NEW YORK _ President Donald Trump returned to one of his high-priced haunts in Manhattan to raise money for the Republican Party on Tuesday, as Republicans in Congress failed again to pass a health care bill and the Senate candidate that he and other party leaders favored trailed in a special Alabama election.
Trump dined with about 150 donors from New York's real estate and financial industries at the famous circus-themed Le Cirque restaurant on the Upper East Side. Some attendees paid six-figure sums for the company of a president who often decries what he calls Washington's pay-to-play "swamp."
The Republican National Committee and the Trump Victory Fund expected the event to raise about $5 million to help protect Republicans' majorities in the Senate and the House in next year's midterm election.
The White House declined to let reporters traveling with the president attend any part of the fundraising activities or hear Trump's remarks. In years past, reporters typically have been allowed to at least attend a president's speech at fundraisers.
Trump similarly held fundraisers at Le Cirque for his presidential campaign last year, and for decades he was a regular at the restaurant. It has fallen on hard times, however, filing for bankruptcy in March and slipping to a one-star rating from the New York Times' restaurant critic.
Donors paid a minimum of $35,000 for two tickets to attend the event. Couples who paid $100,000 were given "VIP access" and $250,000 bought two seats to a "roundtable discussion" with the president, according to Cassie Smedile, national press secretary for the RNC.
Among the attendees was casino and hotel owner Steve Wynn. Trump also met with RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, who took over the party after Reince Priebus left the RNC to be Trump's first chief of staff in January.
Trump's dinner came as Alabama's Republican voters were choosing their Senate candidate in a contest that was testing the value of Trump's endorsement. He campaigned for incumbent Sen. Luther Strange on Friday, but Strange, who was appointed to the Senate seat when former Sen. Jeff Sessions became Trump's attorney general, has continued to lag behind conservative challenger Roy Moore.
