When President Biden suddenly ended his re-election campaign over the weekend and endorsed Vice President Kamala HarrisMany Democrats were quick to point out that former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidatehad previously supported Harris.
Tweets circulated with an image of a check from 2011 showing that Trump had donated $5,000 to the campaign of Kamala Harris, then California attorney general. Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida posted a photo of the check with the caption: “A wise investment.”
Campaign finance records show that Donald Trump made two donations to help re-elect Kamala Harris as California attorney general. The records show that Trump donated $5,000 in 2011, a few months after she was first sworn in, and another $1,000 donation in 2013, a year before he was up for re-election to a second term.
Harris’ campaign team told CBS News that she later donated the funds to a nonprofit group that advocates for the civil and human rights of Central Americans, a story first reported by the Sacramento Bee. The newspaper noted that her donation was made in 2015, when she was launching her campaign for U.S. Senate.
The documents also show that Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, donated $2,000 to Harris’ campaign for attorney general in 2014.
Harris served two terms as California’s attorney general before being elected to the Senate.
News of Trump’s donations first surfaced during the 2020 presidential campaign, when he was running against the Biden-Harris ticket.
Before entering politics, Trump, then a real estate developer, donated to various politicians on both sides of the political spectrum. Documents show that he gave money to Democrats, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and then-Senators Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, as well as Republicans, including Sen. Mitch McConnell and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
According to Ballotpedia, Trump made $1,845,290 in political donations between 1989 and 2015. The majority of that went to Republicans, although prior to 2011, Trump gave more money to Democrats.
In 2016, while campaigning in Iowa, Trump defended his history of political giving, saying that as a businessman, “I give to everybody. I give to Democrats. I give to everybody, because that’s my job.”
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump 2024 campaign, told CBS News: “President Trump was a global businessman and knew how to play and win the game with corrupt politicians like Kamala Harris.”
