Top Republican Donor Rips Trump Over New Team Members

Donald Trump’s decision to bring Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Representative Tulsi Gabbard on his presidential transition team has upset a major Republican donor.

Eric Levine wrote a scathing email commenting on Trump’s move, accusing him of “trying to lose” and saying “It is hard to imagine a more destructive announcement.” 

Levine described Kennedy as “an anti-vax kook who sees conspiracies behind every tree and under every bed,” and attacked Gabbard’s past as a former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and co-chair of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. Instead, he recommended that “rather than seeking and coveting the endorsement of fringe candidates with fringe policy positions that offend most Republicans and Independents,” Nikki Haley should be on the transition team.

“It is her voters that he should be focusing on,” Levine wrote.

The GOP fundraiser was already a less-than-enthusiastic supporter of Trump’s 2024 campaign, telling Politico last year that the convicted felon “is a metastasizing cancer who if he is not stopped is going to destroy the party.” But in March this year, he had a change of heart, telling other Republicans in a memo that “reluctantly and with reservations, I have decided I will vote for Trump in November.”

Levine’s opinion is a worrying signal for Trump, who still needs Republican donations to mount a strong campaign between now and November. The donor’s views probably mirror that of many other Republicans, donors and rank-and-file alike, who support Trump generally but aren’t diehard MAGA loyalists. His point about Haley may be prescient, as some supporters of Haley’s presidential campaign have already formed a “Haley Voters for Harris” political action group.

Levine called out Trump for focusing on “fringe candidates like RFK and Gabbard” at the end of his message.

“As a former Haley voter and Reagan Republican, I say to you Mr. Trump, speak to me and my follow [sic] Republicans. Reject the fringes. Fight for the middle. If you do not, you will forever be known from this day forward, as the ‘Former President,’” Levine wrote.