Tensions between President Donald Trump’s senior political aides and a pair of his most important donors are threatening to upend plans for an outside political group expected to play a key role in advancing his agenda.

Now, just days after Trump’s inauguration, the donors expected to provide much of the funding for the group — the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah Mercer — are considering abandoning the effort and launching an independent effort of their own, a half-dozen sources with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO.


It is unclear precisely why Rebekah Mercer became unhappy with the plans for the organization, though tensions surfaced between her and Brad Parscale, who served as the Trump campaign’s digital director, during a December meeting in Trump Tower. What is clear is that she may be nearing a breaking point both with Parscale and Nick Ayers, the Trump aides slated to run the group, as well as with Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus and his political guru Steve Hantler, who are expected to provide key financial backing for the effort.

The unrest has senior Trump aides, well aware of the risk that rival groups could hamper efforts to drive the administration’s message, scrambling to unite the disparate factions. “The Trump people are putting a ton of pressure on everybody to fall in line on this thing,” said a Republican source familiar with the conversations. Those efforts, however, may be floundering. “I don’t think the Mercers are going to be in this thing,” said the source. Others say a compromise agreement remains a distinct possibility; either way, a decision is expected this week.

Until recently, the Mercers’ support was considered a virtual certainty. Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm owned largely by the family and routinely employed to work on its political projects, had already begun doing work for the outside effort, according to a source familiar with the conversations, though it’s not clear whether that work is ongoing. The firm declined comment.

The Mercers are known for their desire to exert significant control over their political investments, something that has proven challenging, thus far, as Trump’s outside political group has taken shape. It will be modeled on the nonprofit organization created by the Obama campaign team after the former president’s 2012 reelection and is expected to be led by Parscale, who is a longtime associate not of the Mercers but of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Ayers, a senior aide to Vice President Mike Pence, is also expected to play a leading role, and has a more congenial relationship with Rebekah Mercer.

The chaos surrounding the outside group and the potential for the creation of multiple vehicles that would drive Trump’s message is drawing comparisons to the disorder that characterized the cluster of super PACs created to support Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, one of which was controlled by the Mercers. The unique structure, by which individual donors or donor families were allotted a super PAC, was intended to ease donor angst over how their money would be spent by granting them control over it.

The structure made message discipline virtually impossible, and this feud raises concerns that the same problems could plague Trump’s outside political vehicles.

The president is already sending signals about who will have his support in the event the two factions part ways — something sources say could happen as early as this week.

Ayers, a senior aide to Vice President Mike Pence, introduced his boss at a pre-inaugural dinner last Wednesday at which Trump also spoke. His appearance behind the lectern was “interpreted as a clear sign that the administration is siding with him in this feud,” and not with the Mercers, said a second source familiar with the group’s planning.

A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Parscale, Ayers or representatives for the Mercers.

Donald Trump arrives Dec. 3 at a party at the home of Robert Mercer, one of his biggest campaign donors, in Head of the Harbor, N.Y. | AP Photo

For Trump, who has long boasted of his independence from political donors, it’s a move that may affect his relationship with the Mercers, a notoriously prickly father-daughter duo. The two initially backed Cruz in his primary race, and their $13.5 million in contributions to a pro-Cruz super PAC were a boon to his campaign. But when Cruz refused to endorse Trump after dropping out of the race (he did eventually announce he planned to vote for him), the Mercers, in a rare public statement, told The New York Times they were “profoundly disappointed” in his decision.

The Mercers are among the most important donors in Republican politics; over the past decade, they have used Robert Mercer’s hedge fund fortune to boost and shape conservative organizations including the Heritage Foundation, the Club for Growth, the Federalist Society, Cambridge Analytica, and Breitbart News.

Rebekah Mercer played an integral role for the Trump campaign: Indeed, many of the president’s senior aides, including chief strategist Steve Bannon and counselor Kellyanne Conway, were her confidants before they were Trump’s. Most recently, she sat on the transition team’s 16-member Executive Committee, weighing in on Cabinet nominees and helping to shape the new administration.

They also have an independent streak and a history of disputes within the conservative world that mirrors the current controversy. “They don’t play well with others. They don’t want to have Brad Parscale and Nick Ayers tell them what to do,” said the first source.

Strains between the Mercers and Trump’s political aides are not new. POLITICO chronicled the friction between Rebekah Mercer and Parscale in mid-December, when, during a meeting about the outside group, Parscale interjected to make clear to her that the organization would be about Trump – not her family. “No disrespect,” he said.

