WASHINGTON
He has played campaign-style videos in the White House briefing room, and he has used his campaign playlist, typically reserved for rallies, at official presidential events.In the past few months, President Donald Trump has invited supporters wearing "Make America Great Again" campaign gear onstage with him during official presidential speeches. He has criticized Democratic rival Joe Biden in Rose Garden addresses.
Showing an unusual willingness to use his presidential platform for political purposes.
Trump's penchant for blurring the lines between his campaign and his official duties came to a head last week when he confirmed that he was considering giving his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination — one of the most anticipated moments of the election season — from the White House South Lawn.
"I'll probably do mine live from the White House," Trump said on Fox News. "The easiest, least expensive and, I think, very beautiful [location] would be live from the White House."
Presidents running for re-election have traditionally worked to balance official government business with campaign activity. But government watchdogs and officials from past administrations warn that Trump has smashed that norm, who was President Barack Obama's special counsel and special assistant for ethics and government reform.
"For Trump to effectively be reaching into all of our pockets to subsidize his proposed activity on the South Lawn ... no, the taxpayer should not have to pay for that."
Trump's boundary stretching goes beyond the location of his acceptance speech, Eisen and others said.
Turned official White House events, both in Washington and on the road, into political events as the corona virus pandemic has kept him off the usual campaign trail and unable to hold large in-person rallies.
North Carolina and Ohio. He has also made multiple visits to Arizona, Texas and Florida. All of those states are critical to Trump's re-election.
Said Kedric Payne, general counsel and senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit advocacy group. Trump, Payne said, is "barely disguising it as official activity."
On an official government trip to Texas in July, for example, a senior administration official told NBC News that the visit was intended to highlight Trump's energy policy and contrast it with that of Biden's. On another official White House trip in June, to Arizona, the president headlined an event hosted by Students for Trump at a Phoenix church.
The president held a small campaign-style rally on the tarmac and then visited a Whirlpool factory, where he made fun of Biden. He rounded out the journey with a supporters roundtable and a campaign fundraiser.
The trips can become expensive when the airfare and the cost of federally mandated Secret Service protection are taken into consideration.
When a presidential trip involves both official and political events, the White House is supposed to use a formula to determine the amount of money that the campaign or the party should reimburse to the Treasury Department to protect taxpayers from paying for any political activities. The formula generally is not made public.
A spokesperson for the Federal Election Commission said that to distinguish political travel from official travel, the White House should consider the purposes and the natures of the events at each stop.
According to FEC data, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have reimbursed more than $600,000 to the Treasury since May for airfare. Neither the Trump campaign nor the RNC provided NBC News with a breakdown of which trips taxpayers were reimbursed for.
Trump has also officially hosted a number of constituent-based events at the White House since the pandemic hit, involving truck drivers, farmers, veterans and seniors
A key voting bloc whose support for the president has slipped amid the pandemic. Five of the nearly two dozen events have been with faith leaders, a demographic that propelled Trump to victory in 2016 but whose support this time around has softened.
In the white House eventscampaign has pushed back against criticism that the president is misusing .
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