Donald Trump and his apologists have spent the last two weeks seeking to tamp down public outrage around the release of his 2005 comments bragging about sexual assault. They assert that Bill and Hillary Clinton's actions speak louder than Trump's sexually explicit "locker room talk."

Taking his argument at face value that actions are more important than words, it's Trump's lack of action that's caused his campaign to go on life support. With only three weeks until Election Day, and difficult choices to be made about deploying severely limited resources, the most important person who hasn't stepped up and done their part to fight for a Republican victory is Trump himself.

One of the strongest arguments Trump made during the primary in support of his own candidacy was his promise to self-fund. In focus group after focus group, with voters across the ideological spectrum, the pledge proved widely popular. It gave his supporters — and many rank and file conservatives who viewed Trump with skepticism — comfort that Trump possessed the means to fund a competent campaign, despite Trump's dismissal of a typical finance or campaign infrastructure. Even establishment Republicans were heartened by the notion that, if nominated, Trump would not divert resources from the rest of the Republican ticket.

As winter turned to spring, Trump secured the nomination and his campaign made no attempts at online or direct-mail fundraising. This was a critical error on his team and a missed opportunity to seize financial support from a dedicated and fired-up grassroots base. Warning signs about Trump's lack of fundraising were dismissed by members of the press and justified by his apologists due to recurring assurances that Trump was worth billions and would self-fund.

As spring turned to summer, not only did Trump refuse to put significant sums behind his effort, but he structured his campaign to use donor money to reimburse himself for campaign loans. Predictably, high-dollar donors sat on their wallets and publicly questioned Trump's commitment to victory. They demonstrated little desire to fund an organization that came across as dedicated to subsidizing Trump companies as opposed to field offices, staff and basic campaign operations.

As Trump capitulated to pressure and filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to forgive his loan, he continued to use costly and inefficient Trump facilities, airplanes and products. This was occurring as Clinton's operation encouraged frugality with donor funds, similar to the Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and George W. Bush campaigns before it.

Now it's crunch time. Unsurprisingly, Clinton has the resource advantage to put more states in play with each passing week. The burden has fallen to the Republican National Committee to finance, organize and execute a national ground game in support of Trump as well as endangered House and Senate Republicans across the country. Establishment Republican donors, most of whom were ardent supporters of Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, have stepped up to give significant funds to Trump victory programs with the RNC. Some are even funding a top-tier super political action committee effort in an attempt to soften Clinton's support in targeted Senate states.

Despite Trump's claims to be worth $10 billion and his insinuations that he owns a store worth more than Romney, Trump has put only slightly more of his own money into his campaign than Romney dedicated to his first campaign in 2008. When you take into account all the campign money squandered on Trump companies, Trump may actually spend less than Romney did in 2008.

It was clear months ago Trump would need to put at least $200 million of personal funds into his general election campaign if he wanted to win. He didn't. Now, with his campaign on the ropes, two viable paths remain in the coming weeks. Trump can either dedicate around $100 million more of his own money into targeting married women and independents in order to keep Clinton's numbers down in targeted states, or he can refuse to put significant money into his campaign, keep up offensive attacks that drive away swing voters and drag Republican House and Senate candidates down with him.

For the sake of the Grand Old Party's fortunes on Capitol Hill in 2017, let's hope he doesn't choose the latter. Without an immediate infusion of personal cash and disciplined campaigning all we'll be left with is Trump's words about women. While they have been deplorable, it's clear his political acumen is also awful.

Charlie Spies previously served as counsel to the Republican National Committee, Mitt Romney's 2008 campaign and Jeb Bush's Right to Rise USA super PAC. He currently leads Clark Hill's national political law practice and is member in charge of the Washington, D.C. office. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.