Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson argues that President Donald Trump has no intention of deploying his "MAGA money pile" to protect Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections.

Writing on his Substack on Tuesday, Wilson — a onetime Republican operative who co-founded the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project after a career producing campaign ads for GOP candidates — contended that Trump's deepest loyalty is reserved for one thing above all: cash.

"Donald Trump likes money," Wilson wrote. "He likes it more than he likes anything else in this world, including his children. That love of cash has manifested itself this year in an epic tidal wave of political corruption."

The fundraising numbers frame his argument: MAGA Inc. is holding roughly $400 million as the midterms draw nearer, while the Republican Party has about $160 million. MAGA Inc. is the principal super PAC backing Trump, and like all super PACs it can raise unlimited sums — a contrast with the contribution caps governing candidates and party committees, the traditional vehicles for financing the advertising, voter-turnout operations and direct candidate support that midterm campaigns run on. Against that backdrop, Wilson said it is unlikely Trump would use MAGA donations to help secure a Republican majority in the House or Senate.

"Yes, he's raked in billions from crypto scams, from selling pardons to criminals, from side deals to enrich himself, his family, and a host of other scummy and entirely predictable actors," Wilson wrote. "Why not collect more from the suckers funding MAGA Inc?"

At the center of Wilson's analysis is his claim about how Trump regards the money itself.

"We're missing something about the MAGA Inc. money," Wilson wrote. "Trump believes it's his. In his mind, it wasn't raised for the party. It wasn't raised for candidates. It wasn't raised to ensure an electoral victory this fall. He thinks it was raised for him, literally and personally for him. Sure, that's an ugly and stupid category error, but why would you expect anything different at this point?"

Wilson then turned to what he described as Trump's fundamental difference from every previous Republican candidate.

"Trump also has one thing going for him that no other Republican candidate has ever had. He isn't really a Republican," Wilson wrote. "Donald Trump is a member of the Trump party, a party dedicated to one man, and a singularly self-obsessed man at that. So put yourself inside that rattled, sloppy brain for a moment. You see a political tidal wave coming for the GOP. You're sitting on nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars that might not even save them. What do you do?"

The backdrop Wilson invokes is a familiar one in American politics: the party holding the White House has historically lost congressional ground in midterm elections, and this fall's contests will determine control of both the House and the Senate.

His answer was blunt.

"If you're Donald Trump, I'll tell you exactly what you do. You spend it on yourself. You transfer it into your own pockets," Wilson added. "Trump doesn't care whether Republicans win or lose, except insofar as losing might be a slight inconvenience in terms of investigations."

However the standoff over the money resolves, the paper trail will be public: as a super PAC, MAGA Inc. must disclose its expenditures to the Federal Election Commission, making the scale and destination of its spending a matter of record as the midterms approach.