Donors to Trump: Stay on Point
At a fundraiser in Minneapolis, Minnesota Friday night, a small group of high-dollar donors urged Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to stay on message and avoid unnecessary controversy, a donor in attendance told NBC News.
Before the event, Republican donor Stanley Hubbard said his advice for Trump was going to be that he can’t be “all over the place."
Hubbard, the CEO of Hubbard Broadcasting, said he didn’t need to counsel Trump at the fundraiser because most of the dozen other attendees at the high-dollar meeting voiced the same concern.
“Stay on message” and “do the right thing” was what the donors told Trump, Hubbard recounted.
In the past month, Trump has caused concern among donors and Republicans after he repeatedly attacked Gold Star parents Khazr and Ghazala Khan and held off on endorsing House Speaker Paul Ryan before his primary. He would also repeatedly attack fellow Republicans instead of turning his attention on his general election opponent Hillary Clinton.
Trump met with nearly a dozen donors with a $100,000 contribution minimum at the convention center in Minneapolis. He then spoke to a larger group of smaller-dollar donors, capping off a week where he shook up his campaign team, said he "regrets" some of his unspecified previous comments and used a teleprompter for three campaign events.
Hubbard did say that he had one piece of advice for Trump that he shared with the candidate: to stop attacking and blaming the media.
“There was no answer but that’s how I feel,” Hubbard said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan was also in Minneapolis at the same time but did not attend the Trump fundraiser. He held a separate fundraiser for Rep. Erik Paulsen running for reelection on Thursday and a separate event for Stuart Mills on Friday.
Ryan told attendees at Thursday’s fundraiser that it’s time to get behind the Republican nominee because he was Republican voters’ choice, according to Hubbard, who attended that fundraiser as well.
