The Art of the (Desperate) Deal! From $99 cologne, to gold sneakers, $75 coffee table books… and even Bibles, TOM LEONARD reveals how truly nothing is sacred in Trump’s frantic fundraising fight

‘All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book.’

With the best will in the world, the Gospel according to Donald Trump is always going to be something of a leap of faith.

But to all but his most ardent defenders, news that the former president is now selling Bibles – so-called ‘God Bless The USA’ editions – may confirm that truly nothing is sacred when it comes to what he’ll do to retake the White House.

Or to be more precise, to raise the money he needs to fund his presidential campaign.

The Trump Bible costs $59.99, which is getting on for four times what you’d expect to pay for an ordinary King James version. (Though Trump’s leather-bound book does come with copies of the nation’s founding documents, along with handwritten lyrics from country singer Lee Greenwood’s hit, ‘God Bless the U.S.A.’.)

It also comes up for sale just weeks after he unveiled $399 ‘Never Surrender’ sneakers – in gold patent leather and currently sold out, pending a re-stock.

His shoe website (‘gettrumpsneakers.com’) also hawks two cheaper pairs at $199, as well as ‘Victory47′ cologne and perfume (’47’ as in the 47th president if he wins again), bottles of which cost a cool $99.

‘”Victory” is the signature scent of strength and success, encased in a luxurious gold bottle,’ a sales blurb boasts of the cologne, adding that it’s designed for ‘the movers and the shakers’.

However, Eau de Donald isn’t the only smell emanating from Team Trump. Many sense a strong whiff of desperation over something that Trump has previously assured fans would never be an issue: his money.

After all, the recent cash grabs don’t end with sneakers, scents and bibles.

Last year, Trump’s own line of NFTs reportedly bagged him between $100,000 and $1 million in sales of the digital art, variously portraying him in cartoon-like form, including as an astronaut, a cowboy and a superhero.

He also has two books for sale: a $75 coffee-table tome (‘Our Journey Together’) cataloging photos of his time in office and ‘Letters to Trump’ ($99), containing his correspondence with ‘some of the biggest names in history throughout the past 40 years’.

Of course, Trump has long had little compunction about licensing out his name – attaching it to anything from skyscrapers to schools, to alcohol bottles and his signature baseball caps.

But, that the sheer influx of new Trump ‘merchandise’ comes precisely as pressures on both his private and political finances mount is surely no coincidence.

The Donald is currently staring down significant legal costs from his four on-going criminal cases, as well as a string of civil lawsuits.

In January, he had to stump up a staggering $92 million after he lost a defamation case brought against him by writer E. Jean Carroll, who claims he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s.

Last week, he posted a $175 million bond – underwritten by an insurance company and secured with an unknown amount by Trump – while he appeals his New York civil fraud case. (Significantly less than the original $454 million figure imposed by the judge, but still nothing to be sniffed at).

And then there’s the $77 million he has reportedly spent on attorneys’ fees over the past two years, as his other pending cases trundle on.

All of which means that a costly campaign for the White House against an incumbent President Biden, who has so far raised a hefty $192 million election war chest – more than double Trump’s reported total last week – is causing mounting concern.

After spending $66 million of his personal wealth on his 2016 campaign, Trump didn’t put any of his own money into his 2020 re-election bid, thanks to his popularity among big GOP donors.

This time around – and reportedly thanks mainly to the January 6 riots – he doesn’t have the same pulling power, and may once again have to cough up. (In the biggest single blow, the Charles Koch-backed ‘Americans for Prosperity Action’ threw $32 million behind Nikki Haley in the primary battle against him.)

The problem is: Trump critics have long said that he is nowhere near as wealthy as he claims and as he’s always implied with the brag-tastic titles of his books – such as ‘How to Get Rich’, and ‘Think Big and Kick Ass’.

A 2018 New York Times investigation reported that Trump’s core business endeavors lost money every year between 1985 and 1994, with the accumulated losses coming to more than a billion dollars.

The Biden-Harris campaign is estimated to have already spent four times more than Trump on advertising since Super Tuesday ($11 million compared to $3 million).

Crucial Biden adverts – like Monday’s brutal film about abortion rights, or others targeting black and Latino voters – are going unanswered by his opponent.

However, there are signs Trump will soon be fighting back – and that he is committed to selling more than just tacky merchandise. Indeed, he’s also now selling his precious time.

On Saturday, he held a glitzy Palm Beach dinner for GOP mega-donors that saw his campaign bag $50.5 million – a record-breaking total for a single fundraising event and double the $25 million haul that Biden pulled in with the help of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at a New York City event earlier this month.

100 guests were hosted in Palm Beach by hedge fund manager John Paulson – who Trump is said to be considering as his potential Treasury Secretary – at his $110 million oceanfront home.

Tickets cost $250,000 but some 38 deep-pocketed backers paid nearly $815,000 to be ‘co-chairs’ of the evening.

These co-chairs – who were reward with a seat on Trump’s table – included WWE tycoon and former Trump administration official Linda McMahon, mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, former ambassador to the UK Woody Johnson, Las Vegas-based businessman Robert Bigelow, casino mogul Steve Wynn and oil tycoon Harold Hamm.

Guests all went home with a signed copy of ‘Our Journey Together’.

Insiders called the evening a ‘come-home-to-Trump moment’, while the man himself called it the ‘Biggest night in Fund Raising of ALL TIME!!!’ on Truth Social.

In recent months, he has also reportedly been holding as many as three dinners a week at his Mar-a-Lago pleasure palace for billionaire guests including Elon Musk, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and sugar tycoon Pepe Fanjul.

A least two donors who have already made seven-figure pledges to the Trump campaign were reportedly asked whether they couldn’t possibly push their donations to eight figures (so $10 million or more).

In general, campaign donations can only be used for election-related purposes. However, the Federal Election Commission has repeatedly allowed campaign funds to pay legal expenses that are connected to campaign activities.

As such, many of Trump’s legal costs have been taken off his hands.

However, recent reports suggest that his ‘Save America’ PAC has been paying out at such a rate that it is now forecast to run out of money by summer. So, this weekend’s billionaires’ knees-up won’t have come a moment too soon.

And not least because of Trump’s recent bad luck on the markets.

Last month, Trump Media – the parent of Truth Social, his new favorite social media platform – listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange to disappointing results.

Trump personally owns a large stake in the company and had been hoping for a significant boost from the public sale. However, after the late March listing initially bumped Trump’s personal net worth to some $6.3 billion, stocks have subsequently slumped by 54 percent.

Some pundits predict Trump would never humiliate himself by going cap in hand to his mega-rich friends to bail out his election campaign. Others say he may soon run out of options.

After all, what could be worse than having to listen to Biden spend the next few months repeating the jab he delivered a couple of weeks ago at a Texas fundraiser: ‘Just the other day, this defeated-looking man came up to me and said, “Mr. President, I need your help. I’m in crushing debt. I’m completely wiped out.” I said, “Sorry, Donald, I can’t help you!”‘