Trump Campaign Paid $35,000 To Draper Sterling, The Ad Agency From ‘Mad Men’
Late Monday evening, Donald Trump’s campaign released their financials for the month of May, and the results were nothing less than shocking. For the month, the campaign raised only $3.1 million from outside donations, a paltry sum by any measure, but especially so for a presidential candidate for a major party. The Donald gave his campaign $45,000 while loaning it an additional $2.2 million. (Yep, that means Trump expects to be paid back by donors.) At month’s end, his team had only $1.3 million on hand, an unbelievably low amount.
Now, just for comparison’s sake, Hillary Clinton raised $26.4 million in May and had $45.2 million in the bank. Hell, even Bernie Sanders, whose run is over and was all but mathematically eliminated throughout most of May, still raised five times more than Trump in the month and had $8 million MORE on hand at the end of May. Even more embarrassing, Ted Cruz, who dropped out in early May, raised more than him.
Trump was immediately mocked over the report with the Twitter hashtag #TrumpSoPoor topping the trending topics for a bit Monday night. However, the ridicule didn’t stop at the so-called billionaire barely having any cash in the bank to run a Congressional run, let alone a White House campaign.
After poring over the expenditures of Trump’s FEC filing, ThinkProgress’s Jedd Legum noticed something weird and, frankly, unbelievable. While noticing that most of the money spent by the campaign essentially went back to Trump — renting Mar-A-Lago, using his private jet, placing himself and kids on payroll — Legum flagged payments to an ad agency with a very distinctive name.
Trump report includes three 10K payments to “Draper Sterling” for advertising
Who is going break it to him that it’s a fictional ad agency?
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) June 21, 2016
Yep, that would be an allusion to the advertising agency from the iconic AMC show Mad Men, set in the 1960s. (Don Draper and Roger Sterling are two of the lead characters of the show.) With a little more digging, Legum and others determined that the agency may be fake, or possibly a shell company used to skim campaign funds. (The listed address is a few minutes away from recently fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski’s home in New Hampshire.)
This is the address listed for “Draper Sterling,” the entity Trump paid $35,000 in May for advertising pic.twitter.com/TnDDf0OPyY
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) June 21, 2016
If anyone knows a real ad firm called “Draper Sterling” based in NH, let me know. Can’t find evidence of one online https://t.co/Jt2jCRuvsg
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) June 21, 2016
Lots of people asking if I’m joking about Trump’s 35K in payments to an ad firm called “Draper Sterling”
I’m not pic.twitter.com/NMBXKjNLLn
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) June 21, 2016
Want some Trump news? The campaign is doing a forensic audit on all of Corey Lewandowski’s spending.
— Matt Mackowiak (@MattMackowiak) June 21, 2016
Owner of Draper Sterling, web consulting vendor for Trump, is in “medical devices”
pic.twitter.com/ZxdbgsXgZM— Matt Mackowiak (@MattMackowiak) June 21, 2016
If I don’t see a Mad Men parody of Trump’s fake ad agency “Draper Sterling” by the time I wake up in the morning you’re all fired
— Alex Blagg (@alexblagg) June 21, 2016
At this point, it is legit to wonder if Trump is even going to make it to the convention. It feels like either he’ll just up and quit so as to avoid any further embarrassment, or the GOP/RNC is going to step in and find a way to somehow yank this nomination from him. The past few weeks have been an absolute shitshow. Instead of developing a coherent general election strategy, a competent and nationwide campaign structure, and banking money for the fall, all while Hillary was still battling in her own primary, he spent the whole time dicking around and mouth-farting red meat to his bigoted followers.
