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“I fully support the Republican Party and important GOP Committees, but I do not support RINOs and fools, and it is not their right to use my likeness or image to raise funds,” he said. But even as he tried to clarify that he supported his party, he gave another plug for his own group. “If you donate to our Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com, you are helping the America First movement and doing it right,” he said.
For now, aides said, Mr. Trump’s plan is to stockpile money so he can remain a force in politics and help candidates challenging dissident Republicans like Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who supported impeaching him this year.
Mr. Trump, along with the national party, raised roughly $250 million between Election Day and President Biden’s inauguration. More than $60 million of that went to a new political action committee. That committee and the former president’s campaign committee were both converted to linked political action committees. Mr. Trump’s aides said this week that they had not yet started to send fund-raising solicitations since he left office, but planned to do so in the coming days.
The Republican clash could resonate particularly in the House.
If Mr. Trump is successful in persuading donors to give money to him instead of supporting Republican House candidates directly, he could cause problems for Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, who is trying to take back the House in two years. He needs to flip five seats to do so.
“If you control the money, you control the party,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor.
Some Republican strategists noted that less than a decade ago, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, was the biggest fund-raising name in G.O.P. politics. Now he barely recognizes his party.
The strategists played down the threat Mr. Trump poses to Republican fund-raising. “The donors that are unique to him who would be affected by that message are people who wouldn’t have donated in the first place,” said Josh Holmes, a political adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader.
Mr. Holmes also said that as the Biden administration rolled out new policies like a nearly $2 trillion relief bill, Republicans would coalesce in opposition and develop new fund-raising constituencies.
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