Rachel Maddow talks about the Trump campaign fundraising scam, where they processed millions of dollars in recurring donations without the informed consent of the donors. Apparently the lesson the GOP has learned from the scandal is -- do it again!
"They got caught for that just this past weekend in the New York Times and now we know how they reacted," Maddow said.
"Today a new fund-raising pitch from the Republican party and specifically NRCC, which is the part of the Republican party that supports Republicans in the House of Representatives. They put this out today. The box prechecked for their donors.
" 'We need to know we haven't lost you to the radical left. If you uncheck this box, we'll have to tell Trump you're a defector and sided with the Dems. Check this box and we can win back the House and get Trump to run in 2024.'"
"To be clear, the box starts off already checked. Lighter text below, make this a monthly reoccurring donation. Doesn't even look like it is related to that box about whether you want to be a defector. This is what the national Republican party is doing today. To its marks. I mean its donors.
"If you're a defector and want to be reported as such to our former president who is notoriously ruthless and relentless against defectors, ruins people's lives, sics his followers on them. You've seen the way he goes after people who aren't loyal to him. You want to be one of them? If you're one of them, then uncheck this box, you traitor. But unchecking the box is the only way you can keep them from taking your intended one-time donation over and over and over and over again. So your bank account is, what, drained?
"There's also this one today from the Republican party. 'If you want Trump to run for president in 2024, check this box. If we flip five seats in the House red, Trump says he'll run.' That's not actually true. 'Uncheck this box, we lose.' And what does unchecking that box actually do? Well, you have to skip down a line and then look at the finer print there. It will make it so that they don't keep making -- taking more money from you in the future beyond what you're donating today. They don't double your donation.
"Again, this was just exposed this week as having driven more than 100 million dollars in fraud claims by Republican Trump supporters. They're not only still doing it days later, they're going hog wild with it. I mean, they're upping the predatory nature and the sort of bamboozling nature of these things to try to trick as many people as they can into falling for one of these schemes where they donate more than they intended and their bank account is left open to the Republican party to keep coming, taking money out of it without getting any further permission.
"Becoming a donor to the Republican party in this era is like replying to one of those Nigerian prince e-mails with your actual bank account information. It's like loaning your credit card to the local meth dealer just for a few hours."
