Donald Trump’s main grassroots support group has hit a major snag. More than a month into his presidency, America First Policies has yet to do anything and just lost its top donor.
The group, made up of former Trump staffers, including digital guru Brad Parscale and controversial spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, was supposed to do for Donald Trump what Organizing for America did for Barack Obama: use data and information gathered during the campaign to keep Trump’s most ardent supporters engaged during his presidency.
It would also, later, transition into Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.
Trump could use the help. His first few weeks in office have been marred by public relations missteps, a poorly executed Executive Order on immigration, a resignation, a failure to whip Republicans into supporting at least one of his Cabinet secretaries, and a wardrobe malfunction.
Theoretically, America First Policies is supposed to drive the outside-the-White House message and employ Trump supporters to evangelize on behalf of their leader. But so far, its managed only to launch a pretty simple website and upload one GIF of an American flag.
Sources close to the Trump Administration told the Daily Beast that the team has “no idea” what America First Policies is actually doing. Parscale is not taking questions. Pierson is missing in action completely. She still appears regularly on television, and updates her Twitter, but lists her website as ‘GreatAgain.gov—the transition team site, not the AFP site.
Worse still, AFP may have lost its only major donor. Rebekah Mercer, who was described during the campaign as “shaping Trump’s operation,” was supposed to provide most of the money for Parscale’s effort, but reportedly begged off after Parscale threw a fit and refused to provide her with his financial information.
“She asked for his tax return, and he said ‘fuck you,’ and she said, ‘fuck you, we’re done,'” a source told the Daily Beast. “Mercer won’t have anything to do with Parscale.”
This is a major loss for Trump, whose grassroots support was, according to recent revelations, unprecedented. The non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute revealed this week that Trump collected more “small money” (less than $201) donations than Obama, and more than Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders combined.
That means, Trump’s team has the potential to launch a grassroots organization equally as ambitious as OfA, but may have missed out on the opportunity—since transitioning data and information becomes less seamless as time goes on.
