Trump accused of swindling millions from his fans for a bogus 'election defense fund'

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to promote his latest book, longtime political observer and author Joe Conason accused Donald Trump of bilking his MAGA followers out of millions for an election integrity project that never got off the ground.

Speaking with the hosts about his new book, "The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism," which comes out on Tuesday, Conason made the case that the former president is neck-deep in grifting.

Speaking with co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, Conason explained, "So the book sort of tells a story of how conservatives got to the point where they are milking their own constituents for every penny they can squeeze out of them on false pretenses in almost every case."

"The epitome of this, of course, is the former president, who booked a quarter of a billion dollars after the 2020 election by telling people he was going to set up an official election defense fund," he continued. "And, of course, the money didn't go to that, but they pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars in two months after the election, and it was going — it ended up in a super PAC that he controls and that he can spend on anything, including, of course, his legal defense, not election defense, his legal defense, his personal legal defense."

"But this is a syndrome, a problem on the right that lot of conservatives have discussed," he added. "You know the foreword to the book is by my friend George Conway, who I think you guys know, he is an honest conservative. Like many honest conservatives, is appalled by the dishonesty, the grifting, the scamming that is just rampant in their movement now."

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