, is not written on the invitation. Trump has had testy relations with her uncle Mitt Romney. Wynn is the RNC’s finance chairman.
It’s unclear whether Trump’s plans to travel to Florida for the weekend would change if the government is shut down when current funding runs out at midnight Friday. Legislation to extend the deadline is at an impasse in the Senate, and Republican leaders haven’t set out a way around it. Trump’s advisers believe the Senate will pass a short-term funding extension so it’s unlikely that he’ll be staying in Washington, a person familiar with his plans said.
Trump Victory, the joint fundraising committee hosting the event, raised $11.1 million through the first three quarters of 2017. It will report its year-end numbers on Jan. 31.
Trump’s fundraising in his first year in office, which included swanky events for big donors and appeals to small-dollar donors, those who give $200 or less, including a Black Friday sale offering discounted prices on caps embroidered with the “Make America Great Again” slogan. His campaign asked donors to give as little as $3 for a chance to win two tickets to Saturday’s Mar-a-Lago fundraiser, with travel included as part of the prize.
Former President Barack Obama had been in office more than two years before he headlined his first re-election fundraiser. Former President George W. Bush raised a total of $268,423 in his first two years in office, according to Federal Election Commission records.
View the post here.