Joe. Happy Monday. To you. What a
24 hours it's been, it's only Monday. It
feels like a week. And what I can say
from Manhattan is that it is gridlock in midtown.
Yes, you're at the center of the storm there
. And what a turn here in classic Donald Trump
to show up a day early and try to squeeze
as much showbiz out of this as he can.
Although Anne Marie, you can tell us you walked
by Trump Tower, still more reporters than protesters from
what we hear. That is exactly right. So
on the west side of the street, it is
a long lane of protesters. Excuse me, reporters
, camera crews lenses everywhere you look, it was
very confusing, Joe, I have to say for
some of the tourists that just wanted to see Fifth
Avenue and then the other side, they were Trump
supporters, but definitely the journalists outnumbered them. Be
deeply curious to see what happens around inside and around
the tower tonight and around the table with us here
, Bloomberg's deputy managing editor Wendy Benjamin sent to kick
things off along with national security reporter, Dan Flatley
. It's great to see both of you with us
here, Wendy. This is classic Trump. Try
to get ahead of the story. Try to squeeze
as much showbiz out of it as he can.
Is it going to actually help him? Yes,
I mean, say what you will about Donald Trump
. The guy knows how to market himself. A
lot of free air time. There's a lot of
free air time and as you saw, if anyone
had their cable news on all day, a lot
of the cable news stations were running the plane taxiing
on the runway and the cars driving from laguardia into
the city. It was like the O J thing
all over again. Everyone was glued to their tvs
. What's going to happen? And all that happened
was he went from the airport to his apartment to
await the arraignment tomorrow as we're seeing there. So
, yes, it is. But he is squeezing
yet another day of dominating the headlines, Wendy.
Not only is he dominating the headlines, he's dominating
the campaign fund today. I saw that they've passed
the Trump campaign$7 million. How long does this continue
that he's able to bring in this level of money
? Well, that's just it. And Marie,
as long as he's in the headlines, he is
going to be raising money and they say they raised
$7 million we won't actually know for sure until the
campaign finance filings come out. April 15th, I
believe is the deadline for the first quarter and we'll
be able to see. But because this started in
late March, he started the fundraising, you know
, ramping it up a lot before March 30th.
So that first quarter campaign finance report will be juiced
up. You can see this tweet from Jason Miller
in only three days since the news of the indictment
. President Trump's campaign has raised a record$7 million
. He's not the only one speaker mccarthy is raising
money on this too, isn't he? Speaker mccarthy
is raising money on this. Senator Josh Hawley sent
out a fundraising appeal. Help me stand with President
Donald Trump, send me money today. You know
, it's this, it's, it's a bit opportunistic
, but that is not unique to Republicans. Let
me put it that way. There's politicians raised like
to find opportunities to raise money. And, you
know, the leader of the Republican party. Donald
Trump being indicted is a great fundraising opportunity.