Katie Rogers and Annie Karni

“I’ve had people say, ‘Hey we were gonna use you for business, but we found out you’re a racist,’” Herricks, the owner of Precision Pipe Rentals, an oil and gas services company in San Antonio, said. “‘We hope that you burn in hell and your business will go with you.’”

The reason for the calls was Herricks’ inclusion this week on a list of 44 San Antonio-area residents who have maxed out their donations to the president’s reelection campaign. That list was shared on Twitter by Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, who serves as the chairman of the presidential campaign of his twin brother, Julián. Republicans have accused the congressman of “doxxing” private citizens and trying to incite harassment of the president’s supporters.

A similar uproar over Trump donors is playing out in the moneyed enclave of the Hamptons, where real estate developers are hosting two fundraisers for Trump on Friday. Progressives looking for a way to express their anger at Trump — and the people who support him — have threatened to boycott SoulCycle, the popular spin studio chain, and Equinox, a high-end gym, both owned by billionaire developer Stephen Ross, who is scheduled to host the president at his Southampton home.

Calling out the people who fund campaigns is not a new tactic in politics, but the question of how much should be publicly disclosed about those donors has been an issue that Republicans, led by the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, have repeatedly raised in recent years. While the Supreme Court ruled in the 2010 Citizens United case to uphold public disclosure — with Justice Antonin Scalia, the court’s conservative stalwart, arguing that without revealing the donors behind a campaign “democracy is doomed” — Republicans and wealthy allies like the Koch brothers have argued that it results in donor harassment and has a chilling effect on free speech.

In a heated political environment, boycotting the businesses of big donors like Ross has led to a new round of outrage at either end of the political spectrum.

“Everyone who cancels their equinox and soul cycle memberships, meet me at the library,” Chrissy Teigen, the celebrity and frequent Trump antagonist, wrote on Twitter. “Bring weights.”

But the Supreme Court’s support for campaign finance disclosure laws has a built-in exemption for people who can show a realistic threat of harassment, and the renewed scrutiny on Trump donors has also raised questions about what qualifies as donor harassment and who is entitled to privacy.

“A big question is, has the internet changed that calculus?” said Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine. “The general conservative view is that conservatives are being targeted for their general views and that there’s a lot of harassment going on.”

He said there is little evidence that the backlash against donors crosses that line. For Herricks, the Trump donor in San Antonio, his donation of $15,000 to the Trump Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee led by the Republican National Committee, and his $2,800 check to Trump’s campaign, have put him in the public arena, whether he likes it or not.

Economic boycotts are protected by the First Amendment, legal scholars said.

“If we see that people whose donations are highlighted publicly are being harassed, that’s a reason to be concerned,” Hasen said. “If the concern is someone will have a nasty tweet sent to them because of them being named by Castro, well, welcome to the real world.”

Others supporting an overhaul of the campaign finance system said it was more worrisome. “I’m not sure Mr. Castro’s simply throwing out the names of people with no ties to specific policy issues is helpful in this day and age of social media,” said Fred Wertheimer, the founder and president of Democracy 21.

For some Trump donors, the scrutiny has only made them more determined to support the president.

“The more they do this stuff, the more it’s going to backfire,” said Bill White, a former president of the Intrepid Sea, Air &amp; Space Museum in New York. “More people are putting out their chests, standing up straight, saying: ‘I’m in. To hell with you publicizing my name.’”

White said he was planning to attend one of the Hamptons fundraisers Friday: a $2,800-per-person Trump Victory event planned for Friday at a Bridgehampton mansion owned by real estate developer Joe Farrell. For people wishing to attend a VIP reception and take a photo with the president, the cost is $35,000, according to an invitation viewed by The New York Times.

Among the hosts of that event are Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, and Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, and his girlfriend, campaign adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is also expected to attend.

McDaniel said there was a doubling down for Trump, rather than any fear of confrontation.

“Whether it’s on liberal college campuses or in their Upper East Side gyms, the left has become obsessed with demonizing and boycotting anyone who disagrees with them,” McDaniel said in a statement. “For people who claim to be tolerant, they sure spend a lot of time calling half the country ‘racists.’”

Some Trump associates were surprised by the backlash toward Ross, who they said has become a frequent visitor at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida. Democrats were less surprised.

“Consumer brands have to be very sensitive,” said Thomas R. Nides, a top Democratic fundraiser. “We’re at an unbelievable inflection point. If you’re frustrated and you can show your dissatisfaction by not showing up at a spin class, why not?”

Planning for the Ross fundraiser began about three weeks ago, according to a person with knowledge, and continued as Trump indignantly faced down accusations of being a racist.

Ross had hoped to keep the event relatively private, but this week several news outlets, including the LGBTQ publication The Advocate, highlighted his involvement in the fundraiser as well as his ownership of SoulCycle and Equinox, and he immediately became a target of everyone from gymgoers who have posted their cancellation forms on Instagram to a wide receiver on the Miami Dolphins, which Ross also owns.

“I have always been an active participant in the democratic process,” Ross said in a statement. “I have known Donald Trump for 40 years, and while we agree on some issues, we strongly disagree on many others and I have never been bashful about expressing my opinions.”

In Castro’s case, he has explained that his intention was not to harass. “My post was a lament,” the congressman wrote on Twitter, “that so many people in my overwhelmingly Hispanic hometown would give large money to a President who is using it to target Hispanics as ‘invaders.’”

Still, Trump operatives viewed the debacle as a savvy political move by a low-polling Democratic candidate, and also saw a fundraising opportunity: “Joaquin Castro shared personal info on Trump donors,” Donald Trump Jr. said in a text message to supporters Thursday afternoon. “Donate NOW.”

In the past, Republicans supported disclosure because they opposed public financing of elections and contribution limits. “But then McConnell basically brought the party around to where they haven’t supported efforts to close loopholes in disclosure laws,” Wertheimer said.

Some legal scholars have argued that in the internet age, when anyone can quickly look up the campaign contributions of their neighbors, it makes more sense to set a higher limit for public disclosure.

“The public doesn’t gain much of an interest in preventing corruption by knowing that one neighbor has contributed to the other party’s candidate,” said Hasen, the University of California professor. “What we really care about is big money in politics.”

Fielding calls Thursday, Herricks, the San Antonio-based donor, said that he would “absolutely” give to the president again. He also said he had squeezed in a workout that morning at Equinox.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/us/politics/castro-trump-donors.html" id="6485da34-99d4-32fa-a54f-fffeecd45e35">The New York Times</a>.

Trump's Opponents Want to Name His Big Donors. His Supporters Say It's Harassment

WASHINGTON — For many businesses, a sudden deluge of phone calls might signal an influx of new customers. But most of the 25 calls Justin Herricks received before noon Thursday were from people who wanted to tell him he was a white supremacist for donating money to President Donald Trump.

<h1>WASHINGTON — After two months spent scorching the earth in Washington and complaining about being cooped up in the White House, President Donald Trump is planning to return this weekend to the one place where he knows he will receive a hero’s welcome for his troubles: Mar-a-Lago, his gilded club by the sea in Palm Beach.</h1>

“You would have to be insensitive not to be touched by how he has stayed there working,” said Toni Holt Kramer, founder of Trumpettes USA, a booster group that is planning to welcome him. “I think people will have tears in their eyes because they’re so grateful that he’s come back to his home away from home.”

Trump made a point of staying in Washington over the Christmas holidays — waiting, he said, for Democrats to negotiate with him on funding for a border wall — so it will be the president’s first visit to Mar-a-Lago since Thanksgiving.

It will not be a complete escape — he still has no deal on the wall and a State of the Union address to give Tuesday. But after his arrival Friday afternoon, Trump is expected to do many of the things he always does when he is at Mar-a-Lago: dining at the owner’s table on the patio; spending the afternoon at Trump International Golf Club, about a 15-minute motorcade drive away; and never venturing anywhere in Palm Beach outside his own two properties.

The first lady, Melania Trump, will travel there with him this weekend, her spokeswoman said, though Melania Trump tends to keep a low profile while at the resort.

In the Mar-a-Lago cocoon, the president is in his most comfortable mode, friends and allies say: playing the jocular host in front of an adoring crowd.

On Saturday, P.J. Schrantz, who founded Veleve, a charity that provides support for veterans, is betting on Donald Trump to make an appearance at a $600-a-plate fundraiser his organization is hosting in one of the club’s ballrooms. And plans for Trump’s annual Super Bowl viewing party at his golf club Sunday evening, complete with a steak and lobster buffet, are still on.

“I chose to have it there because I’ve attended galas there,” Schrantz said of his event, which will feature a George Michael tribute artist donating his time, as well as honor astronaut Buzz Aldrin. “The members are such giving people that we could raise a couple of million dollars in an evening.”

Some Mar-a-Lago members say they are already wistful about the blissful weeks without tangled traffic and increased security — a seven-minute drive from home to the club takes at least 30 minutes when Trump is in town, one said — but many will brave the roads for the chance to participate in a presidential selfie or a similar show of support.

Laurence Leamer, a longtime Palm Beach resident who has known Trump since the 1990s and is the author of “Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace,” said in an interview that even if people had an issue with the president’s policymaking, the meatloaf recipe or anything in between, they tended to keep it to themselves.

“People have been trained to have like a Pavlovian reaction or something,” Leamer said. “You’re supposed to say things are great. When he asks you, ‘How are things?’ you’re not supposed to complain.”

Just as the Trump International Hotel in Washington has become a safe space for the president and his supporters, Mar-a-Lago is a 20-acre oasis for those who adore all things Trump, from his zero-tolerance immigration policies to the menu items named after his children.

The focus on Trump has grown to the point where some Democratic members, who have loved the club’s amenities for decades, have recently rescinded their memberships because they do not feel comfortable there anymore.

“There’s a political angle to being a member now,” said Cynthia Friedman, a Democratic fundraiser who joined the club 24 years ago and recalls playing tennis on Saturdays with Marla Maples, Trump’s second wife. “There are a lot of people who I don’t recognize. They’re not the people I used to play tennis with. Things change, and it’s time to move on.”

In December, instead of sending her $1,600 in monthly dues, she joined the Beach Club, a rival members-only club, on the other side of town.

But Friedman is still in the minority. Many Mar-a-Lago members book reservations weeks in advance to be in the same room with the president. And Trumpworld celebrities, like Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House communications director; the president’s son Donald Trump Jr.; and Antonio Sabato Jr., the Trump-loving model-turned-politician, have been spotted at social events and fundraisers in Palm Beach, serving as something of a warm-up act to the main event.

Karyn Turk, a business owner and the 2016 winner of the Mrs. Florida beauty pageant, said if the walls looked like they were caving in on the president in Washington, there were only blue skies in Palm Beach.

“It’s a lot of hype,” she said of the special counsel investigation, led by Robert Mueller. “I feel like in a lot of ways, it’s still just a witch hunt.”

If the “Winter White House” is a boon for the members of Trump’s exclusive club, and a respite not only for the president but also for the staff members who relocate with him, the annual decampment still raises ethical concerns.

The White House has refused to release a list of those who visit the president there. And elsewhere in the Trump Organization orbit, the company said it would introduce new procedures to screen immigrants after The New York Times reported that Trump’s flagship New Jersey golf club employed people who had entered the country illegally.

And ProPublica reported last summer that three Mar-a-Lago members had amassed an unusual amount of influence in the Department of Veterans Affairs, meddling in agency initiatives and participating in the review of a contract worth some $10 billion.

“It certainly seems unprecedented,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the ethics watchdog CREW, “and highly troubling for people to be given significant authority over government matters seemingly primarily on the basis of being paying customers of the president.”

The White House has taken at least one informal step to block people who have access to the president’s properties from asking for anything that seems to go too far. Aides have long been on the alert to intercept any notes or policy proposals from overeager supporters — including one from a guest who once helpfully tried to show the president an executive order he had drafted. Trump has at times directed his aides to give those people ample listening time even if he cannot, according to someone familiar with the process and his thinking.

Security around the president may have tightened since 2017, when Trump sat on the open patio, in front of hundreds of eyeballs and iPhones pointed in his direction, discussing a response to North Korea’s missile test with Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister. But in many ways, Trump himself has not changed from the involved club owner he has always been.

He has always kept close watch over who comes and goes, and pays close attention to those in the latter category.

Jeff Greene, the Palm Beach billionaire who ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for governor of Florida, joined the club when he moved to Palm Beach in 2010. But he quit because, he said, “I have my own tennis court. I never loved going there.”

Trump, he said, took his resignation personally. Sitting next to him at a charity event at Mar-a-Lago, Greene recalled being confronted. “He went right at me, saying, ‘I can’t believe you quit the club.’ He’s figuring someone with plenty of money, why would they care about paying dues for a club?”

This article originally appeared in <a id="60d71763-4f8d-4e0f-864a-7663db323475" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/us/politics/mar-a-lago-trump.html">The New York Times</a>.

Trump Returns This Weekend to Mar-a-Lago, His Gilded Comfort Zone

Trump made a point of staying in Washington over the Christmas holidays — waiting, he said, for Democrats to negotiate with him on funding for a border wall — so it will be the president’s first visit to Mar-a-Lago since Thanksgiving.

Trump returns this weekend to Mar-a-Lago, his gilded comfort zone

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Katie Rogers and Annie Karni

Articles written by the author

Trump's Opponents Want to Name His Big Donors. His Supporters Say It's Harassment

Trump returns this weekend to Mar-a-Lago, his gilded comfort zone