It’s not just that Trump is now courting major donors. (Sheldon Adelson, perhaps the most famous conservative donor not named Koch, has a column in today’s Washington Post explaining why he backs Trump, even though Trump has (1) bashed major donors and (2) been extremely aloof to Israel, Adelson’s major cause.) It’s also that he’s opening up to super PACs. Formally, Trump can do little to stop super PACs—according to the federal rules, it’s illegal for campaigns to coordinate with them. But candidates, including Trump, have found ways to send messages. In October, Trump demanded that super PACs backing him close up shop—though only after the Post spotlighted the close ties between the Trump campaign and one of the super PACs. In April, Trump’s campaign sent a cajoling letter to Great America PAC, a new super PAC backing him, complaining that the group could confuse backers and muddy his message.

More recently, however, after Great America hired former Ronald Reagan operative Ed Rollins, Trump seemed to be more accepting, calling Rollins “tremendous.” Rollins—who to be fair has a reputation for being a loose cannon with little regard for bosses—seemed confident about the PAC’s role, saying, “Usually a super PAC is frosting on a cake. We’re going to be part of the cake.”

Calling this simply a flip-flop lets Trump off the hook, though. Trump has made self-funding a major point of his campaign, proof that unlike his rivals, he’s not beholden to anyone. There are highly popular Facebook posts—

—and it’s been a staple of his stump speech. At Trump events, backers have repeatedly told me and other reporters that Trump’s self-funding and refusal to take money is a major selling point. Too often, the press was content to report those claims without scrutiny. In fact, Trump was never really self-funding—at least not in any traditional sense.

Trump has raised roughly $48 million so far, according to the Center for Responsive Politics—far less than Hillary Clinton, Sanders, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, or Ben Carson, including super PAC donations. More than $12 million of that—fully one-quarter of his total—comes from, you guessed it, donations to the campaign. Until last fall, they were the major fuel for Trump’s run. Politifact’s Lauren Carroll notes, “From the start of his campaign in April through October last year, individual contributions made up about 67 percent of total money raised for his campaign.”

That leaves the remaining three-quarters of Trump’s fundraising. For months, staffers kept saying Trump was about to start pouring money into his campaign, and for months that was largely a feint. Now he’s finally ponying up, but whether you call that self-funding is a judgment call. For one thing, a good chunk of the money that Trump’s campaign is spending is actually going right back to companies controlled by Donald Trump, as payment for services rendered. The New York Times reported in February:

About $2.7 million ... was paid to at least seven companies Mr. Trump owns or to people who work for his real estate and branding empire, repaying them for services provided to his campaign. That total included more than $2 million for flights on his own planes and helicopter, a quarter of a million dollars to his Fifth Avenue office tower, and even $66,000 to Keith Schiller, his bodyguard and the head of security at the Trump Organization. While the convoluted accounting is required by law—so that Mr. Trump’s companies do not make illegal corporate contributions directly to his campaign—it also means that Mr. Trump is in effect taking millions of dollars out of one pocket and depositing it into another.

For another, the money Trump has “spent” on his campaign has been not in the form of donations to his campaign, but in the form of loans. As Trump—a man who has strategically declared bankruptcy through his companies four times, and who has been deep in debt—knows well, the thing about loans is that you’ve got to pay them back, unless of course the lender forgives them.