Kimberly Guilfoyle pressed a MAGA donor to wire $100,000 to her American Express account days before her Senate confirmation hearing, according to newly reported text messages.
Guilfoyle, 57, the former Fox News host and ex-fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., sent the plea to Eric Deters, 63, a former Kentucky congressional candidate, on July 3, via Signal. Her confirmation as ambassador to Greece came less than three months later, on Sept. 18, by a 51-47 vote.
“Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” Guilfoyle wrote, according to The Wall Street Journal. She added a praying hands emoji and attached a PDF with bill payment instructions.
“You could just send it here,” she continued in the exchange. “It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express that’s all that will show. Please.”
Deters had promised Guilfoyle up to $1 million if she helped advance his legal and tax troubles with top Trump administration officials. He refused the six-figure request, telling her: “Your needing $100,000 urgent [sic] unfortunately is not going to work. I can’t do this without getting a divorce.”
Guilfoyle kept pushing. “I’ve been calling you for over a week straight,” she reportedly shot back. “You could be here meeting with [then-IRS Commissioner] Billy Long.”
She dangled loyalty as bait. “I’ll be your Trump ride or die, forever and ever,” she pledged if he paid.
Deters ultimately declined. “She never came through on anything,” he complained to the Journal.
The two had grown close after the 2024 election. Deters, a former Ohio morning radio DJ, asked Guilfoyle to help secure the extradition of an Ohio doctor who had fled to Pakistan after being charged with defrauding insurers by performing unnecessary surgeries on children. Deters was also battling an IRS investigation into a 2020 deduction from the sale of a stake in his family business.
Guilfoyle repeatedly warned Deters to keep their arrangements off written channels. “Eric, I really wish you would stop papering all these things. It’s really dangerous and not helpful to you or me while you could simply just call me on Signal,” she wrote in one message.
Her anxiety spiked after Trump nominated her. “What a nightmare, you’ll literally cost me my ambassadorship stop writing,” she fired off in January 2025.
The pair first connected in 2020 when Deters founded Freedom Fest, an anti-COVID mandate event. Guilfoyle collected $300,000 total to speak at subsequent editions alongside Trump family members. Deters also gave $125,000 to a pro-Trump PAC in 2022, per Federal Election Commission records.
Guilfoyle’s attorney, Jesse Binnall, told the Journal she disputed the authenticity of the messages but offered no specifics. Binnall did not respond to additional requests for comment.
An official at the American Embassy in Athens defended her to the Journal: “Guilfoyle’s career in and out of public service is guided by deep and abiding values. She was fully vetted by the bipartisan Senate Foreign Relations Committee and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The ambassador remains committed to representing the American people with dedication and integrity.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, traveling in Greece with Guilfoyle on Thursday, brushed off questions from reporters.
“You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it’s the gospel,” Rubio scolded as Guilfoyle stood nearby. “It’s not the gospel. It’s not the gospel for me. That’s not the way we do things.”
Guilfoyle appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee six days after her July 3 plea to Deters.