Former independent presidential candidate Ross Perot’s son donated to President Trump’s re-election campaign before his father’s death, it has emerged.
The colorful Texan billionaire, who won an unprecedented 19 per cent share of the vote in 1992, died Wednesday at the age of 89. He had been suffering from leukemia.
Many tributes raised parallels between Perot and Trump, with some calling the maverick businessman who upended traditional politics ‘the father of Trump.’
Former independent presidential candidate Ross Perot
Parallels: Some tributes called Ross Perot the ‘father of Trump.’ The billionaire Texan campaigned against the North America Free Trade Agreement, which Trump trashed in his own campaign
Now it has emerged that Ross Perot’s son, H. Ross Perot Jr., made two donations to Trump’s 2020 campaign in March, giving the Republican candidate the maximum legal limit.
The maximum legal limit an individual can donate to a Presidential campaign is $2800 twice an election a cycle.
Perot Jr. also gave $35,000 to Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee with the Republican National Committee that isn’t beholden to the same donation limits.
He also donated to Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, and the National Republican Congressional Committee
Dubbed ‘the father of Trump’ Perot paved the way for Donald. Like the current President, Perot was a rich businessman pushing a populist agenda against the Republican establishment.
Speaking in 2016, Democratic strategist James Carville said: ‘If Donald Trump is the Jesus of the disenchanted, displaced non-college white voter, then Perot was the John the Baptist of that sort of movement.’
In 2000, Trump considered running in Perot’s Reform Party but held back.
A week before the 1992 election, Perot showed off a copy of the famous newspaper that declared Thomas Dewey the victor in the presidential race against Harry Truman – which Truman won after the newspaper was printed late in the evening
Perot ran for president, twice, the first time upending the two-party system, and being blamed by Republicans for letting Bill Clinton into the White House. The second time he fizzled, and the Reform Party movement died out.
On Tuesday George W. Bush paid a warm tribute to Perot. His father, the late George H.W. Bush had never publicly blamed the third-party candidate for his defeat in 1992, and his son said: ‘Texas and America have lost a strong patriot.’
He said he and Laura Bush offered their ‘heartfelt condolences’ to the Perot family.
His son Ross Perot Jr., who survives him along with his widow Margot, four daughters and 16 grandchildren, told the Dallas Morning News her father was a ‘great family man’.
Family: Ross Perot was married to wife Margot for more than 60 years. She survives him. They had five children and 16 grandchildren
‘He was a wonderful humanitarian. Every day he came to work trying to figure out how he could help somebody’ she added.
Perot had been diagnosed with leukemia in February, but still showed up at the headquarters of the Perot Group, where his son is now CEO, in central Dallas until shortly before his death.
His daughter Nancy told the Dallas Morning News that he kept family dinners sacrosanct and would be remembered for ‘the biggest hugs.’
‘We never doubted that we were the most important things in his life,’ she said.
Perot first became known to Americans outside of business circles by claiming that the U.S. government left behind hundreds of American soldiers who were missing or imprisoned at the end of the Vietnam War.
Perot fanned the issue at home and discussed it privately with Vietnamese officials in the 1980s, angering the Reagan administration, which was formally negotiating with Vietnam’s government.
Perot’s wealth, fame and confident prescription for the nation’s economic ills propelled his 1992 campaign against President George H.W. Bush and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton.
Perot, shown debating Clinton and Bush in 1992, is credited with electing the Democrat Clinton by siphoning votes away from Bush
Some Republicans blamed him for Bush’s lost to Clinton as Perot garnered the largest percentage of votes for a third-party candidate since former President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 bid.
During the campaign, Perot spent $63.5 million of his own money and bought up 30-minute television spots. He used charts and graphs to make his points, summarizing them with a line that became a national catchphrase: ‘It’s just that simple.’
Perot’s second campaign four years later was far less successful. He was shut out of presidential debates when organizers said he lacked sufficient support.
He got just eight per cent of the vote, and the Reform Party that he founded and hoped to build into a national political force began to fall apart.