The Koch backed Americans for Prosperity Action Committee is basically
trying to find ways to defeat Donald Trump in the Republican primary.
So they've raised quite a bit of money,
tens of millions of dollars so far in order to do just that.
The political network established by the conservative industrialists Charles and
David Koch has raised more than $70 million political races as
it looks to help Republicans move past Donald Trump, and
that's according to an official with the group.
So, two groups closely affiliated with Charles Koch contributed
50 million of more than the 70 million that's been raised so far.
Koch is a major shareholder in Koch Industries,
which contributed $25 million to Americans for Prosperity Action,
according to a preliminary draft of Federal Election Commission filings.
Another 25 million was donated by Stand Together, a nonprofit he founded.
Now, other than Koch himself,
according to the preliminary draft of the FEC filings for Americans for Prosperity,
its major donors include Art Pope, a North Carolina businessman who attended
a policy retreat hosted by Vice President Mike Pence, who's got no shot in
this election before he joined the presidential race, Craig Duchossois,
I don't know how to say that guy's name, but anyway, a Chicago businessman.
You also have Jim and Rob Walton, brothers and heirs to the Walmart fortune,
and Ron Cameron, an Arkansas poultry magnate.
Now, on one hand, it is interesting to see these incredibly wealthy individuals go
after Donald Trump, who did them a massive favor by cutting taxes on the rich,
that was the one thing that Trump actually did accomplish during his first term,
which was the 2017 tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
But they see him as a destabilizing force within the country, so
that's why they want to defeat him.
I actually think this is gonna end up helping Trump,
especially if he campaigns on it.
>> Yeah, and he will.
He's not a Democrat.
He's already out there hitting them and see Bannon is out there hitting them.
I think that this could be an enormous silver lining in this story.
Hold for that, so, first, on the analysis of the core of the story, so
we've been telling you all along that the donors are totally against Trump,
the Republican donors, let alone the Democratic donors.
And so why do you think that we've got all these Republican politicians all of
a sudden willing to speak out against Trump like Chris Christie is?
Because the donors are saying, here's a couple of here's stacks of bills,
go fight the son of bitch.
They always do what their donors tell them to do, period, period.
Chris Christie isn't like a man of extreme courage, he's a man who spoke to donors,
and they promised them millions of dollars to go attack Donald Trump, okay?
So that's just reality.
I like what Chris Christie is saying, but that's definitely the motivation.
If his donors told him, don't you dare attack Trump,
he wouldn't say a word, okay?
That is how corporate politicians work.
And 90% of politicians are corporate.
And that phenomenon makes a difference, the money makes a difference
that it influences politicians and it influences media.
And now all of a sudden, Fox News hitting Trump over and over again, right?
So that you see the money flowing through the system, so don't discount it.
Now, having said that, Trump has a giant megaphone.
The number one thing that money buys you is media, right?
But Trump already has so much media that when he screams back at him,
he kind of takes their head off.
So 70 million bucks ain't gonna do it, okay?
>> Right. >> Against a guy who has
one of the largest megaphones in American history.
>> Americans hate corruption across the board.
Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, progressives, it doesn't matter,
voters understand that our politicians have been captured by corporate donors.
So if Trump plays his cards right and he did this in 2016 with drain the swamp and
all of that, he could just point to this and be like, look at these billionaires
trying to defeat me, look at the corruption that they're engaging in.
He can argue that he's not corrupt.
Now, we all know that all this stuff is flat out lies, but
it doesn't matter because that messaging resonates with voters.
So he could take this.
He could make a giant picture of lemonade out of these lemons.
>> So let me give you examples of how this can go and how it's gone in the past.
So Ana is 100% right, and I think that's where the silver lining is gonna come in.
So Trump has said this in the past, and he's not shy about it.
He says, Goddamn corrupt donors, drain the swamp, right?
And the right wing goes nuts.
And here again, in my book, Justice is Coming,
I gave a lot of credit to right wingers for hating corruption, and
I would argue hating corruption more than Democrats.
So when you tell a Democrat, Nancy Pelosi's taking a billion dollars,
they're, that's awesome, she's an angel, it's no problem at all, right?
For Republicans, when you tell Mitch McConnell's taking a billion dollars,
they're like, no, he's corrupt, okay?
So give him credit where credit is due.
But since no Democrat ever talks about the donors because 90%
of the party takes donor money, so they're just as guilty, and
the other 10% are, my colleagues, I couldn't offend my colleagues.
Well, that leaves a feel to Trump being the only politician talking about
corruption.
By the way, that's not the silver lining, that's the disaster.
That's the iceberg headed in this direction where Trump is going to be
the only anticorruption candidate.
Now, guys, don't get me wrong, it's all fake.
Trump took over $100 million from Sheldon Adelson,
twice, and he did everything that Adelson asked for.
I devoted almost half a chapter to it in Justice is Coming.
He gave and gave and gave, Trump is massively corrupt and
he'll do anything the donors asked for.
But people don't know that.
Why don't people know that?
Because the Democrats are, don't attack him on Adelson,
we take donor money too, shish, shish.
Don't say anything about the donors, right?
>> Right, right the media- >> And the media, nothing,
where do you think the money goes?
All the money goes to media.
It all goes to ads and mainstream media.
So they're, don't talk about it.
Don't talk about the Koch, don't talk about ExxonMobil, don't talk about Pfizer,
they don't matter, their billions of dollars don't matter.
So since no one else is willing to talk about it because they're all corrupt,
Trump goes in and goes, I'm corrupt, I'm more corrupt than there, but who cares,
idiots.
I'll talk about corruption and how terrible corruption is and I'll win.
You idiots, right?
Okay, now finally, Jesus, where the hell is the silver lining?
The silver lining is he is teaching right wing voters that
the donors are the essence of corruption.
Now, if you ask Democratic voters, they'll tell you the same thing,
then they'll say a lot of them unfortunately,
half of them will say, but not our guys, our guys are angels, right?
The other half of Democratic voters are like, hell, no, our guys are corrupt too.
Of course the donor money affects them, right?
But if we can get the side of the Democratic voters that agree that
donor money is corruption, and then we get the right wingers
thinking donor money is corruption, we got a national consensus, okay?
Now, that national consensus will be fought by
the media the most because they are the epicenter of corruption, and
they'll be fought by 90% of the Democratic and Republican parties.
But if we got all the voters or most of the voters on our side,
that's a hell of a silver lining, okay?
So Trump is, in that sense, doing the country a favor by pointing out that
donor money is, by definition, corrupting when it's at this scale.
>> So speaking of that donor money, I mentioned, the 70 million, remember,
we're very early in the election cycle.
They are gonna raise more money in an effort to defeat Trump.
Let's take a look at how much they spent on the 2020 election cycle.
The network spent nearly $500 million supporting Republican candidates and
conservative policies in the 2020 election cycle alone.
And you might be wondering, well, who are they trying to endorse?
Who do they want to win in the Republican primary?
Apparently, they haven't made up their minds yet.
They're on the hunt for the preferred candidate here, but
they know it's not Trump, and they've tried hard to make it clear
that they don't even think that his nomination is inevitable.
Honestly, when I look at the field right now, things could change, of course,
I think it looks inevitable for the moment.
Again, things can change.
>> No, I think things can change.
>> Yeah. >> And it's mainly the court cases against
them and how devastating they are.
But if there were no court cases, there's no way these chumps are gonna beat them.
But those court cases are a hell of a curveball.
>> So, Michael Palmer, who's the president of the Koch affiliated
voter data group I360, said, just this month, the notion of
Trump's inevitability is being pushed by left leaning media outlets,
political operatives, and the Trump campaign itself.
It's being pushed by the Republican base and
who they say they prefer in the polling.
>> Yeah, he has a 27 point lead in the polling.
I hate Trump.
If you gave me a button right now to push it where Trump could never run
again I pushed it already, okay?
He's the very first guy I would get out of politics.
So silver lining or not no, I loathe him.
I think he would destroy democracy.
I think he's a mortal danger to our Constitution, right?
But he has a 27 point lead with Republicans.
So take it up with them.
We're not the issue.
Your own voters are the issue, and so you find them meddlesome.
You guys should fight and see how it turns out.