Elderly Bossie donors say they thought they were helping Trump

Axios reached out to more than a dozen of these donors, most of whom were retired. They all said they thought their money was going toward supporting the president.

“I gave them money after seeing their mailers, and because I think Trump deserves it. … I’m old and easily fooled I guess. … It’s disappointing, very disappointing,” Wallace Payne, an 86-year-old Republican from Paynesville, Minnesota, told Axios after we informed him of the breakdown of spending.

“I thought the money was going toward the president,” Barbara Bloom, a retired widow in her 70s, said: “You know, I’d get repeated duplicates for things. [Their mailers] would most of the time say the first $15 was for your membership, but how many times do you pay membership? … It’s ridiculous, it’s insulting. I’m just really disenchanted with it all.”