‘Bunch of grifters’: Trump insiders privately trash Elon Musk’s voter turnout organization
FILE - This combo image shows President Joe Biden, left, Jan. 5, 2024, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, right, Jan. 19, 2024. (AP Photo, File)
Republicans seem to lack a plan in their ground game in the key battleground state of Michigan, where their get-out-the-vote operation has been turned over to Elon Musk’s America PAC.
Democrats, on the other hand, have been pouring resources into the state that could help decide the presidential election, and Donald Trump’s allies are grumbling about the outsources operation, reported Wired .
“I think it’s what happens when you let a bunch of grifters take over,” said one Trumpworld source. “Sh*t is always gonna produce sh*t.”
The Trump campaign is leaning on bug-plagued apps and niche podcasts to identify and target low-propensity voters, and Musk has been offering voters a chance to win $1 million by signing petitions and paying door-knockers $30 an hour with performance bonuses, but some Republicans have questions about the effort.
“What happens is, you skim a bunch of money off the top, and then you hire the dumbest people and pay them a little bit of money,” the Trumpworld strategist said. “There’s no way of tracking whether it’s effective or not. It’s hard to track the output, and thus the effectiveness of the output.”
Trump’s communications director in the state, Victoria LaCivita, who’s the daughter of his co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita, insists the ground operations as “the most sophisticated and modern campaign, ever,” but Detroit-area state Sen. Mallory McMorrow hasn’t seen much evidence of their work.
“It’s been fascinating,” said McMorrow, a surrogate for Kamala Harris. “It’s been weird? It’s been weird.”
The Democratic legislator has been knocking on doors in Michigan to drum up support for the vice president, and while she’s seen literature for Trump and GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers, she’s only encountered one person canvassing for Republicans, and that individual was working for Musk’s operation.
“This guy told one of the people on our team that he’s a Democrat,” McMorrow said, “but he’s taking the money and doing it anyway.”
