Former President Joe Biden, for instance, hosted special holiday parties for his donors during his administration. 

However, the amount of money Trump can command for access is unprecedented, a trend that started during his transition to the White House for his second term, when he raised $239 million for his inaugural committee. That is more than double his previous record of $107 million from 2017. 

Trump’s inaugural committee fundraising amount was reached, in part, because Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and others donated a million dollars apiece in the hope of gaining access to the then-president-elect.

Fundraising efforts have since focused on Trump’s presidential library and the ballroom he proposed in July.

Trump has even raised $15 million from ABC News and $22 million from Meta for his library through legal settlements agreed to in his civil defamation lawsuit against the former and a separate case against the latter after he was deplatformed from Facebook and Instagram following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

To that end, Trump’s fundraising prowess was on display on Wednesday when he opened up the White House for a “Legacy Dinner” for donors to his highly anticipated $200 million Donald J. Trump Ballroom project.

“So many of you have been really, really generous. A couple of you here saying, ‘Sir, would $25 million be appropriate?’ I said, ‘I will take it,’” Trump told the crowd. “We are going to have a phenomenal ballroom. It’s going to be one of the best anywhere in the world. There won’t be anything like it, actually. It’s four sides of beautiful glass.”

The likes of Lockheed Martin have already donated $10 million for the 90,000-square-foot, 650-person ballroom, expected to be completed by 2029 after construction commenced last month.

With fundraising for the ballroom led by Trump fundraiser Meredith O’Rourke, in conjunction with the Trust for the National Mall, an organization that supports the National Park Service, any contributions to the trust can also be considered a federal tax write-off.

During the dinner, Trump also previewed his plans for an Arc de Triomphe-type construction to welcome people into Washington, D.C., as they cross the Memorial Bridge from Arlington National Cemetery.

“Every time somebody rides over that beautiful bridge to the Lincoln Memorial, they literally say something is supposed to be here,” he said. “We have versions of it … This is a mockup.”

In addition to the ballroom, the 2026 midterm elections are also a priority for Trump.

As aides, including Vice President JD Vance, put pressure on state Republicans to redraw their congressional districts middecade so the GOP can have an advantage before the midterm elections, the president will travel on Friday to Mar-a-Lago, his private resort in West Palm Beach, Florida, for a “Candlelight Dinner” for his super PAC, MAGA Inc.

Tickets for the MAGA Inc. “Candlelight Dinner,” similar to previous iterations, cost a million dollars per person.

“Republicans are running on a historic working-class tax cut, while all Democrats have accomplished so far is shutting down the government for illegal immigrants,” MAGA Inc. spokesman Alex Pfeiffer told the Washington Examiner when asked for comment.

As Trump and Republicans try to protect their congressional majorities and the president’s unilateral control of the district to prevent him from becoming more of a lame duck commander in chief, he, along with the GOP’s three major fundraising organizations, the Republican National Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee, and National Republican Congressional Committee, raised $239 million in July.

The RNC, NRSC, and NRCC spent $161 million that same month, with $130 million in cash on hand. 

In comparison, Democrats’ three counterpart committees raised $197 million and spent $188 million in July, leaving $66 million in cash on hand.

Regardless, Democrats are attempting to remain optimistic, pointing to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ campaign organization, which out-fundraised the NRCC in August by $7 million to $4 million. The DCCC also has $41 million cash on hand, in contrast to the NRCC’s $36 million. 

The DCCC’s fundraising is an edge for Democrats ahead of next year’s midterm elections, as the House is more competitive for the party than the Senate based on the corresponding electoral maps. Although the DSCC also has $12 million in cash on hand, compared to the NRSC’s $8 million.

In addition, Democrats also have an average 2 percentage point lead over Republicans in generic congressional ballot polling, according to RealClearPolitics.

Nevertheless, the RNC has $84 million in cash on hand, compared to the DNC’s $14 million.

Democratic strategist Stefan Hankin conceded that “big picture” Democrats would “obviously” prefer to have more money than Republicans.

Another Democratic strategist, Christopher Hahn, quipped, “I think money is the last thing Democrats need to worry about.”

When asked whether he was concerned about Trump’s fundraising, a third Democratic strategist, Mike Nellis, contended he was more concerned about why the president was having “a $1 million-a-plate fundraiser with billionaires during a government shutdown, while millions of Americans can’t afford groceries.”

“I’m worried about why he’s sending $20 billion to Argentina when people here can’t even buy a home,” Nellis told the Washington Examiner. “Those are the priorities that deserve scrutiny. Maybe the president should take a harder look, too.”

Irrespective of the precedent set by his predecessors regarding using the White House and access to fundraise, Public Citizen government affairs lobbyist Craig Holman also criticized Trump for Wednesday’s dinner as “a rather brazen campaign event masquerading as a private fundraising dinner for the White House ballroom.”

“Very wealthy individuals, many of whom have and will donate to Donald Trump’s MAGA political causes, and wealthy corporate interests, many of which helped fund Trump’s inauguration, will be on parade at the White House and provided one-on-one access with the president,” Holman told the Washington Examiner. “Donors will also be rewarded with having their names displayed on the walls of the ballroom for posterity’s sake.”

Accepting political donations at the White House is prohibited by federal law, but “the same donors to the ballroom are very likely to continue writing campaign checks off the premises,” according to Holman.

“Trump has become highly skilled at courting millionaires and billionaires and tapping into their money for his own political as well as personal interests,” he said. “The ‘Legacy Dinner’ is just one example of this.”

Trump’s peddling of access has also created ethical concerns. In May, he was the special guest at a black tie optional dinner for the 220 biggest investors in his personal memecoin, $TRUMP. Not only was the cryptocurrency event at his Washington, D.C.,-area golf club, but the guest list included foreign nationals.

TRUMP MAKES ARGENTINE $20 BILLION CURRENCY SWAP CONTINGENT ON MILEI WIN

The White House has dismissed those concerns in conversations with the Washington Examiner, arguing Trump “is working to secure GOOD deals for the American people, not for himself.”

“President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.