Trump can't explain why presidents lose midterms. He can, however, price a photo with him down to the dollar: $88,600.

That figure comes from an invitation to the RNC's September 9 and 10 midterm convention in Dallas, reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. A roundtable seat next to the president runs $250,000. JD Vance comes cheaper, at $35,000, less than half the going rate for the man actually running the country.

Congress isn't exempt from the price list either.

Puck News reports House members face a $25,000 minimum just to show up, with some top-tier packages climbing to $100,000. State parties have stacked their own fees on top of that, selling "honorary delegate" status for as much as $20,000, an odd purchase given that a midterm convention has no nominee to certify and no one seems totally sure what a "delegate" title even buys this time around.That confusion hasn't escaped Republicans themselves.

One consultant told HuffPost the whole thing wasn't even "a real convention," calling it instead "a grifter free-for-all." Texas Congresswoman Beth Van Duyne, serving as NRCC finance chair, offered the opposite read to TMZ DC, framing the fees as a show of party unity rather than a cash grab. Everyone, she argued, needs to help "support other candidates who are in very tough, competitive races around the country."Even the calendar seems to be working against the event. It opens the same day as the NFL season kickoff, putting Trump and Vance up against the league's biggest television night, and closes one day before the country marks the 25th anniversary of September 11. None of that has slowed the money coming in. The RNC says it's already banked $42 million and expects around 30,000 attendees, calling the whole thing fully funded.

Texas adds its own layer of irony to the picture.

The state is home to one of this cycle's most closely watched Senate races, where scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton is defending his seat against Democratic rising star James Talarico, who's already out-raised him nearly eightfold, pulling in $68 million against Paxton's $9 million. Hosting the party's biggest midterm showcase in the one state where a Republican incumbent is getting outspent by a Democrat isn't the confidence play it might look like on paper.

Trump, for his part, has made himself the centerpiece anyway, even with approval numbers stuck in the low 30s.

Campaigning for Senator Darline Graham in South Carolina last month, he worked the crowd with the energy of a man whose own name was on the ballot. That instinct runs through the entire convention: control of both chambers hangs in the balance, layered on top of public anger over the war in Iran and the rising cost of living, and Trump's answer to all of it has been to put himself at the center of a race he isn't personally in.

He's also been hedging in the same breath.

Talking with Fox News host Trey Gowdy on Sunday, Trump offered what sounded like a pre-written excuse for a rough November. "When you're president, whether you're a Republican or Democrat or whether you're a good president or a bad president, you lose the midterms, nobody knows why," he said, then added a line that doubled as its own personal brand pitch: "Some people like me more than they like the party."

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