so let s see what happens on august 23rd. donald trump says i m up by so much do i really need to do this. ron desantis expect everybody to be there governor christie is poking him, calling him a coward if he doesn t show up. everyone needs him there. one of the biggest prize surprises is one of the people that has not qualified yet is vice president mike pence e has not hit the 40,000 threshold with the 1%. he needs 40,000 separate donations. but governor desantis, i guess, is the first mini crisis. got the money. maybe overspent. not resonating like he thought, and has toe rejigger some of his lineup. has to super pacs and start going to hostile territory beginning today and then possibly two or three times after. steve: getting a clear picture of the status of all the candidates right now. over the weekend it was the filing deadline for how much they raised. your point about mike pence, he has only raised $1.2 million. ron desantis in the last quarter raised 20 million,
Filing deadline for how much they raised. your point about mike pence, he has only raised $1.2 million. ron desantis in the last quarter raised 20 million, but it was largely big donors. and the worry is, and there is mike pence right there, former vice president. the worry for ron desantis is the lack of grassroots because a lot of governor desantis donors are big donors. and, according to nbc, they have fired a dozen staff members and more coming because apparently they just hired too many people. meanwhile, on the other side, you have got joe biden has raised $72 million, almost as much as all the republicans combined. if you are wondering why there is a lack of activity on the democratic side according to the filings, the campaign guess how many employees in the campaign has? joe biden the current president, running for re-election, how many employee does the campaign have?
Ron desantis thing like he felt ron desantis should have endorsed him. brian: on the surface seems like a situation where you have a very popular successful governor in iowa ohio thought was going to actually endorse desantis because they are so tight, who is doing a lot of the same things and has that school choice and everything. and for trump to go after just for not endorsing him. it certainly didn t hurt him over the weekend in the speak when he brought her up. to your point, too in terms of small donors, the new york times writes, small donor donations are down. it s just can those are 200 lower. $10.2 million small donors which shows the grassroots that donald trump has. ainsley: maybe that s because small donors feels the way kim reynolds does. brian: i mean for joe biden. ainsley: okay. steve: regarding on the republican side. do you know who surprisingly has got a lot of small donors for a republican is chris christie. he raised $1.6 million in the
ainsley: it was hot. connecticut hot this weekend. thank you so much, steve. a new report from the i.g. s committee which tracks the $5 trillion that congress spent on covid relief efforts is raising a few eyebrows. look at this. so there s $5 trillion of your tax dollars that went to covid relief efforts. they specifically tracked, this is just a case study. they looked at a small portion. 2.65 billion that went to six different communities around the country. and then, according to this report, they found it was too difficult to track and they weren t sure where the money went. so, let s talk to stuart varney about this the host of varney and company. is he over here sitting down with us. hey, stuart, how are you? good morning. ainsley: good morning. thanks for coming in. sure thing. ainsley: what do you think about this? it s a lot of money but understandable. should have records of where our tax dollars are going. stuart: here have you got vast government bureaucracy th
Has a good night and it cuts into your lead? or somebody else has a good night and cuts into his lead because that s what s happening. is he going down and a couple of them are going up. i think vivek has done a good job, frankly. i think others have done a good job so i haven t made up my mind. brian: so funny, in that interview, he also said that i asked ted kennedy a while ago who is the dumbest senator he? said joe, i said joe who? he said joe biden. i was good friends can ted kennedy. we have no way of i verifying t story. he said i don t think joe biden should debate. r.f.k. is very smart guy. he could get himself in a lot of trouble with that. ainsley: as the 30 or 40 point leader why we do it? if you want to know the truth, i don t think that he is capable of doing it but why we do it, especially because of that. many people feel the same way. but, look, the rewards outweigh the risks. i believe this is his did wheelhouse.