A fundraising email blast from the chief political action committees supporting Donald Trump shared a troubling new message: “haul out the guillotine.”
The email went on to blast “sicko” Kathy Griffin for her 2017 image holding a mock-severed Trump head and instead accused his Democratic rivals of wanting to behead him.
“The SAD and HORRIFIC TRUTH is that this is STILL the Sick Dream of every Trump-Deranged lunatic out there!” the message says. “And it’s not just me they want gone, THEY’RE REALLY COMING AFTER YOU! SICK SICK SICK!”
Over the past two weeks, between messages saying “I love you” and inviting supporters to dinner, emails “signed” by Trump and sent by the joint fundraising committee supporting his presidential campaign have repeatedly mentioned “revenge” and “war” and proudly labeled him a “political prisoner” who doesn’t mind going to jail.
Fundraising messages have also falsely claimed that President Joe Biden directed the FBI to “take out” the former president during a law enforcement search of his Mar-a-Lago compound.
They follow a trend of apparent attempts to bait supporters with calls to violence with eye-popping subject lines and all-caps calls to action in messages that then paint Trump as a victim of political persecution.
The campaign’s escalating rhetoric is synced with his self-described campaign of “retribution,” increasingly colliding with the multiple criminal investigations and lawsuits against him, and as prosecutors and judges warn against credible threats fueled by his statements.
Moments after a Manhattan jury found the former president guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on May 30, the fundraising campaign blasted out a message saying “I was just convicted in a rigged trial!” while noting that “my end-of-month fundraising deadline is just DAYS AWAY!”
Over the next two weeks, the campaign sent out more than 30 other messages about the conviction.
While Trump’s allies have criticized Democratic rivals for labeling him a “convicted felon” in campaign messages, Trump’s own fundraising campaign called him a convicted felon in its first message in June.
“I’m on the warpath,” he declared on June 3. He outlined “my plan for revenge” on June 8.
“I’m okay with going to jail,” according to messages on June 3 and June 5. In another message on June 4, Trump declared that he is “proud to be Biden’s politician prisoner.”
On June 7, he announced the launch of the “Trump War Council.”
“I NEED YOU ON MY WAR COUNCIL!” the message reads. “Biden and the DEEP STATE have declared ALL-OUT WAR against me! THEY MADE ME A POLITICAL PRISONER. A CONVICTED FELON! But with your help I will soon be free when we peacefully TAKE BACK THE WHITE HOUSE.”
Trump’s campaign reported raising nearly $53 million within 24 hours after the verdict.
Last year, two political action committees supporting the likely Republican presidential nominee spent more than $55 million on his legal bills, with more than half of that cash spent within the second half of the year.
Campaign finance reports filed by Trump-allied PACs earlier this year showed that Trump paid out millions of dollars to almost 50 firms in 2023.
