Major GOP Donors Are Done Supporting Trump

Some large Republican donors are publically distancing themselves from former President Donald Trump‘s third presidential campaign.

Private equity firm Blackstone’s CEO Stephen Schwarzman announced last week that he will not support Trump in 2024 after backing him in his last two campaigns.

“It is time for the Republican party to turn to a new generation of leaders,” he said in a public statement on Wednesday after Trump formally announced his intention to run for the White House again last week. “America does better when its leaders are rooted in today and tomorrow, not today and yesterday.”

In the last election cycle, Schwarzman and his wife donated a combined $35 million to support their preferred candidates. Three-million dollars went to Trump’s super PAC. Schwarzman went on to say that he would back one of Trump’s challengers in the Republican primary, but he did not specify who that would be.

Schwarzman is not the only prominent donor to pull support from Trump. A spokesperson for Ronald Lauder, a businessman billionaire and one of the heirs to the cosmetic company Estée Lauder, said that Lauder will not financially support Trump in 2024.

Even some conservative media has distanced itself from the Trump 2024 campaign including the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, which called Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) “DeFuture.” DeSantis has not yet formally announced a bid for the White House in 2024, but he is viewed by pundits as a likely candidate to challenge Trump.

It’s unclear how losing big donors will affect Trump, who never stopped fundraising after his presidency ended. Trump and his affiliated political committee have around $100 million in cash reserves.