Trump, Pelosi Use Impeachment to Ask for Funds: Campaign Update

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are both using the impeachment drama in Congress as the centerpiece of their fundraising efforts.

Trump’s campaign sent a series of text messages to supporters between Tuesday and Wednesday, asking them to join the “Impeachment Defense team” by donating. The messages said that Trump has a goal to raise $2 million and that the campaign would double match contributions.

On Wednesday, alone, Trump’s campaign sent three text messages to supporters. “LAST CHANCE to defend your GREAT President before House Democrats vote to IMPEACH him. We need you, friend. Donate NOW for a 2X-MATCH,” one campaign text message read. It directs to the campaign’s small-donor website with a message that says “Before the upcoming vote, President Trump wants to post a HUGE fundraising number to ensure that we have the resources to win this IMPEACHMENT WAR.”

Pelosi’s campaign fired off an email that said said Democrats are “DEEPLY concerned” about the amount of money Trump and Republicans are spending on ads to attack the impeachment. “Trump has a goal of raising $2,000,000 TODAY -- that’s on top of the $16.7 million the GOP is already spending on despicable lies,” the campaign said. “There’s no other way to put it: this is an all hands on deck moment. And we’re coming to you directly for your generous assistance.”

Biden Gets Nod From 60 South Carolina Pastors (3:55 p.m.)

More than 60 South Carolina pastors and faith leaders endorsed Joe Biden on Wednesday, bringing the total number backing him in the state to more than 100.

The new supporters, many from African Methodist Episcopal and other black churches, are yet another show of strength as Biden’s team asserts its appeal to black voters in the first-in-the-South primary state.

“A faith coalition this broad is unprecedented and isn’t limited to one denomination,” Biden’s South Carolina faith outreach director Reverend Michael McClain said in a statement. “South Carolina pastors and faith leaders are uniting around Joe Biden in record numbers because the very soul of our nation is at stake in this election and they know he is the only one who can restore it.”

Biden has led in all polls of likely Democratic primary voters in South Carolina, but that edge might be fading. A Post and Courier poll released last week showed the race tightening, with Biden leading at 27%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 20% and Elizabeth Warren at 19%. Pete Buttigieg, who’s struggled to attract black voters, was fourth at 9%. -- Jennifer Epstein

No Oval Office for Bloomberg Even if He Wins (12:09 P.M.)

While many presidential contenders may dream of calling the Oval Office their own, Michael Bloomberg says he’ll only use it when he has to.

Bloomberg said in a tweet Monday that he eschewed a private office when he was New York mayor and that if elected president, he’d use the Oval Office for some official functions but otherwise would “sit in the open with everyone else.”

Bloomberg, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said in a LinkedIn posting attached to the tweet that he brought the tradition of no private offices at his company to City Hall after he was elected in 2001. He said it makes no sense for executives to wall themselves off from their teams, and offices make it harder for employees to work together and trust each other, he said.

“The job of a leader is to unite,” Bloomberg said in his tweet. ‘If I’m elected president, I’ll run the White House the way I’ve always run things -- out in the open.”

Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. -- Mark Niquette

COMING UP

Biden, Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer will participate in the final Democratic presidential debate of 2019 in Los Angeles on Thursday.

(Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

--With assistance from Mark Niquette and Jennifer Epstein.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mario Parker in Washington at mparker22@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, John Harney, Max Berley

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.