Senior campaign and GOP officials vented that Trump’s finance team, led by former Fox TV host and Donald Trump Jr. girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, underperformed and was an HR nightmare. Trump couldn’t compete with Biden’s small-dollar fundraising machine, and some donors were horrified by what they described as Guilfoyle’s lack of professionalism: She frequently joked about her sex life and, at one fundraiser, offered a lap dance to the donor who gave the most money...
Infighting, lap dance jokes and hot tub parties
As they struggled to address the cash woes, Trump’s advisers had another headache: Guilfoyle, the campaign’s fundraising chair.
Republican Party and campaign officials were convinced that Guilfoyle’s team, which was beset by infighting and departures, was vastly underperforming. There was anger over their abrupt cancellation of a late September virtual fundraiser with the president that was supposed to rake in as much as $15 million just ahead of the third quarter deadline.
Senior campaign officials, meanwhile, had been getting reports that Guilfoyle had been berating her staff. Appearing together at fundraisers, Guilfoyle and her boyfriend, Donald Trump Jr., would banter in sexually suggestive ways that made some donors uncomfortable.
During a December donor event at Trump Hotel in Washington, Guilfoyle offered to give a lap dance to whoever raised the most money, according to two people who were present and another person who was familiar with the episode.
And at an event in Jackson Hole, Wyo., earlier this year, Guilfoyle and the younger Trump joked about how she raised money while in hot tubs. Another attendee presented a slightly different version, saying that whoever in the audience raised the most money would be offered a hot tub party with Guilfoyle.
And at a fall 2018 fundraiser headlined by country star Toby Keith, Guilfoyle cracked that her boyfriend liked it when she dressed up as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, according to an attendee.
Guilfoyle’s team has pushed back on assertions they weren’t taking their jobs seriously enough or raising enough money, pointing to a series of high-dollar events it had pulled off. As for her comments at fundraisers, Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said, ““Kimberly Guilfoyle is an excellent fundraiser and was a highly valued asset to the President’s team. There was nothing offensive about her presentations in context.”
Guilfoyle’s operation became another chaotic distraction for the reelection effort. Many campaign aides saw it as such a disaster that they tried to distance themselves and cut off contact with her team.
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