REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
- Donald Trump contributed $6,000 to Kamala Harris when she ran for California attorney general.
- Trump donated $5,000 to her 2011 campaign and $1,000 in 2013 as a private citizen.
- Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race on Sunday and endorsed Harris to replace him.
Donald Trump donated to Kamala Harris twice while she was a candidate for California attorney general, according to public records available on the California secretary of state's website.
Records show that Trump donated a total of $6,000 to Harris: $5,000 in 2011 and $1,000 in 2013. He made both donations while he was a private citizen.
His daughter Ivanka Trump also donated $2,000 to Harris in 2014, records show.
Trump launched his first presidential bid in 2015. Harris served as California's attorney general from 2011 to 2017 before her election to the US Senate.
Trump could now face Harris in a general election for the US presidency after President Joe Biden, Trump's presumptive 2024 Democratic opponent, ended his reelection bid on Sunday. Harris, Biden's vice president, is now widely viewed as a top contender for the Democratic nomination.
The Washington Examiner reported in 2019 that Trump had said in an affidavit that he made the $5,000 donation at the request of New York's attorney general at the time, Eric Schneiderman.
"Mr. Schneiderman's former transition committee leader asked my daughter Ivanka if she would arrange for me to make a contribution to a fundraising event sponsored by Mr. Schneiderman for newly elected California Attorney General Kamala Harris," Trump wrote in the affidavit. "In response, I made a $5,000 contribution to Ms. Harris' campaign — the highest level of sponsorship listed in the invitation — and Ivanka attended the event together with some of Trump Org.'s other top executives."
A Harris spokesperson told The Sacramento Bee that in 2015 she donated the money Trump gave her campaign to a nonprofit group that helps Central Americans.
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In 2020, Trump's senior advisor Katrina Pierson told PBS NewsHour's Yamiche Alcindor that the president had "donated to candidates across all aisles" and that she hoped his donation to Harris, as a Black woman, could "squash this racism argument now."
Trump's history of donating to Harris — and other Democratic candidates — first resurfaced in 2020 after Biden tapped Harris to be his running mate.
On Sunday, following mounting pressure from Democratic politicians and donors, Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Harris as the Democratic nominee.
"I am honored to have the president's endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination," she said in a statement.
Trump released a statement on Truth Social on Sunday calling Harris "just as much of a joke as Biden is" and criticizing what he called her "liberal, weak-on-crime record" in California.
An earlier version of this story was published in August 2020.