One of the tenets of Donald Trump's presidential primary campaign has been his distaste for lobbyists, the "special interests" they represent and the oodles of money they raise for politicians.

Now, those same much-maligned lobbyists are eagerly coming to Trump's aid, placing the presumptive Republican nominee in an awkward spot.

Jack Burkman, the founder of lobbying firm JM Burkman & Associates who last September took out a full-page advertisement in the Los Angeles Daily News calling Trump a "joke," is now organizing what he's calling one of the first significant fundraisers for Trump's general election campaign.

Slated for June 1 at his home in Arlington, Virginia, Burkman tells U.S. News he hopes to raise as much as $300,000 for Trump from 200 Washington lobbyists and 100 defense contractors.

Originally a supporter of Jeb Bush, Burkman says he was drawn to Trump after watching the first GOP primary debate and meeting the candidate last year. Despite the New York real estate mogul's rhetoric, Burkman believes Trump's instincts will "dovetail well with the lobbying community because he's all about getting things done."

"That's what lobbyists do – we get things done," Burkman told U.S. News in an interview Monday. "Remember, it's part and parcel of a broader trend. He's reaching out to the Washington establishment. He's got to raise money. Even if he wanted to spend his own, I don't think he could."

Trump has said he will not self-fund his general election bid like he did the primary and has tapped Steven Mnuchin – chairman of the private investment firm Dune Capital Management – as his national finance chairman to raise the nearly $1 billion he'll need to compete against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. A major fundraising effort will kick off later this month in Los Angeles, with an event at the home of investor Thomas Barrack Jr., according to The Washington Post.

But taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from lobbyists could undercut one of Trump's most appealing traits to his supporters: that he can't be bought or influenced by outside interests.

"Is it a bit of an issue challenge?" Burkman asks. "Sure, but it's all about pivoting to the general. You can't talk about the wall, either. I don't think you'll ever hear him say the word 'wall' again in his political career. Now there will be reach-out to Latinos. It's a new campaign now."

Burkman's comments are striking, because they reveal exactly the type of typical political gamesmanship Trump railed against during his rise through the GOP primary battle.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks says the campaign has nothing to do with the planned fundraiser.

"We do not know Mr. Burkman and Mr. Trump will not be attending," she writes in an email.

But Burkman says he hopes to change that after doing some outreach to the campaign.

He stresses that Trump will need a powerful band of lobbyists to activate their networks on his behalf in order to keep pace with Clinton's fundraising machine.

"Much more important than raising the money is [that] the people coming to this are people we want to start their own pyramid, build out this organization on K Street. They themselves will only be a fraction of that building, but they bring in all these other folks. They connect, they're connectors," he says. "We need to organize now and organize K Street and get Tysons Corner and the defense community involved."

Hicks did not respond to an inquiry about whether Trump would accept money from lobbyists, but the question presents a thorny one for his campaign as he moves into a new phase as the nominee-in-waiting.

Burkman says plainly that Trump has "no choice" but to do so. He also notes most of his lobbying colleagues aren't ideologically motivated; rather, they just want to know they'll be able to work with Trump if he makes it to the Oval Office.