Donald Trump described his standing in the Republican presidential field Tuesday as a “great tribute to business.”
Having maintained his front-runner status for nearly three consecutive months while spending virtually no money on campaign advertising, the savvy businessman says he is the perfect model of how a successful business should be run.
“It’s sort of a great tribute to business,” Trump, who leads the Washington Examiner’s presidential power rankings, told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto Tuesday afternoon. “I mean, I’ve spent the least money and I have the best poll numbers.”
Trump is currently running the leanest campaign of any major candidate in both the Republican and Democratic fields. Though a spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign refused to confirm the candidate’s total expenditures to the Examiner, several outlets reported last week that the self-funded billionaire has spent a mere $2 million since launching his White House bid in mid-June.
“It’s like a couple million dollars or something,” Trump said during his appearance on Fox News. “I’ve spent zero on advertising because you and all of the other networks, they cover me a lot, to put it mildly.”
Asked whether he plans to spend money on ad development ahead of the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses in February, Trump quipped that additional air time could cause Americans to feel overwhelmed by the New York billionaire.
“It’s almost like if I put ads in on top of the program, it’d be too much. It’d be too much Trump,” he said.
The GOP’s leading man noted, however, that he wouldn’t mind spending more money if he succeeds in securing the Republican nomination.
“I don’t mind spending, once we go through [the nomination process] the party kicks in and we’ll have a lot of support,” he said.
“After that, the party comes in and they raise a lot of money and the party’s been very fair to me,” Trump added, reminding Cavuto of his decision to sign the Republican National Committee’s “loyalty pledge” in early September.
Trump announced Tuesday that he plans to live-tweet the first Democratic primary debate in Las Vegas, Nev. beginning at 8 p.m. ET. On Monday, he predicted the debate will be “boring” because he isn’t a participant.
