To my way of thinking, Hurd's attacks expose the soft underbelly of Trump's faux campaign to become president again in 2024. More than that office, Donald Trump wants to stay out of prison and is too damn cheap to pay his own legal bills. That might not matter to the cult (aka Trump Republicans), but it sure as hell does to wealthy donors who don't want to foot the bill for Trump's legal woes.

Source: Business Insider

Former Congressman Will Hurd on Friday received a very vocal reminder of former President Donald Trump's stranglehold on the Republican Party.

Hurd, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, did something few of his fellow challengers would do in going after the former president by name at the Iowa Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner, a major fundraiser and cattle call for candidates.

"Donald Trump is not running for president to represent people that voted for him in 2016 and 2020," Hurd said. "Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison."

Hurd is, along with Chris Christie, the only other Republican making any real attacks on Trump. And he's willing to do so, even when it's wildly unpopular among the cult-like following Trump enjoys that's made him immune to such attacks. Hurd continued on Meet the Press a few days later bringing up that donor money is being used to pay Trump's skyrocketing legal bills.

HURD: Donald Trump, all he's doing is litigating past elections. When people start learning when you give money to Donald Trump, it's going to pay his lawyers -- $3 out of $4 that Donald Trump raises is going to pay for his legal fees. And people are -- even folks, Republicans that have voted for Donald Trump twice, recognize that this baggage is hurting him, is going to hurt him in November.

According to the Washington Post, the total is now over $40 million in 2023 alone.

Former president Donald Trump’s political group spent more than $40 million on legal costs in the first half of 2023 to defend Trump, his advisers and others, according to people familiar with the matter, financing legal work that has drawn scrutiny from prosecutors about potential conflicts of interest between Trump and witnesses.

And they're siphoning off so much cash now that Trump's PAC wants a refund.

In general, the legal bills have created such a financial burden for the Save America PAC that it recently requested a refund for a $60 million donation made to another political action committee supporting Trump's 2024 campaign, The [New York] Times reported.

All of which is embarrassing as hell for the few reality-based Republicans left around. Whether such facts have any impact on Republican primary voters remains to be seen, but Hurd's attacks are something they desperately don't want to hear on any debate stage, and he doesn't seem to care about the avalanche of boos that will happen if he goes there and calls Republican donors out for the easy marks and chumps that they obviously are.