In politics, just as in business, talk is cheap — follow the money. As predicted, Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential nomination, which officially kicked off the primary season. John covered the details of the announcement last night, which turned into an hour-long rally speech but without the rally.

That left some observers (including many of our commenters) underwhelmed in terms of presentation. As I had written earlier, that seemed like an odd choice, especially for a showman like Trump. He has a natural affinity for large audiences and is far more dynamic and entertaining in those venues than at a static podium on his own. The optics of being cheered by the hoi polloi into another run rather than the announcement to a privileged few at Mar-a-Lago would have presented a more appealing image, and a less insular one at that.

The rallies will come, but that’s mainly talk, and again … talk is cheap. What about the money? That may not come, at least not in large chunks as it has in the past for Trump. Axios reports that a second megadonor, and the most influential of Trump’s money men, has called it quits:

Stephen Schwarzman — chairman, CEO and co-founder of private-equity giant Blackstone — says in a statement to Axios that he’s defecting from former President Trump for the 2024 presidential race.

Driving the news: “America does better when its leaders are rooted in today and tomorrow, not today and yesterday,” Schwarzman says.

• “It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries.”

Why it matters: This is a major defection by a GOP megadonor who was close to Trump — very engaged with him on trade issues — and had real pull in the Trump White House.

Schwartzman’s decision follows that of Ken Griffin, the hedge fund CEO that aspires to push his way to the top of GOP funders. Griffin has been more of an ecumenical donor in the past, wants to go all-in on the GOP in the next cycle. Two days before the midterms, when many still expected Trump’s primary candidates to win their elections, Griffin announced that he would back Ron DeSantis in 2024 no matter who else ran — and even though DeSantis hadn’t said a word yet about a presidential run. After the midterm red ripple, Griffin called Trump “a three-time loser” in an interview with Bloomberg as well.

This is less of a defection than a lost opportunity, though; Griffin never was a big Trump donor. Politico notes that the only money Griffin gave Trump was for the inauguration ($100K). However, Griffin does intend to spend big on DeSantis, and hopes to do so to avoid a drawn-out primary battle. Griffin will likely use that bankroll to discourage other contenders, perhaps by agreeing to backstop campaigns for re-election in current offices.

If Griffin is on Team DeSantis and Schwartzman is dumping Trump, that’s two big fundraising sources out of reach for Trump. It’s also a lot of money in play for his primary opponents, and DeSantis already has one of the two on his team. And money talks. (Also worth noting: DeSantis already has nearly $100 million banked for the 2024 cycle, the leftovers of a $200M+ fundraising effort this cycle, even before Griffin pledged his support.)

How much do the megadonors matter? “Trump doesn’t need the money,” Axios declares, but that’s not at all clear. First, while Trump raises a lot of money, he also creates a lot of bills. Currently, or at least as of last night, the RNC was paying Trump’s legal fees for lawsuits and criminal investigations arising from his presidency and immediate post-presidency. That will come to an abrupt halt with his official declaration of candidacy. The RNC will have to remain neutral rather than merge again with the Trump campaign, not to mention that such payments would become “in-kind contributions” for a declared candidate, creating all sorts of legal mess for the RNC. That means Trump will have to start paying his own legal bills, and those bills are running into the millions of dollars.

Those legal bills and even the price of a presidential run may look like pennies for a multi-billionaire, but not with the nature of Trump’s wealth. Much of it exists as real estate, and leveraged real estate to a large extent. His hotels and resorts generate plenty of cash, but that goes to service the debt and fund his organization and Trump’s lifestyle. Trump is certainly liquid enough to live ostentatiously — a big part of his branding — but almost certainly not liquid enough to fund a modern presidential campaign even within a major party. He needs big fundraising as well as small donors to survive, not to mention the party organization to do the nuts and bolts of campaigning. (That’s why the RNC essentially merged with the Trump campaign early in the 2020 cycle.) If Trump has to pay for his legal bills either out of his own pocket or in the campaign, it’s going to handicap him significantly.

For this same reason, the threat of Trump going independent in the case of a primary loss is overblown. Even a great organizer would have to start building the kind of 50-state operation to make an outsider run competitive, let alone successful, and Trump’s political organizing skills are not his strongest suit. The cost of such an operation would be enormous; Ross Perot spent a lot of money on it, but he also cobbled together existing centrist small parties in states and regions to create his Reform Party — and it didn’t work anyway. Trump’s got plenty of wealth, but almost certainly not enough cash to make it successful even with an organizational genius leading the effort. And what cash Trump does have will get split between his lawyers and this new primary campaign effort.

Trump overcame some of these same obstacles in 2015, particularly on organizing deficiencies. However, at that time, Trump had the virtue of novelty and a unique insight into the rising populism on both sides of the aisle. Neither of those conditions exist in this cycle. Trump’s act has long since stopped being novel, and potential candidates like DeSantis, Glenn Youngkin, Greg Abbott, and others have caught up to the anti-establishment populist fervor of the times. Without money and without a fresh approach, Trump may wind up more of an underdog in this cycle than in 2015.