A new analysis has found that just 50 individuals and corporations have poured more than one and a half billion dollars into political races this year – with hundreds of millions flowing to BOTH major parties. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: A new analysis has found that just 50 individuals and corporations have poured more than one and a half billion dollars into political races this year with hundreds of millions flowing to both major parties. I gotta say, they’re both making a ton of money. Timothy Mellon, this was a guy who was born into the right family. Never, I mean, he’s an heir to the banking fortune. Never done anything in his life. Literally, if you look at where his life has started and you say, okay, you’ve got this huge fortune from the Mellon family. What have you done? What have you done constructively in the United States? Go look that up. And you know what you’re gonna find? Nothing. Nothing. But Timothy, he wants to give to the Republicans, God, the numbers are staggering, $165 million, $125 million, $25 million. Just these huge checks he’s writing to the Republicans. Now on the other side, you’ve got Ken Griffin and you’ve got Michael Bloomberg.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Bloomberg is the biggest individual donor himself, individually, $41 million, which seems weird because it’s smaller than the amounts you said, but that is to a specific candidates political action committee. So Bloomberg does hold the record of being the biggest single person trying to pay people off, because let’s be clear, that’s what all this is. Bloomberg, even though he calls himself a Democrat, he doesn’t want regulations. He’s got these media outlets, he’s got his vast fortune. He wants no regulation, so he can do what he wants. Same thing with Mellon, same thing with Griffin. Same thing with all of these other, you got the crypto industry now.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, I was just gonna say, these people are coming out of nowhere.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: The numbers that they’re, talk about it.
Farron Cousins: It’s just so weird because these crypto companies now worth billions for something that doesn’t even exist. We talk about Wall Street not creating any value. These people created something that not only just has a value that they say it has, but doesn’t, it’s not even real. It is by all accounts imaginary.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. It is imaginary.
Farron Cousins: And so they’ve got billions of dollars and they say, well, hey, there’s not a ton of regulations on the crypto industry right now, and we want to keep it that way. We want to make sure people don’t realize that we’re selling them fairytales. So let’s just pay everybody off.
Mike Papantonio: Okay, of the two parties, who is the most likely to give them support?
Farron Cousins: Honestly, I don’t know. I really couldn’t say at this point because I think in terms of these areas that are not tightly regulated yet, I think both parties could go the path of no regulation, just like they’ve done with tech.
Mike Papantonio: I think it’s the Republicans.
Farron Cousins: Do you?
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. I think you’re gonna get so much money moving into the Republican party because of these freaks that, as you say, they’re selling a fantasy. It’s not even real. They’re selling air. But they’re making so much money selling air, and they’re gonna pump it in the Republican party. Of the two parties, there’s no question in my mind that the Republicans are getting more billionaire money of the two. I don’t really think it’s close even though this article, Common Dreams, tried to say it sounded like it’s a close call. I don’t think it’s a close call. And I think as the election heats up, you’re gonna see an astounding amount of money moving over to the Republican party.
Farron Cousins: Right. Because this right now we’re not even seeing the tech guys.
Mike Papantonio: Exactly.
Farron Cousins: And their large amounts because again, that’s an industry hugely not regulated.
Mike Papantonio: They haven’t made up their mind.
Farron Cousins: I think you’re right. I think they’re trying to hedge their bets a little bit right now because they’re looking at the same polls saying we don’t know who to give to. But what’s gonna happen I think, is they’re gonna start looking at the Senate races because Google is actually, as much as Ted Cruz goes after them, they’ve been a huge funder of Ted Cruz. So what they’re gonna do, I think they’re gonna start picking the smaller races, buying off little politicians here and there. It’s much cheaper that way. And that way whoever gets in the White House, well, we own all these 435 people.
Mike Papantonio: I think it’s gonna get to where it’s gonna be two to one Republican billionaire money coming to the party for this election.
Farron Cousins: It’s gonna happen soon.
Mike Papantonio: In the next in the next nine weeks.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Farron, thanks for joining me. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week, but you can tune in and subscribe anytime you want. Every week we give you the stories that we think corporate media can’t tell you. They can’t tell you those stories because they’re owned and operated by the advertising dollars. If an advertiser says, you told that story, we’re gonna pull your dollars because of it. Or they’re so tied to a political party that they don’t have the ability to color outside the line. If they’re Democrat or Republican, they can’t color outside the Democrat or Republican lines. As you probably have seen, if you follow this show, we don’t have that problem. So I hope we’ll see you next time. I’m Mike Papantonio. This is America’s Lawyer.
