Donald Trump Meets With Woody Johnson, Jets Owner and G.O.P. Fund-Raiser

Donald J. Trump met privately on Monday with Woody Johnson, the New York Jets owner and a top Republican fund-raiser, as the presumptive nominee looks to secure the support of some of the party’s largest financial backers in order to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for his general election effort.

Mr. Trump confirmed the meeting in a brief interview with The Times.

“Woody’s a great guy,” Mr. Trump said. “Woody will support me. He’s a terrific guy, he’s been a friend of mine a long time.”

Mr. Johnson supported Jeb Bush during the Republican primary, a decision he made early in 2015, at a time when many people were still uncertain whether Mr. Trump was mounting a serious campaign. An aide to Mr. Johnson declined to comment on the meeting.

The move came as Mr. Trump begins to build a fund-raising operation in order to raise roughly $1 billion through a joint fund-raising agreement among his campaign, the Republican National Committee and 11 state parties.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Johnson were social friends for years before the 2016 campaign; Mr. Johnson was among the people who approached Mr. Trump about supporting Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential campaign, the New York developer said.

But during the lead-up to this year’s New Hampshire primary, Mr. Trump repeatedly pointed to Mr. Johnson as an example of the type of donor whose special interest money he was not interested in.

“First of all, I actually feel that I could run the same kind of campaign that I ran before,” Mr. Trump said, when asked about the old remarks. He spent comparatively little money in the primaries, which he lent his campaign or raised in smaller contributions, as people like Mr. Bush burned through tens of millions of dollars. “But we’re raising money for the Republicans, for the R.N.C., for Congress and the Senate.”

Mr. Trump is set to hold a fund-raiser at the home of his friend Thomas Barrack in California on Wednesday night. And he has been trying to woo other major donors, even as some of the party’s large bundlers say they will sit on the sidelines.

Joe Craft, a Kentucky coal magnate, and his wife, Kelly Knight, met with Mr. Trump last week for an introductory session.