How Donald Trump used a Valentine's Day love letter to raise funds for his poll campaign

Former US president Donald Trump is undoubtedly skilled at building his brand. In the latest development, he sought donations from “loving” fans via email fund-raising, using a Valentine’s Day letter to his third wife, Melania Trump. The letter from the former president asked his supporters to support his campaign in addition to sending their love to his 53-year-old wife, whom he wed in 2005. But how did he use a Valentine’s Day love letter to Melania to raise funds? Let’s take a look. The Valentine’s Day letter to Melania The mail was sent out on Wednesday and began, “Dear Melania, I love you!” under the heading, “This is a Valentine’s Day letter from Donald J Trump.” Then there was an unexpected twist. “Even after every single indictment, arrest, and witch hunt, you never left my side. You’ve always supported me through everything. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without your guidance, kindness and warmth.” “You will always mean the world to me, Melania! From your husband with love, Donald J Trump,” he concluded. [caption id=“attachment_13730172” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Former US President Donald Trump, who announced a third run for the presidency in 2024, and his wife Melania Trump, attend the New Year’s Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, US. Reuters[/caption] Melania Trump had not been seen in public since her mother Amalija Knavs’s death last month. However, she recently went with her husband to a gala at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night, according to Metro.co.uk. With a smile on her face, the former first lady, who is quite popular among Trump fans, waved to the cheering crowd and embraced her husband. Donald Trump recently stated on Fox News that his spouse would “play a big role” in his bid to retake the presidency and that she “wants to make America great again, too.” “I think she’s going to be very active in the sense of being active,” Trump said. Melania, a former model from Slovenia some 24 years his junior, is Trump’s third wife. His 1977 marriage to Czech model Ivana Zelníčková ended in divorce as a result of his 1993 marriage to actor Marla Maples, with whom he had an affair. The fund-raising After clicking on the big red box that reads “send your love,” recipients were taken to a page where they could send Melania a “personalised message” and make a donation to his reelection campaign. The site suggested $20.24 (Rs 1,680) to $3,300 (Rs 2,73,945) or “other” as the donation amount. For those who thought Trump was the greatest president ever, there was a $47 (Rs 3,900) suggested donation, according to The Telegraph. In addition to declaring his love for Mrs Trump, the former president was also promising his supporters his undivided attention. “I will never stop loving you. Do you want to know why? Because you never stopped loving me! At every step of the way, your love has gotten me through every hardship they’ve thrown at me.” A poll asking respondents if they would ever “stop loving Trump” was also included in the email. Roughly 97 per cent of those answered stated they wouldn’t, the report said. “Before the day is over, I’m asking for my strongest supporters to chip in and humiliate the Democrats who said you’d give up on me. Your love and your love alone is the only thing that will propel us to the White House.” An image of Melania was featured on the digital card, smiling alongside her spouse and accompanied by the message, “A Valentine’s Day letter to my beautiful wife.” Nikki Haley’s V-Day message to Trump On Valentine’s Day, Melania did not publicly share a message with her husband. But Trump’s main GOP challenger, Nikki Haley, did. “Roses are red, violets are blue, I love dictators, and they love me too! Happy Valentine’s Day from Donald Trump to dictators around the world!” Haley’s presidential campaign wrote in an emailed statement, mocking the former US president.

Inbox: Nikki Haley's campaign sends out “Love Letters from Trump,” wishing a “Happy Valentine’s Day from Donald Trump to dictators around the world” pic.twitter.com/gnQH1mDNot

— Vera Bergengruen (@VeraMBergen) February 14, 2024

“Over the years, Trump has professed his love for the world’s most brutal dictators and praised their strength and leadership skills,” the statement reads. The campaign continued by listing a number of statements made by Trump in which he showed love or even affection for certain foreign dictators. One instance cited by the campaign was Trump’s 2019 claim to have received about a half-dozen letters from Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea. “He wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters,” Trump said at a 2019 rally in West Virginia. “We fell in love.” In another, Trump congratulates Russian President Vladimir Putin on winning the election and states that “getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing.” “He’s strong like granite, he’s strong, I know him very well, President Xi of China… what can I say: he runs 1.4 billion people with an iron hand,” a card addressed to Xi said. Trump spoke these things at a rally in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Haley has criticised Trump time and time again for what appeared to be his friendliness with foreign leaders during the campaign, notably Kim and Putin. Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung responded to Haley’s most recent attack on the former US president by saying that he had brought peace and prosperity to the country. “Nikki ‘Birdbrain’ Haley has a minor league brain in a major league world. She is simply too stupid to comprehend that President Trump brought peace and prosperity to the country,” Cheung told The Post, while adding, “Meanwhile, Haley wants to bow down to China and throw America into forever wars.” Charges against Trump There are four criminal indictments against the likely Republican presidential nominee: one for election subversion (13 state charges, four federal), one for retaining classified information (40 federal), and one for paying hush-money to an adult film star and director who alleges a sexual relationship (34 state), as per The Guardian. According to the report, Stormy Daniels claims to have had sex with Trump in 2006, shortly after Melania gave birth to her son, Barron Trump. The claim was strongly denied by Trump despite having arranged to pay Daniels $130,000 to be keep quiet during the 2016 election. Furthermore, Trump’s legal issues are not solely related to sex; they are also the result of what he describes as “witch hunts mounted by his enemies.” A judge found that a writer named E Jean Carroll's rape allegation against Trump was “substantially true,” leading to an $83.3 million judgment against the president last month in a defamation action. Carroll said that in the mid-1990s, Trump had raped her in a changing room at a department shop in New York. During a deposition, Trump famously mistook a photo of Carroll for his second wife, Marla Maples. Trump’s unique marketing strategy Last year in December, Trump was selling little cut-out pieces of his navy blue suit and a red tie he wore during an appearance for a mugshot after he turned himself in on 24 August 2023 at an Atlanta jail. “It’s a great suit, believe me, a really good suit. It’s all cut up, and you’re gonna get a piece of it,” he described in a Truth Social video. To buy  a piece of the suit, people first had to buy 47 NFT or non-fungible tokens “digital trading cards,” priced at $99 each. The cards, produced by NFT INT LLC under a licensing agreement with Trump, featured cartoon versions of Trump in various heroic poses. Earlier, he had already made money off of the mugshot: coffee mugs, T-shirts, and Christmas stockings with the picture are available for purchase on his campaign website. The products’ tagline read, “NEVER SURRENDER.” He made about $4.4 million from the sale of a batch of 45,000 cards in December 2022. Forbes claimed that he made between $100,000 and $1 million from the transactions. His campaign reportedly raised almost $4 million in a single day after his booking in Georgia, setting a primary cycle record, reported TOI. With inputs from agencies