And Inland Empire Girl Scouts are ready.

They picked up boxes to sell during Mega Drop events across the region on Saturday, Jan. 24.

Hundreds of volunteers gathered at four sites — in Riverside, Lake Elsinore, Apple Valley and Palm Desert — to sort and distribute more than a million boxes of cookies, a news release states.

The Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council hosts the event each year to launch the cookie sales season.

Across the Inland Empire, 326 troops signed up to sell nearly 900,000 packets of cookies — nearly 73,000 cases, according to the council.

The sales helps girls learn entrepreneurial skills, how to manage money and business ethics, the release states.

For information on buying Girl Scout Cookies, click here.

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Girl Scout cookie season kicked off on Saturday, Jan. 25, as more than 500 volunteers across the Inland Empire helped distribute 1.2 million boxes of cookies.

The “mega drop” of cookies for the Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio were distributed in preparation for the annual sale — “the largest girl-led entrepreneurial program in the world,” according to a Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio news release.

Volunteers distributed 100,000 cases of cookies in Riverside, Palm Desert, Apple Valley and Lake Elsinore. More than 500 council staff and volunteers loaded orders into vehicles at each site.

Thousands of girls in Riverside and San Bernardino counties aim to sell the 1.2 million boxes of cookies starting Sunday, Jan. 26, in a program that “helps girls acquire invaluable entrepreneurial skills,” according to the organization.

Cookie season runs from January to April. Nearly more than 10,000 girls in the two-county region are served by the Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio, according to the group’s website.

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The rest of the state, however, is being destroyed by rampant crime, sweeping homelessness and unauthorized immigrants — and it’s spurring a mass exodus, Trump said at a press conference today.

“The state of California is a mess,” said Trump. 

“We cannot allow Comrade Kamala Harris and the communist left to do to America what they did to California,” said the former president, who had held a fundraiser in Los Angeles on Thursday night and plans one later today in the Bay Area community of Woodside to cash in on California’s lucrative trove of donors.

Attacking California is something Trump didn’t even do once in his first — and he says only — presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris Tuesday night in Philadelphia. Political experts perceived it as a missed opportunity: After all, his allies have for decades decried California as too liberal for the rest of the nation — partly why there has never been a California Democrat elected president. 

The jury is still out on how much Harris’ California ties could hurt her chance among undecided voters. For most Michigan and Arizona voters who spoke to CalMatters last month, Harris’ record in the White House mattered more than her California brand. 

Trump, who repeatedly mispronounced Harris’s first name, also blamed Harris for federal economic and border policies and insisted he outperformed her during the debate.

The Harris campaign’s rapid response team posted about some of Trump’s statements, but has not directly responded to what he said about her record or her home state. 

How much of the many, many things Trump said about California and Harris’ record is accurate? Here’s our fact check on some notable claims:

State of the state

What Trump said:
“California has the highest inflation, highest taxes, the highest gas prices, the most illegal aliens, the most regulations, the most expensive utilities, and it ranks as the third worst state to start a business.”

Facts:

• Inflation: Inflation rates fluctuate month to month. Florida had the highest inflation at 4% as of March, while California had the seventh highest, at 3.6%, according to an analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Moody’s Analytics. Even according to U.S. Senate Republicans’ own inflation tracker, as of August, California ranked 5th for increased monthly inflation costs since January 2021 and had a cumulative inflation rate lower than Florida and other states in the West region.
• Taxes: California does have the highest state sales tax at 7.25%, but ranks 8th in total state and local sales tax rates this year, according to the Tax Foundation. California’s property tax rate is at 0.75%, the 34th highest of all 50 states. The state also has a progressive income tax rate while other states have a flat rate for all. 
• Gas prices: It is true. California does have the highest gas price of all states, at $4.76 a gallon as of today, according to the AAA. The national average is $3.23. 
• Unauthorized immigrants: California is estimated to have the largest population of undocumented immigrants, at 1.8 million, based on a Pew Research Center estimate of 2022 Census figures. But California is also the only state where that population decreased from 2019 to 2022, while the populations in Republican-led Florida and Texas grew the most. 
• Utility rates: As of June, Hawaii — not California — had the highest electricity rates, averaging 42.4 cents per kilowatt hour for residential customers, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In California, residential customers paid an average of 33.0 cents per kilowatt hour. A Forbes analysis of monthly utility bills by state ranked Alaska the most expensive, followed by Hawaii, Connecticut, West Virginia and Georgia.
• Worst state to start a business: It depends which ranking you look at, but according to Forbes, California is the 37th best state to start a business this year.   

Crime in California

What Trump said: Trump blamed the “destruction” of San Francisco on Gov. Gavin Newsom and Harris. He said murders rose “significantly” and car thefts “went through the roof” while Harris was state attorney general. He argued that Harris was lenient in prosecuting several cases, that she had endorsed defunding the police and that “the police don’t endorse her.”

Facts:

• Crime stats: When Harris was California attorney general between 2011 and 2017, homicide rates fluctuated, with an average of 1,819 homicides per 100,000 people each year, according to the state Department of Justice. Vehicle thefts ebbed and flowed, averaging 164,000 per 100,000 people. Both rates were far lower than during the 1990s.
• Leniency: Despite claims she’s soft on crime, Harris has a mixed record. As a local prosecutor, Harris did not pursue the death penalty against a cop killer — a case Trump used during the press conference to justify his claim. But years later, Harris prosecuted a woman with mental illness for assaulting police officers. As California’s attorney general, Harris defended the state’s death penalty even though she personally opposed it. Harris remained neutral on various ballot measures about reducing penalties for low-level offenses and allowing earlier release for more offenders.
• Defund the police: It is true that Harris expressed support for redirecting some money and “reimagining” public safety during her 2020 presidential campaign, weeks after George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, sparking waves of protests against law enforcement. “This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities,” she said at the time. After President Joe Biden tapped her as his running mate, however, she denounced the “defund” movement.
• Police endorsements: More than 100 law enforcement officials — including sheriffs, former and current police chiefs and FBI agents — endorsed Harris last week.

Immigration and the border

What Trump said: He lambasted Harris for supporting “sanctuary cities” for undocumented immigrants while she was San Francisco’s district attorney, claiming she shielded “illegal aliens” who committed murders and refused to deport them. 

Facts: 

• Sanctuary city policy: The San Francisco city ordinance — which prevented officials from handing over unauthorized migrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement even if they committed a felony — dates to 1985. It was originally aimed at protecting asylum seekers from El Salvador and Guatemala, but was extended in 1989 to cover all immigrants. Harris — who was district attorney from 2004 to 2011 — supported changing the policy to report undocumented immigrants arrested on suspicion of a felony in 2008. 
• Prosecuting unauthorized immigrants: Trump said Harris offered sanctuary in 2008 to Edwin Ramos, a Salvadoran migrant who was charged with three counts of murder and who had prior convictions for assault and attempted robbery. Similarly, Trump mentioned the case of Rony Aguilera, a Honduran immigrant who murdered a 14-year-old boy in 2008. It is true city officials did not turn him over to federal agents at the time — under the sanctuary city policy that Harris helped change that year. Ramos was sentenced to life in prison in 2014, and Aguilera was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison in 2013.

Homelessness  

What Trump said: “After Kamala Harris and Gavin Newscum took charge of San Francisco, homelessness increased by over 200%.” 

Facts: Homelessness has grown in California, but not by that much. From 2007 to 2023, the number of people experiencing homelessness grew by 30.5%, according to a report to Congress. In San Francisco, the point-in-time count of homeless people this year reached the lowest level since 2015, according to the city. Nearly 186,000 Californians live on the streets or homeless shelters, up 8% from 2022, according to a new CalMatters analysis. As of last year, California accounted for nearly 30% of the nation’s homeless population and roughly half of the unsheltered population.

California exodus

What Trump said: He claimed the state has the most number of people leaving. 

Facts: It is true that California shed the most people last year — 75,423, according to the Census Bureau. But it’s not just a California problem: New York lost the most population between 2020 and 2022, losing 2.6% of its population, according to Census data. The reasons for California’s shrinking population are complicated: Some died, some moved to other states due to the high cost of living, and some left the country altogether. 

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Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, became the biggest name yet to throw his weight behind the former president this month, endorsing him and getting involved in fundraising efforts.

The move capped weeks of mounting support from the tech world, as influential venture capitalists and tech leaders, including former Democratic donor Allison Huynh, investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and the Winklevoss twins, players in the world of crypto, rallied publicly around Trump.

Support for Trump is hardly universal.

But it marks a sharp turn from just a few years ago, when companies rushed to distance themselves from Trump in the weeks after the 2021 US Capitol riot.

Coming from Silicon Valley, where backing a ban on gay marriage – a Republican cause – once cost an executive his job, the change is especially striking.

At a cryptocurrency event at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Nicholas Longo, 27, of wealth management firm Fortuna Investors, said when he voted for Trump four years ago he felt there was stigma attached.

“In 2020, it would have been inadvisable for me to express support for Donald Trump,” he said. Now, all that has changed.

The shift in the political winds has long been evident on social media, where Mr Musk and investor David Sacks are among those to regularly scorn President Joe Biden.

But their decision to open their wallets to the Trump campaign is poised to significantly expand their influence beyond their traditional circle – with major consequences for the election.

The support from tech leaders has helped Trump close the fundraising gap that he faced against Mr Biden a few months ago.

“He was pretty far behind and struggling at the end of April,” said Sarah Bryner, research director at OpenSecrets. “In the last eight weeks, it’s a completely different campaign.”

She said the pledges sent a strong signal on how the tide is turning, noting that signs of victory at the polls often help push potential donors off the fence.

“Success begets success,” she said.

Data from OpenSecrets shows Democrats claiming the larger share of venture capitalist donations in recent elections – and Mr Biden’s decision to bow out of the race is expected to ignite further interest.

However, Trump’s new friends remain committed.

According to the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, Mr Musk pledged $45m a month to the Trump campaign – which would make him one of the biggest donors this year.

The billionaire has acknowledged his work on fundraising efforts tied to the campaign, but denied the sum, saying his contributions will be at a “much lower level”.

“I believe in an America that maximizes individual freedom and merit. That used to be the Democratic Party, but now the pendulum has swung to the Republican Party,” Mr Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns that was formerly known as Twitter, after Mr Biden dropped out.

Analysts said the backing from key figures in the tech worldsuggested that Trump was widening his appeal.

“He’s convinced Republicans he’s not as bad as they say… and now we’re seeing that’s broadening out,” said Sal Russo, a veteran Republican consultant based in California.

“Do I think he’s going to win Santa Clara County? No, but he’s going to do better,” said Mr Russo.

In Trump’s corner: Elon Musk

Tech leaders have said they areconcerned about the Biden administration’s crackdown on crypto, and cautious approach to artificial intelligence. For example, a recent executive order requires firms to comply with government AI safety standards.

“Bad government policies are now the #1 threat to Little Tech,” Mr Andreessen and Mr Horowitz, whose firm invests in start-ups and is a big player in crypto and AI, wrote in a recent essay. “The time has come to stand up.”

Mr Musk’s decision to back Trump might appear a startling shift for a man who had historically shunned political donations.

He reportedly once waited in line for six hours to shake Barack Obama’s hand, and as recently as 2018 described himself as politically moderate.

In 2017, he was among the first members to quit a White House business council, parting ways with Trump over climate change policies.

His company, Tesla, makes electric cars, which Trump has repeatedly criticised as expensive and impractical.

However, Mr Musk has long bristled at oversight by financial regulators.

His criticism of Mr Biden ramped up two years ago, after he did not get an invite to a White House business meeting, a snub that led him to tell CNBC he felt unfairly “ignored”.

On social media, he has increasingly waded into other debates over Covid lockdowns, the war in Ukraine, China policy and transgender issues.

Mr Musk, whose SpaceX rocket firm does billions of dollars of government business, has a relationship with a possible Trump administration to consider as well.

Self-interest in Silicon Valley

Democrats said the shift in the tech world has been motivated by self-interest, noting that Mr Biden has proposed new taxes on multi-millionaires and unrealised capital gains.

He has also alienated some with his embrace of organised labour, and his administration’s pursuit of tech companies in anti-monopoly and other cases.

Businessman Mark Cuban, who supports Democrats, suggested that the gravitation towards Trump was a “bitcoin play” – a bet that cryptocurrency value could be boosted by high inflation and political chaos that Democrats say would result under a Trump administration.

Swing to the right

Stanford Business School professor Neil Malhotra, who has studied the political views of tech founders, said it would be a mistake to conflate the “most vocal people on Twitter” with the industry overall – or even its elites, whose views historically have straddled both parties.

A 2017 survey he and colleagues conducted found that as a group, tech leaders were aligned with Democrats on issues such as gay marriage and abortion – even taxes. However, they swung Republican in strongly opposing regulation.

He noted that since the survey, new social issues such as policing, schooling and transgender rights have come to the fore. San Francisco has been a key battleground in those debates, driving some of the tech world backlash.

“The suspicion is that most people in venture capital are still centre-left,” Prof Malhotra said. But, he added: “There’s definitely a movement to the Republican Party.”

Trump’s shift on tech

Evan Swarztrauber, an adviser to the Foundation for American Innovation thinktank, said tech leaders were betting Trump would be more hands-off on crypto and AI.

But the gamble is not without risk.

As president, Trump won praise from the business community by cutting taxes, putting anti-labour officials in charge of labour rights and generally veering away from regulation.

But he also took a markedly more interventionist approach to the economy – and to tech – than previous administrations – starting a trade war with China, ordering a TikTok ban, and launching some of the ongoing anti-monopoly lawsuits against tech companies.

Since then, he has pushed the Republican party further in that direction – while at the same time moderating or reversing himself on issues such as the TikTok ban and crypto.

Jennifer Huddleston, a senior fellow in tech policy for the libertarian Cato Institute, said Trump may be shifting his stance on some tech issues, noting that he is now the owner of a social media platform.

JD Vance, Trump’s choice for vice-president, also previously worked in venture capital and got key support from PayPal’s Peter Thiel during his 2022 senate campaign.

But she warned that the effort to distinguish between the interests of “big” tech and “little” tech would prove difficult when it comes time to govern.

David Broockman, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said Trump was finding success in the business world by presenting himself as more moderate than other members of his party on social issues such as abortion.

After boasting of being “proudly the person responsible” for removing Roe v Wade protections, Trump has rejected claims he will back a national ban pushed by many conservatives, and says the matter should be left up to the states.

But Prof Broockman noted that Trump also ran a relatively moderate campaign in 2016, only to adopt more extreme policies once in office.

Those hurt his public approval and eventually frayed Republican ties to Wall Street, a traditional source of support for the party.

“Tech and other business leaders are banking on a lot of Trump’s more eccentric policy ideas … just not happening,” Prof Broockman said. “But they really could happen.”

Outside of tech, Trump has backed radical changes including mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, a dramatic reduction in the government workforce and a 10% tariff on all goods coming into the country.

But Garrett Johnson, co-founder of the Foundation for American Innovation and now an executive at a venture-backed tech firm, said he thought that as time had passed more tech and business elites have come around to Trump’s views.

“Trump singlehandedly made the threat that China poses to our country a national topic,” he said. “He was right and everyone else had to come along.”

“So absolutely I think that is part of the dynamic, of the vibe shift,” he said. “Was he right on everything? No, but on many big issues Trump was right.”

Reporting contributed by Jude Sheerin at the Republican National Convention

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DeSantis convened his allies this week in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to press them to raise money to support Trump, making the case over a seafood and steak dinner that they need to work together to prevent Democratic President Joe Biden from winning a second term. The governor and about 30 people then spent Thursday morning in a hotel conference room raising money for an outside group that supports the former president’s 2024 White House campaign.

Trump called into the gathering to thank members of the group for their work, according to four people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to publicly discuss the private session and spoke on condition of anonymity.

In what three people present described as a warm and gracious call to the group that was heard over speakerphone, Trump praised DeSantis and the effort, saying “Ron, I love that you’re back.”

A reconciliation helps both of them. Trump is trying to make up fundraising ground against Biden while DeSantis hopes to preserve a potential future White House run for which Trump’s supporters could be key.

DeSantis and his top donors raised more than $3 million on Thursday for the super political action committee Right for America, backed by big Republican donors such as Ike Perlmutter, who has agreed to match at least a portion of the DeSantis team’s fundraising rather than funneling money directly to Trump’s campaign.

That arrangement, reached after talks between the Trump and DeSantis camps, is designed to address concerns among DeSantis supporters about their money going to pay the former president’s legal bills, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss the private talks. Trump notably blessed the structure when he called into the group’s meeting Thursday.

“This is where I want you to focus,” Trump said in a roughly 15-minute call, according to a senior political adviser to DeSantis who was not authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity.

DeSantis’ decision to push money to the PAC instead of giving directly to Trump’s campaign has raised eyebrows among some Trump campaign officials, according to a person familiar with the former president’s campaign thinking who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the arrangement.

Right for America is competing for donors with MAGA Inc., the chief super PAC backing Trump. Such groups are prohibited from directly coordinating with a presidential campaign, something that hamstrung DeSantis during his presidential run due to conflicts between his campaign and his support of Never Back Down, the largest super PAC backing DeSantis’ candidacy.

Other supporters of both men support the arrangement. Right for America is run by Sergio Gor, a longtime Trump ally who is close to the former president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. The two run Winning Team Publishing, which published two of the former president’s books.

“We are thrilled by the support we are receiving from Governor DeSantis,” Gor said in a statement. “We look forward to ensuring President Donald Trump is elected in November.”

Some DeSantis donors had been reluctant to give to Trump because they worried their money would help pay Trump’s lawyers in his criminal cases instead of being used directly to focus on beating Biden.

A number of big-name Florida contributors who have given to DeSantis remain hesitant about contributing to efforts to support Trump, said Al Hoffman, a Palm Beach County Republican donor and former Republican National Committee finance chair.

“I know that there are Republican conservative, big-money donors that are very reluctant to endorse Trump,” said Hoffman, who was also chairman of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s 2002 reelection campaign.

DeSantis endorsed Trump when he dropped out of the race and promised in a face-to-face meeting with the former president in April to work for his campaign. The 45-year-old governor, who has won two terms and pushed a longtime swing state increasingly to the right, may run for the White House again and would need the backing of Trump voters in a future Republican primary.

DeSantis called his allies to Fort Lauderdale this week to raise money for Trump, telling them on Wednesday night that they needed to work to prevent a second Biden term.

The meeting was the kickoff for what is expected to be a coast-to-coast fundraising effort by DeSantis allies, with upcoming events likely in Texas, California, Washington state and perhaps New York.

Trump and DeSantis have also discussed a role for the governor at the Republican National Convention. Aides to DeSantis said it was Trump’s suggestion and was not contingent on any fundraising effort on DeSantis’ part.

Donors who discussed the Thursday event were struck by the collegiality between Trump and DeSantis during the call. One person who spoke on condition of anonymity about the closed-door gathering called the conversation “very gracious” and noted that Trump and DeSantis talked about golf, a favorite Trump pastime.

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MURRIETA, CA — More than $11,000 has been raised for a Southern California family hit last week by a terrible accident in Murrieta.

“On May 10, Jimmy and some friends went mountain biking in Murrieta. It was a trail they had been on before, and despite being an avid mountain biker, Jimmy took a fall that ended up being catastrophic,” reads a GoFundMe page established for the family of Jimmy Francis. “He was airlifted to the closest hospital with a trauma center. He is currently in the ICU and is expected to have a recovery that will prohibit his movement for quite a while. Jimmy is a veteran, a Cub Scout leader and a local chef, on top of being a dedicated husband and father. He has two beautiful children and is very involved in their daily lives.”

As a chef at his San Diego-based company, Flights by Jimmy, Francis offers his cooking services for dinner parties and brunches.

Just after 12 p.m. Friday, multiple agencies helped rescue the injured mountain biker from a remote Murrieta trail in the hills abutted by Keller Road and Scenic View Drive, just west of Interstate 215. The area is near the Greer Ranch Trailhead, a popular destination for mountain bikers and hikers.

According to Murrieta Fire & Rescue, the injured rider had to be hoisted from the area by a Riverside County Sheriff’s helicopter. The rider was then transferred to an awaiting AMR ambulance and driven to a nearby hospital. The patient was in stable condition, MF&R spokesperson Dawn Morrison said.

In addition to Murrieta Fire & Rescue and the sheriff’s department, Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department was also called to the incident.

According to the GoFundMe page, the money raised for the Francis family will help pay for assistance during Jimmy’s recovery period.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s legendary ability to raise massive sums of political cash may be on a collision course with a new and unpleasant reality.

Campaign finance reports released this week flashed bright warning lights, showing two key committees in his political operation raised an anemic $13.8 million in January while collectively spending more than they took in. A major driver of those costs was millions of dollars in legal fees from Trump’s myriad of court cases.

The latest numbers offer only a partial snapshot of the Trump operation’s finances because other branches won’t have to disclose their numbers until April. But Trump’s diminished cashflow presents an alarming picture of the overwhelming favorite to be the GOP’s presidential nominee, particularly to would-be donors who aren’t eager to subsidize Trump’s legal challenges.

Despite threats of vengeance by Trump, some are instead backing his last standing rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who outraised Trump’s primary campaign committee by nearly $3 million last month.

In a statement, Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt did not directly address the campaign’s finances.

“President Trump’s campaign is fueled by small dollar donors across the country from every background who are sick and tired of Crooked Joe Biden’s record-high inflation, wide open border invasion, crime and chaos,” Leavitt said. “Voters don’t want four more years of misery and destruction.”

When asked specifically about the numbers, a Trump spokesman texted a link to a Fox News story published Tuesday, stating that Trump was expected to raise $6 million at a fundraiser held that day.

Legal fees dominated Trump’s January expenditures, amounting to $3.7 million of the roughly $15 million spent by the two committees. One of the committees, Save America, held nearly $2 million in unpaid legal debts, the records show.

Save America was also bolstered with a cash infusion from a pro-Trump super PAC, which accounted for almost all of the money it raised in January.

The committee received another $5 million “refund” installment from the super PAC “Make America Great Again Inc.,” which was initially seeded through a $60 million from Save America in the fall of 2022. Instead, Trump campaign officials opted to claw that money back in installments, a running total that has now reached $47 million, records show.

That left Trump’s two committees with $36.6 million in cash on hand compared to Biden’s $132 million stockpile, which he and the Democratic National Committee raised $42 million for in January.

“His endless drama and legal bills will deplete the Republican Party and bring even more electoral losses,” Haley’s communications director, Nachama Soloveichik, said in a statement.

The latest tranche of legal bills comes at a sensitive time, as Trump is orchestrating a takeover of the cash-strapped Republican National Committee, where he plans to install his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as the party’s No. 2 official. Some donors and RNC committee members worry that Trump may soon turn to the RNC to help cover his legal bills, too, considering Trump has made claims of legal persecution a pillar of his campaign.

“Every single penny will go to the No. 1 and the only job of the RNC. That is electing Donald J. Trump as president of the United States,” Lara Trump said during a recent interview on the conservative network NewsMax.

The RNC is facing headwinds of its own, reporting $8.7 million on hand at the end of January, reports show.

What’s not clear is how much of a drag his prodigious legal spending will be on his, or the RNC’s, finances.

Though Trump’s financially strained position is unusual for the odds-on favorite to clinch a major party’s nomination, there is ample time for a turnaround. It’s still early in the campaign and — assuming he becomes the nominee — he will be able to raise money in concert with the RNC, which should allow a single donor to write a check worth upwards of $1 million. That’s an advantage that Biden and the DNC currently hold over him.

Over the past year, he’s also used pivotal moments in his ongoing legal drama, including his indictment hearings, to open a spigot of campaign cash from his large base of conservative supporters. Many chip in small amounts online.

Trump approached the 2024 race with over $100 million, a lot of it raised in the early days after his 2020 loss to Biden, when he bombarded supporters with solicitations for an “election defense fund.”

His current cash woes place him in a familiar, if unwelcome, position that echoes the 2020 presidential race, when he and his aides blew through $1 billion and a large cash advantage over Biden with little to show. This time, legal fees have proven to be a drain, costing over $80 million over the past two years, records show.

Democrats have reacted with glee.

“It’s been a tough couple of weeks if you are Donald Trump and also like money,” said Ammar Moussa, a Biden campaign spokesman. “The RNC had its worst fundraising year in decades, is hemorrhaging cash, and now Trump enters the general election with the weakest operation in recent history.”

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Joe Biden started a three-day swing through California on Tuesday as he looks to soak up more cash for his reelection bid.

Going into the trip, Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee announced Tuesday that they had collected $42 million in contributions during January from 422,000 donors. Biden ended January with $130 million in cash on hand. Campaign officials said that is the highest total amassed by any Democratic candidate at this point in the cycle.

Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez called the haul “an indisputable show of strength to start the election year.”

“While Team Biden-Harris continues to build on its fundraising machine, Republicans are divided – either spending money fighting Donald Trump, or spending money in support of Donald Trump’s extreme and losing agenda,” she said.

The figures suggest Biden is cementing an early cash advantage over Trump, his likely general election opponent. But the numbers still lag behind what Trump had amassed during a similar period in 2020, when his campaign routinely smashed fundraising records.

Raising money is only part of the equation. How well that cash is spent is also a major factor — as Trump well knows. His 2020 campaign effectively lit his massive cash surpluses on fire through a series of questionable spending decisions.

This year, Trump retains his impressive ability to hoover up campaign cash, particularly from grassroots donors who typically chip in small amounts online. Trump, who hasn’t released his January fundraising numbers yet, also faces a new threat to his campaign’s finances: the staggering legal bills he racked up while defending himself in four separate criminal cases.

In order to maintain an edge in what’s widely expected to be an expensive rematch with Trump, Biden’s campaign will need to accelerate his fundraising.

This week’s trip to Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area will mark Biden’s third visit to California in just over two months for political events. He’s trying to make up for lost time after largely avoiding the Democratic donor stronghold during last year’s strikes by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA.

Biden heads first to Los Angeles, where he will take part in a fundraiser. He’ll also make campaign stops in San Francisco and Los Altos Hills this week and deliver a policy speech near Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Biden made a quick visit to Los Angeles earlier this month for a meeting with supporters in the city’s upscale Bel Air neighborhood. He and first lady Jill Biden also spent a weekend in December in the Los Angeles area for campaign events.

The first lady is traveling Tuesday to Guilford, Connecticut, to hold a campaign fundraiser on behalf of her husband.

While the Bidens will be pursuing deep-pocketed donors this week, the campaign points to the number of smaller donations it has raised as an encouraging sign for the president.

The campaign says 97% of the 3 million donations it has received thus far were under $200 each. Biden has also received pledges from 158,000 “sustaining donors” who have committed to donating monthly. That’s more than double the amount Biden had at this point in the 2020 cycle, when his cash-strapped campaign limped out of Iowa following a fourth-place finish in the state’s February caucuses.

The new totals include donations to Biden’s political operation and to a network of joint fundraising arrangements with the national and state Democratic parties. Biden’s 2020 campaign raised over $1 billion, and could need even more in a likely Trump rematch.

“This haul will go directly to reaching the voters who will decide this election,” said Biden campaign senior communications adviser TJ Ducklo.

Biden in recent days has seized on comments by Trump that call into question the U.S. commitment to defend NATO allies from attack as “dangerous” and “un-American.” Trump earlier this month said he once warned that he would allow Russia to do whatever it wants to NATO member nations that are “delinquent” in devoting 2% of their gross domestic product to defense.

The Biden campaign launched digital ads last week in three battleground states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — criticizing Trump for his threat to NATO countries. Biden has also railed against House Republicans for blocking a $95 billion foreign aid bill that includes $60 billion in funding for Ukraine’s war with Russia.

“The idea that we’re going to walk away from Ukraine, the idea that we’re going to let NATO begin to split is totally against the interests of the United States of America and it is against our word we’ve given … all the way back to Eisenhower,” Biden told reporters Sunday.

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AP writer Brian Slodysko contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee said they raised more than $97 million in the final three months of last year, boosted by a star-studded December fundraising blitz that came even as the political world’s attention shifted to the start of the 2024 Republican presidential primary.

The Biden campaign said Monday that it took in $235 million from its launch last April until the end of 2023 and finished the year with $117 million in cash on hand — which it said was the highest total amassed by any Democratic candidate at this point in the cycle. More than 520,000 donors made 926,000-plus contributions in the quarter, it said.

“This historic haul — proudly powered by strong and growing grassroots enthusiasm — sends a clear message,” Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the manager of Biden’s reelection campaign, said in a statement. “Our democracy and hard-fought basic rights and freedoms are on the line in 2024, and these numbers prove that the American people know the stakes.”

The president has made defending democracy a centerpiece of his reelection bid and repeatedly decried Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” movement as posing dire threats to the nation’s founding principals. The GOP primary begins with Iowa’s caucus on Monday with Trump as the early front-runner — and the Biden campaign noted that he and his top primary competitors have already spent $100 million on advertising in the leadoff primary state alone.

Biden traveled to Pennsylvania on Friday and stopped at three stores to make the case that his policies have helped grow the economy and spur small business. It was a change from the set speeches he usually gives, meant to highlight ways his economic plans have ensured strong employment — even while triggering inflation that worries voters.

Meanwhile, Trump and his top primary rivals, including former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, made final weekend appeals to would-be caucusgoers as temperatures in Iowa turned frigid.

Since the Biden campaign’s launch, nearly 1 million supporters have made more than 2.3 million contributions, and 97% of all its fourth-quarter 2023 donations were under $200, with the average contribution totaling $41.88, it announced. Those totals include donations to Biden’s political operation and to a network of joint fundraising arrangements with the national and state Democratic parties.

Biden’s campaign said December was his strongest fundraising month to date, exceeding a record it said was previously set in November. That helped last year’s final quarter outpace the period from July through September, when Biden and his party reported raising $71-plus million.

The campaign said the president has held 110 fundraisers since launching, including 39 in last year’s fourth quarter alone. That included a string of fundraisers before the Christmas holidays that took him to Boston for a trio of events, one of which featured singer-songwriter James Taylor, and three days in California for gatherings with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand.

That fundraising push came after Biden, who frequently calls himself the “most pro-union” president in U.S, history, previously staying away from raising money in Los Angeles for months during the writers and actors strikes. It was meant to quiet some donors who had privately grumbled that the president wasn’t doing enough to stock his campaign coffers ahead of November’s election, which is likely to be hard-fought and close.

Even with so much travel focused on fundraising, however, Biden campaign officials had tried to manage expectations. They said in December that they hoped to raise roughly $67 million for 2023’s fourth quarter — which would be consistent with the end-of-the-off-year totals from previous Democratic candidates.

Instead, Biden’s latest haul outpaced that of President Barack Obama, who with the DNC raised an un-inflation adjusted $68 million in the final three months of 2011, ahead of his successful reelection the following year. Trump’s campaign announced raising $46 million in the last quarter of 2019 and had $102.7 million on hand ahead of a 2020 race it eventually lost to Biden — though its combined war chest with the Republican National Committee at the time was far more formidable.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Whenever a donor’s unsilenced cellphone goes off at a fundraiser while President Joe Biden is talking, he has the same joke ready to go: It’s Donald Trump on the other line.

“If that’s Trump calling me again, tell him I’m busy,” Biden said at an event this past week for the Democratic Governors Association, repeating a variation of the quip he also relayed during receptions in Illinois and New York earlier this year. The crowd of a few dozen, as they always do, chuckled as the president continued with the rest of his remarks.

It’s one glimpse of Biden as fundraiser in chief — a man who schmoozes with aplomb while raking in millions at receptions that will be a fixture of his political schedule during the final stretch before Election Day, Nov. 8. At these events, celebrities are spotted and alcohol is consumed, while Biden gets the one-on-one interactions he had missed for much of his campaign and presidency due to COVID-19.

The fundraisers — held in lavish Manhattan apartments, drab conference centers and backyard tents glammed up with chandeliers — have been one of the most visible ways Biden has been deployed this election year at a time when his approval ratings remain underwater and many Democrats aren’t eager to stand by him on the campaign trail.

“Joe Biden is Joe Biden. He’s real, he’s down to earth, if he knows the people in the room … he’s even more relaxed,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., a close ally. “He gets all kinds of questions, he answers them honestly, he probably gives his staff heart attacks.”

So far this year, Biden has headlined 11 receptions to raise cash directly for the Democratic National Committee, and they have brought in more than $19.6 million, according to the committee. The events have ranged from a $300,000 haul at a yacht club in Portland, Oregon, to a cozy, 18-person affair (with four others on video screens) at Hotel Washington near the White House that took in more than $3 million. A pair of fundraisers at mansions in Southern California during the Summit of the Americas in June raked in $5 million in a matter of hours.

Separate from the DNC events, Biden spoke at a fundraiser in September benefiting Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that brought in more than $450,000 for the state Democratic Party.

The governors association event raised $1 million, and Biden was to have appeared on Tuesday at a fundraiser on behalf of Charlie Crist, the nominee for governor in Florida who has not been shy about wanting the president to campaign with him. That political trip was postponed due to Hurricane Ian.

The DNC also enlists Biden for solicitations sent to its grassroots donor list, with emails signed by the president consistently raising the most money for the committee, party officials say. As of this past week, the DNC has raised more than $107 million, the most at this point in any year and an amount that Democratic officials credited in large part to Biden’s direct involvement.

Biden seems to particularly relish the in-person interactions that a private fundraiser offers.

A famously chummy politician, Biden makes sure at any big-dollar event that his hosts are made to feel special and recognized. For instance, at a late August fundraiser in the Washington suburbs, Biden first spent some time giving a child near the front of the gathering a bit of attention and then the president gave his remarks for several dozen big-dollar DNC supporters.

“Honey, what’s your name?” Biden asked a little girl, sitting through what he joked had to be the most “boring” event. “Well, let me tell you something. Is that your daddy? He owes you big for having to sit here.”

At a June fundraiser in Beverly Hills, California, at the home of billionaire media mogul Haim Saban, the president mused to Saban’s wife, Cheryl, that both men had “married way above our station.” And standing in the 65th-floor apartment of Henry and Marsha Laufer overlooking New York’s Central Park, Biden gushed over the “magnificent” view, noting: “I don’t know if there’s a better view in New York than here.”

Indeed, the residence is a “piece of heaven” for the Laufers, who appeared fastidious about keeping their place spotless. Attendees checked their shoes – expensive Jimmy Choo mules and Saint Laurent pumps among them — at the door and listened to Biden while in socks or slippers provided by the couple. A small group of reporters in attendance were asked to place “booties” over their shoes to protect their hardwood floors and light-colored carpets. (None of the shoe rules applied to Biden, who kept his on and did not wear the disposable coverings.)

At Biden fundraisers, celebrities such as the actor Robert De Niro (in New York) or filmmaker Ken Burns (in Boston) make the occasional cameo, although neither stayed long enough to hear the president speak.

To donors, Biden’s comments, which can run from a few minutes to a half-hour, are a much more casual, off-the-cuff version of the campaign speech that he delivers in front of the cameras. Journalists have access to Biden fundraisers, although just with a notepad and pen, meaning cameras are barred.

Especially as of late, Biden takes care to underline his administration’s accomplishments — a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, a bipartisan infrastructure law, a climate and health care bill that came after months of internal Democratic wrangling. He then stresses to donors how the upcoming November midterms are a choice, not just between keeping his achievements and Republicans unraveling them, but on other issues such as abortion and guns.

While aides dispute that his message varies in more private settings, Biden frequently speaks extemporaneously and can be far less guarded than at his formal remarks at a lectern or on a stage.

It’s been at fundraisers where Biden has invoked variations of fascism – be it “semi-fascism” or “tint of fascism” — to refer to Trump-fueled forces within the Republican Party that Biden has said are a threat to the nation’s democratic foundations. While his spokeswoman declined to assess the implications of the recent election in Italy, where a political party with neo-fascist roots won the most votes, Biden at the DGA fundraiser pointed to the results as he warned about the fate of democracy both in the United States and abroad.

At the Laufers’ home, Biden – who tends to avoid talking about his faith when discussing policy — notably referenced the Catholic Church’s position while castigating Republicans who had pushed for broad bans on abortion.

“I happen to be a practicing Roman Catholic. My church doesn’t even make that argument,” he said, referring to abortion bans that leave “no exceptions.”

The quintessential Biden qualities — his candor and his warmth with the crowd — become more pronounced once the press is kicked out and audience members have a chance to ask Biden questions, say people who have attended such gatherings.

The questions Biden gets vary from event to event and they veer from political strategy to the news of the day. During a Manhattan fundraiser at the home of businessman and social justice activist Henry Munoz, Biden was pressed on his plans on immigration and how he would describe his closing message to voters, as well as the impact of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity to relay details of a private event.

The bulk of Biden’s fundraising activity has been for the DNC, and Biden earlier this year greenlighted a $15 million transfer from it to the party’s House and Senate campaign committees, a sign of his personal investment in trying to ensure Democrats retain their majorities this fall. A White House official said Biden receives “quite a few” requests from Democratic candidates to appear at fundraisers, and aides work to accommodate as many as possible depending on his schedule and other factors.

Whitmer took priority because she was a co-chair of both Biden’s presidential campaign and his inauguration.

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