Donald Trump has a history of stiffing contractors and venues for his rallies, too. Many of these venues needed the money to pay police officers for overtime work. According to Blue Ridge Public Radio, Asheville, North Carolina, a moderately liberal city wasn't having it, and Lumpy was forced to fork over more than $82,000 in advance for his rally this week.
According to the city's spokesperson, Kim Miller, $22,500 of that money goes toward renting the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium event space.
"The remainder of the funds go to cover additional costs such as venue and security staffing, production equipment rental, and exterior items like attendee queue stanchions and related items," Miller told BPR.
"The Thomas Wolfe Auditorium is a publicly owned venue and therefore is restricted from discriminating against users based on the content of their speech or political party affiliation," Miller explained. "The City is committed to maintaining a neutral stance and upholding the First Amendment rights of all individuals and groups."
Via BPR:
In other cities, including El Paso, Texas, Conway, South Carolina and several places in Montana, the Trump campaign has outstanding invoices. The City of El Paso has one of the largest outstanding invoices, alleging that the Trump campaign owes them more than $500,000 in public safety, maintenance and transit costs associated with a 2019 campaign visit, KTSM reported.
Miller told BPR that the city will not hire any additional contractors to manage the event and that all security and staffing costs will be provided through its regular government agencies.
Here's the kicker. Trump's deposit covers a two-day rental of the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, which is the smaller of the complex's two venues, with only a maximum seating capacity of 2,431. Just next door is a larger arena with a capacity of 7,200.
Kamala Harris is expected to hold a rally here in Raleigh on Friday. Trump, though, will say that 100,000 people attended his rally in the arena, which holds a mere 2,431 people. The fake news media didn't report it!
