Episode Transcript
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Did you know the average child spends
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at tpl.org/Earth Month. That's tpl.org/Earth
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Month. One
0:34
thing I've learned about presidential campaigns is
0:37
that you'll almost never catch a candidate in New
0:39
York City. Unless, of course,
0:42
they need to raise some money. And
0:46
last week, that was the case
0:49
when three U.S. presidents Biden, Obama,
0:51
and Clinton, all
0:54
gathered at Radio City Music Hall for
0:57
what the Biden campaign called, quote, the
0:59
most successful political fundraiser in
1:01
American history. And
1:04
we just have to take the word for it, in
1:06
part because we weren't able to get in. But
1:08
here's the gist. Tickets started at $250 on
1:10
the low end and $100,000 on the high end, which
1:16
got you a photo with all three presidents and
1:18
entrance to a private reception. There
1:21
were performances by Queen Latifah, Lizzo,
1:24
and an appearance from Stephen Colbert. In
1:27
the end, the campaign says it raised more
1:29
than $25 million. But
1:33
this wasn't just another gathering of the rich and
1:35
famous. It's an example
1:37
of something the Biden campaign has done really
1:39
well, courting big donors
1:42
and just in general, raising a lot
1:44
of money. In
1:47
February alone, the Biden campaign
1:49
and the Democratic Party raised $53 million,
1:53
bringing their total cash on hand as of
1:55
the beginning of March to $155 million. That's
2:00
more than 50 million ahead of where
2:02
Donald Trump and the RNC say their
2:04
current fundraising totals are, which,
2:07
theoretically, should allow Biden's
2:09
campaign to build out a more
2:11
robust operation than their opponents. But
2:14
to this point, Biden's money
2:17
advantage is yet to solve his
2:19
political problems, like
2:21
weak poll numbers against Trump, continued
2:23
concerns about his advanced age, and
2:26
the enduring critiques of the administration's role in
2:28
the war in Gaza. That
2:30
cropped up at Radio City, when
2:32
activists disrupted the event several times.
2:36
So, with the general election in its early
2:38
stages, I wanted to check in
2:40
on the dollars and cents of 2024, on
2:44
Biden's impressive totals, Trump's
2:46
financial situation, and all
2:48
the things money can't buy. Today,
2:51
it's all about the Benjamins. From
2:55
The New York Times, I'm Estet Herndon. This
2:57
is the run-up. So,
3:02
I've been going to political fundraisers
3:04
for over two decades, and
3:07
I will tell you that night was electric. I
3:10
wanted to talk with someone who did get in to
3:12
that Radio City event, and solve
3:15
it with some, like, snoopy questions, like, did
3:17
you see anybody cool, or were
3:19
the, like, biggest celebrities of the presidents themselves?
3:23
Well, without a question, you know, the
3:25
biggest celebrities of the presidents. This
3:27
is Robert Wolff. He sat in
3:29
the orchestra. I have to admit,
3:31
you know, for me, I went with my wife, and
3:33
it felt like a great date night. You
3:36
know, we don't come to the city all that
3:38
often, and so it was
3:40
great to see, you know, Queen Latifah
3:42
before, and Lizzo, and Ben Platt, and
3:45
people that, you know, I wouldn't necessarily
3:47
go see perform. And obviously, Colbert, as
3:49
the moderator, you know, he's gonna be
3:52
funny, right? There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek
3:54
there. So for me, it was
3:56
kind of like, it was just a fun night.
3:59
Wolff is a... Democratic fundraiser and
4:02
Wall Street veteran. Most of my
4:04
career I was on Wall Street at Solomon
4:06
Brothers for about a decade and
4:09
then I moved to UBS where I was there
4:12
18 years as the former CEO and
4:14
chairman of the Americas and
4:17
president and COO of the investment
4:19
bank globally. Wolf was
4:21
an early fundraiser for Obama, an informal
4:24
advisor to his presidential campaign and
4:27
like a lot of big donors. He
4:29
later served in Obama's administration including
4:32
on the economic recovery advisory board
4:35
after the 2008 financial crisis. He's
4:38
also what's been called a bundler. I
4:41
can't say I love the
4:43
name but bundler
4:45
is you raise money and then
4:47
you raise other people so let's
4:49
just say I am
4:51
going to an event and I
4:53
asked 10 other people to give you know
4:56
10 grand each and they do then
4:59
Robert Wolf will have not only
5:01
his 10 grand assigned to him
5:03
but also that extra 100 grand
5:06
and if you raise x amount of money
5:08
you get invited to fun things. It's
5:11
a way to supercharge your ability to
5:13
donate as an organizer of other people's
5:15
money along with your own. Correct and
5:18
I'm not a bundler today. Now
5:20
Wolf serves on the Biden
5:22
campaign's national finance committee an
5:24
elite group of some of its biggest donors. So
5:28
he's well known in democratic circles and
5:30
is well appreciated for his insights
5:32
and his wallet. I thought
5:35
he would be a good person to give me the lay of the land
5:37
when it comes to big money in politics. How
5:40
does it work and what should we
5:42
expect when it comes to big donors and President
5:44
Biden? So I had the
5:46
honor of seeing President Biden where
5:49
I was able to chat with him in January
5:51
out of fundraiser in New York City. For me
5:53
I'm not there to ask for anything. Okay
5:56
I'm there to thank him to
5:58
let him know you know. Thank him
6:00
what he's doing on gun violence or thanking what
6:03
he's doing with respect to Ukraine My
6:05
wife and how does that how much money does
6:08
that take it was expensive? Can I know how
6:10
much I think I Think
6:13
we wrote a check that night
6:17
It was high I
6:22
mean listen you can I checks as low
6:24
as a dollar and ten dollars I think
6:26
we wrote a check for like fifty thousand.
6:29
Okay dinner. Okay We've
6:32
we've spent money on politics over the last
6:34
20 years I was one of the question
6:36
I have is just how much Have
6:39
you spent do you think an aggregate and is
6:41
there a single thing? Is there is the $50,000
6:43
the most use written for? I think no, what's
6:46
the most one check you've written? I
6:48
think it was a hundred thousand for
6:50
what campaign Hillary's for Hillary's Yeah, and
6:52
how much do you think you've probably
6:54
given an aggregate? You
6:58
know, I think you can look
7:00
at the non-pack side or non-committee
7:02
side I mean my
7:05
guess is an aggregate. I mean my guess
7:07
is in excess of a million dollars. We've
7:09
given How did you get
7:11
into a political like giving and
7:13
fundraising period? Well, I appreciate that
7:17
You know back in The
7:19
early 2000s for the most
7:22
part it was called fire Finance insurance
7:24
and real estate And if you looked
7:26
at everyone giving the top
7:28
people the top companies were either finance
7:30
insurance or real estate at that time
7:33
You know, I was a senior executive
7:35
at UBS, you know being on
7:37
Wall Street being a senior executive It got you
7:39
the opportunity to meet a lot of people. So
7:41
I got involved early Specifically with
7:44
the Kerry campaign. Okay, I was anti
7:46
Bush. I was against the war I
7:48
had two young boys and I just
7:50
felt like at that time, you know,
7:52
it's not the direction I wanted to
7:54
go And so I got very
7:56
active with Kerry and then it's the list
7:59
you can't get off If you can get me
8:01
off of, let me know how. But it's the gift that
8:03
keeps on giving. And then I hosted
8:05
the first fundraiser for President,
8:07
then Senator Obama, in
8:09
New York in March of 07. We
8:12
raised a ton of money, and I
8:15
became one of his biggest fundraisers nationally.
8:17
Again, I guess, does that just like,
8:19
you just text your phone and say,
8:21
hey, I have this politician. I think
8:23
he's really interesting. What's actually the process
8:26
of translating your interest in somebody
8:28
to a larger group, and then the money
8:30
part? Yeah, so it was interesting. In 2007,
8:32
most of the Democratic Party was all in
8:35
Hillary. I
8:39
was able to meet Obama. I
8:41
aligned with a lot. It was like
8:43
that brocard. We're
8:46
both Ivy League guys. We both like sports. His
8:49
mother died of cancer. My dad was going through
8:51
cancer. All those things. She was against the war
8:53
part was big, too, especially. And then against the
8:56
war. And so what happened
8:58
was I just invited people like,
9:00
hey, you should meet this guy. And they all knew
9:02
of him from the 2004 convention. And
9:05
so with his famous speech, it's not red state,
9:08
blue state, whether the United States, so on and
9:10
so forth. And so what happened
9:12
was I became that
9:14
guy. People at law firms wanted
9:16
to meet him, even if it was just
9:18
to meet him or get their book signed,
9:20
that he had a destiny of hope or
9:24
take a picture with him. People wanted to get
9:26
to know this guy. And
9:28
it was a cheap date back then. It was only like $2,100. And
9:33
so they could meet him at
9:35
a fairly accessible price. Exactly. Is
9:38
it access driven? Like when you're
9:40
saying people want to sign a book, they want
9:42
to meet him, what is the incentive if
9:45
we're thinking about why people want to
9:47
give? I mean, politics is an aphrodisiac.
9:50
You're the most powerful person in the world. At
9:52
that time, most people did
9:54
not get the opportunity to meet a president
9:56
in their life. And here's a possibility to
9:59
meet someone. that could become the president. I
10:01
get what you're saying. Particularly when you were
10:04
getting started, what you were able
10:06
to connect people with is an ability to meet people
10:08
they wanted to, and they
10:11
have the means and access to be able to do
10:13
it through you. Yes, I mean, I became kind of
10:15
that guy. I mean, I guess, again, I'm still thinking
10:17
kind of broadly before we talk about Biden specifically. What
10:21
is the brand like for Democrats among Wall
10:23
Street right now, and how has that shifted
10:25
maybe over the time in which we're talking?
10:28
I think it was always about
10:30
40% were staunch Democrats, 40%
10:34
were staunch Republicans because of
10:36
Reaganomics, which is when I
10:38
started Wall Street in the 80s, and 20% would
10:40
go either way. That's kind
10:42
of surprising to me. I think of that as
10:44
more of a Republican crowd maybe. It's not because
10:46
there's a lot of other issues important
10:49
to them, and not everyone votes with their
10:51
pocketbook. I know that. They view
10:54
us as banksters, instead
10:57
of bankers. But what
11:00
I would say is that I
11:03
would say when it was McCain Obama, it
11:05
was clearly Obama got, I'd say 100% of
11:07
the 20%. When
11:11
it was Romney Obama, I would say
11:13
Romney was the majority of Wall Street.
11:15
He was kind of a Wall Street
11:17
guy, knew him all. I
11:20
think with Clinton and Trump, in my
11:22
opinion, I think Hillary and Bill just
11:25
are so well-liked in New York. My
11:30
gut tells me there were Republicans that
11:32
went her way, not for Trump as
11:34
well. And
11:36
then on the Biden-Trump, it's hard to
11:39
even assess because it was such a
11:41
crazy period. There was no real campaign.
11:44
I was gonna ask you about that. And I guess
11:47
I'm asking about right now, too. Is there a sense,
11:49
I've heard you previously talk about the
11:51
ways that you think the progressive wing
11:54
of Democrats has become too anti-Wall Street.
11:56
I'm wondering, were you few the Biden
11:58
Democratic Party on that? question and
12:01
do you think that the party right now
12:03
makes it easy for you to pitch them
12:05
to your fellow Wall Street folks? I mean
12:07
honestly I don't think we're front and center.
12:09
Wall Street's not who it
12:12
was and what it was. You know you
12:14
can raise money from anywhere in almost
12:17
any sector there is. I
12:19
mean media companies and everyone,
12:22
tech companies, I don't have
12:24
to tell you how many firms now lie.
12:26
Yeah I guess that's part of what I'm
12:29
asking. Yeah small dollar donations has the ability
12:31
to raise money from other firms. Yeah grassroots
12:33
are, it's more important to get grassroots money
12:35
than you know my couple grand
12:37
or whatever I give a little more than
12:40
that. But you
12:42
know what I would say is that
12:44
first of all Wall Street wants to
12:46
give their economic view they don't like
12:48
necessarily to get in the middle of
12:50
the riffraff because I think they're nervous
12:52
about being the meme or being in
12:55
a polarizing environment with their employees right.
12:59
I think voting is
13:01
very personal today
13:04
and there is no generic
13:06
Wall Street voter anymore. This
13:08
idea that you know
13:11
the progressives think that Wall Street's voting
13:13
with their pocketbook I think is BS.
13:16
You know they may care about climate more
13:18
than the progressives care about climate or they
13:20
may care about gun reform. Gun reform for
13:22
me is front and center. My
13:25
wife works at Sandy Hook Promise on
13:27
gun violence prevention and mental health and so
13:29
gun violence for me is front and center.
13:31
So y'all are one issue voters. Yeah
13:34
I would say there is no one issue
13:36
voter. It used to be because of Reaganomics
13:38
right, taxes right or
13:41
anti-regulation that's changed dramatically.
13:44
You know the other thing and this is going
13:46
to get some kind of Biden specifically is like
13:48
we have been talking to so many people about
13:50
how this election puts them in a kind of
13:52
pickle because for the majority of Americans they want
13:55
you know they talk about wanting other options or
13:57
Just being not happy with having the
13:59
same options. since the get. When
14:02
you're in those circles, hours house like out
14:04
of your community feeling about by the. right?
14:06
Now a are you wish community I'm for
14:08
That's a good question as I have two
14:11
sons in their late twenties and our leaders
14:13
of our me a very different conversation with
14:15
we do that we have a hair that
14:17
answer but I'm really specific to I was
14:19
thinking specific the fundraiser like is it's. Easy
14:22
to raise money for by the marina. The.
14:26
Answer's yes, it's easy because
14:28
I'm there's. now a campaign
14:30
August. It's Trump Verse Biden.
14:33
Arm and President Biden.
14:36
Was. Not candidate biden. So.
14:39
This whole idea of democratic bad
14:41
weather's or hey, he's gotta get
14:43
out I was totally the other
14:45
way I, in my opinion. You.
14:47
Know that that? Transition.
14:50
To be coming more of the candidates took
14:52
place at the state of the union is
14:55
and that stated the union and my opinion.
14:57
I thought he was fantastic. I think he
14:59
has a hot the next step. I love
15:01
that he's now out in about a like
15:04
that com Ela Vice President Harris I'm so
15:06
I've known her along. that was I guess
15:08
I think I love that she's out in
15:10
about and now we're in a campaign People
15:13
A more active and engaged yes I said
15:15
senior. I like the are
15:17
pointing to state of the union as that hands point because it
15:19
did feel like. There was like the bed wetting
15:21
has reached it's peak right before that, right?
15:24
Like there was whether it was the or
15:26
Aids questions from the special counsel, Whether it
15:28
was a kind of polling because I was
15:30
getting i want to go up as I
15:33
want to hear about people were people. Do.
15:35
you are you someone who feels the
15:37
anc when he blurring see it was
15:40
insane i was getting calls you know
15:42
why is he running do you think
15:44
he should run hey he's running let's
15:46
not even have that discussion let's talk
15:49
about he's running and who is gonna
15:51
be competing against and let's put all
15:53
of our inner in xiety into helping
15:56
him whence but i was fielding calls
15:58
non because listen people were saying You
16:00
know president Trump and Nikki Haley. They
16:02
were in campaign mode. Yeah, so Yes,
16:05
I was fielding it as said non-stop
16:08
age specifically or other stuff. I think
16:10
other stuff. I think age I think
16:14
there was just You know Listen,
16:17
there was a nervousness, you know, can anyone beat
16:19
Trump? The answer is yes And
16:21
now we're in a situation where it's
16:24
much more mono a mono and
16:26
we now have choices to make Yeah,
16:28
and forget about what was let's look
16:30
at what is let me ask
16:32
something different. Yeah Why aren't
16:35
your sons convinced? My sons
16:37
are very convinced Okay that
16:39
they will be voting for President Biden
16:41
versus President Trump But we
16:43
were talking you and I about the
16:45
excitement and the issues. Yeah, you know
16:47
our dinner table issues are about you know
16:51
You know Gaza and humanitarian. There's a big
16:53
debate going on in the Gen Z
16:56
Generation verse the older generation. There's
16:58
a debate going on, you know
17:00
on climate action verse I'm for
17:03
I'm glad that we're energy independent
17:05
like these debates are becoming talked
17:07
about more and more often Because
17:10
I said to you this idea that democracy is
17:12
on the line or these cultural issues are more
17:14
front and center They are more front and center.
17:16
I would have never thought when I was 27
17:19
or 29 and a half years old like my boys
17:21
I don't think about the things they
17:23
think about today Because you
17:26
know, they weren't front and center to me
17:30
one question I have is like do you see what
17:32
you do in terms of raising money as as
17:35
helping them get there to kind
17:38
of close that enthusiasm gap like Well,
17:40
how do you actually view the role
17:42
of like fundraising versus the work that
17:44
they have to do to pull this
17:46
off money's critical Let's not
17:48
underestimate that. Yes, both sides
17:50
will be able to have a lot of money
17:53
but Getting out the vote
17:56
getting data having the right
17:58
research being both on
18:01
paid media and promoted media. Having
18:04
a bunch of people work with
18:06
the grassroots, that's important. To think
18:08
that politics isn't local, to
18:11
think that you can do this national campaign and
18:13
win, that's
18:17
complete BS. People are tuning out.
18:20
Most people cut the cord. So the
18:22
people that you have to get to, you gotta be local.
18:25
So this idea that raising 26 million
18:28
is anything other than fantastic is ridiculous. Interesting,
18:30
because you know right now there's a lot
18:32
of talk about how Trump can't raise a
18:34
lot of money. How much do we think
18:37
a money advantage matters? How much
18:39
does a money disadvantage matter? You know Donald Trump has
18:41
no problem getting on media, right, like he has no
18:43
problem in that type of space. What do you think
18:45
the money advantage can do for Biden, what do you
18:47
hope is? So I think there's a bunch to unpack
18:49
there. Yes,
18:52
Donald Trump in some ways
18:54
owns the airwaves. You wake up to him,
18:56
you go to sleep to him. But those
18:58
are national airwaves. That's not where
19:00
voting gets done. So
19:02
the answer is yes. It's
19:04
important to localize the campaign.
19:06
It's important to tell someone
19:09
in a certain area how
19:11
they're helping your wages, or how they're helping with
19:15
climate action, or why it's important
19:17
that you're doing red flag laws
19:19
in certain states on gun violence.
19:22
The second part I would say is don't
19:26
underestimate President Trump. He's gonna
19:28
be able to raise his money. I've said
19:30
this the other day, Mar-a-Lago is not some
19:32
homeless shelter. Okay, so it's not
19:34
like he doesn't have billionaires okay
19:36
sitting there. The rumors
19:39
of Trump is broke or overblown. I
19:41
mean that's complete BS, right? Because you're
19:43
gonna have, his
19:46
tax policy is gonna be front and center.
19:49
And so these billionaires, that
19:52
some do vote one dimensional,
19:55
they're gonna make sure that he's got money to
19:57
run on. Yeah,
19:59
this is helpful because. because a lot of what
20:01
we're reading now is about the lack of funds.
20:03
You're saying you trust that in the end, maybe
20:05
it's because of tax policy or just because of
20:08
people's investment in Republicans. Folks
20:11
will give to him. I think, listen, I wanna
20:13
be clear here. I think
20:16
President Biden's gonna out-raise him. I
20:18
think we're gonna out-work him. And
20:20
I think having money early is important for
20:22
building offices. I hear what you're saying. But
20:25
if you're telling me that we don't think
20:27
that there's gonna be money in the RNC
20:29
or the Republican Party for a presidential election
20:31
where the Senate's important and the House is
20:34
important, we're kidding ourselves. Yeah, yeah. When you
20:36
look about the next six months, is there
20:38
a thing that worries you the most for
20:41
the prospect of Biden getting reelected? Listen,
20:44
I think if it's President Biden versus former
20:46
President Trump, I think we're in a good
20:48
seat. I don't think there's
20:50
more people voting for President Trump than in the
20:52
past, and I think it would be less. I
20:56
am worried about the third party situation
20:58
because we saw what happened with
21:00
Secretary Clinton. There was no question
21:03
the third party impacted Secretary Clinton.
21:06
And so, yeah, I'm nervous of
21:09
what a third party can, how
21:11
it impacts us. And if I ask the
21:13
most brilliant people or pollsters in
21:15
the world, they could not give
21:17
me an answer because they don't know. We don't
21:20
know. So, yeah, I'm a Wall Street guy. I
21:22
buy and sell things. I don't live
21:24
great in this gray area. Okay,
21:26
I just don't. And
21:28
this is kind of the last question. I'm
21:30
like, you know, Citizens United, Super PACs, there
21:32
was so much talk about the influence of
21:35
money in politics. What's your assessment of it?
21:37
Do you think campaigns are too
21:39
expensive? Do you think there's too much money in it? Do you
21:41
think that maybe money doesn't matter
21:43
as much as folks saying, and it's
21:45
a little overblown? No, yes, there's way
21:47
too much money in it. It's insane.
21:49
We're gonna spend billions
21:51
and billions of dollars on
21:53
this presidential election, and yeah, there's too
21:55
much money in it. And
21:58
for some, it's transactional being an emba- being
22:00
this that's not where I am but
22:03
I guess to most people this is
22:05
the most important thing that they think
22:07
about you know every four years so
22:10
you know it
22:12
seems like it's too much money at it
22:14
but then again if you're saying the most
22:16
important thing that happens every
22:18
four years I don't know
22:20
it doesn't seem that money for much versus
22:22
our annual GDP yeah yeah here is it
22:25
well thank you I appreciate your time thank you for
22:27
joining us thank you much appreciated after
22:30
the break the other side of the money
22:32
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comfort of home I'm Anna Martin the
23:00
host of the modern love podcast
23:03
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23:06
intimate corner of someone's life and learn
23:08
about what love means to them 35 years
23:11
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23:14
with anyone else so we both kind of said
23:16
I love you pretty fast as long as they
23:18
keep the dance up I'll keep the dance up
23:20
and she felt the same way an instant connection
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it's a window into how
23:25
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23:27
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23:30
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23:35
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23:41
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23:43
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I remember just looking at them in
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awe almost like wow you
23:49
know so much that I couldn't even dream of
23:52
knowing about my brother you can
23:54
listen to modern love wherever you get
23:56
your podcasts After
24:00
talking to Robert Wolff, I wanted to
24:03
get a bigger picture of the role of money in
24:05
this race, especially on
24:07
the Republican side, where Trump has
24:09
been lagging behind in donations while
24:11
facing mounting legal bills. There's
24:15
also the $175 million bond he just paid,
24:17
the social media company going public, and
24:20
those $60 Bibles he started selling. Well,
24:24
thank you for joining us, sorry. How
24:26
far before it started? No, it's all good. It's all
24:28
good. So
24:31
I brought in my colleague Shane Goldmacher,
24:33
national political correspondent for The Times, and
24:36
the person I usually go to when I
24:38
have questions about money and politics. I
24:40
started by asking him what to
24:42
make of Biden's big money advantage and
24:46
Trump's financial struggles. It's
24:48
a big gap, and I think the issue isn't just
24:50
the size of the gap right now. It's
24:52
the potential size of the gap in the coming
24:54
months, because by all accounts, Democrats
24:56
are expected to raise more money in the
24:59
coming months than Republicans are. So that's the
25:01
gap now, and it's expected to get even
25:03
bigger throughout the rest of the race. What
25:06
is the cause of it? One of them is
25:08
just a general structural cause, which is the candidate
25:10
who's sitting in the White House tends to enter
25:12
the general election with more money. Why
25:14
is that? Just because people like giving money to the president?
25:17
Some of it is people like giving money to the
25:19
president. More important is that they have controlled
25:22
the party apparatus for the three years leading
25:24
up to the beginning of
25:26
the general election. Joe Biden has been raising
25:28
money with the Democratic Party for basically a
25:30
year at this point, and
25:32
it gives you an advantage because Trump was
25:34
raising in much tinier increments just to fight
25:36
through the primary. Just to
25:38
give you a sense of scale, during the
25:41
primary, Donald Trump was raising $3,300 increments.
25:44
So when that Republican primary, that's the most
25:46
he could raise from an individual person into
25:48
his campaign account. Joe Biden was
25:50
going around the country and raising in this
25:52
big mega committee, the shares of the Democratic
25:55
Party, $929,000 increments. You
25:58
end up with a lot more money if you ... and raise in that
26:00
big of a chunk. You're able to ask for more.
26:03
You're able to ask for more. You have smaller donors
26:05
that you can then fund by using those bigger contributions
26:07
to advertise, to get more small donors. It sort of
26:09
builds upon itself. Interesting. Why does
26:11
it cost so much, and increasingly cost
26:13
more, for these campaigns? I mean, theoretically,
26:16
these are two candidates the country knows.
26:18
These aren't people who have name recognition
26:20
problems. Why exactly are campaigns so expensive?
26:23
I mean, the number one answer is
26:25
television ads or the digital version of
26:28
television ads. And look,
26:30
you can spend an enormous amount
26:32
of money on television really,
26:34
really quickly. Just think about Mike Bloomberg's campaign
26:36
when he ran for president, right? He ran
26:38
for president for only a few months, and
26:41
he spent basically a billion dollars.
26:43
He was blanketing the television ads for a
26:45
period, but it is a reminder of how
26:48
high up that number can run. If you're
26:50
buying as many TV ads as you can,
26:53
it's basically an unlimited amount of spending that you
26:56
can go. And so, like, what is the
26:58
driver? The driver's television ads, first and foremost, and
27:00
digital ads that now run on television, right? Like,
27:02
a lot of people are streaming, but
27:05
yeah, running advertising is the overwhelming cost.
27:07
Everything else you hear about, our field
27:09
program, our ground game, it tends
27:11
to be fractions of the dollar spent on
27:13
advertising, on television. So, what is driving that
27:15
big advantage that you're talking about? Do we
27:18
know where the money gap is coming from?
27:20
Is Biden have a specific advantage among small
27:22
donors, big donors? Like, how will we break
27:24
down why he has so
27:27
much more money on hand? I think
27:29
there's important to think about in
27:31
two time frames. The first is right now, and
27:33
I think he has more money right now because
27:36
he's been tapping those bigger institutional donors. Those people
27:38
can give large chunks of money. The big Radio
27:40
City thing we saw last week. Correct, right? They
27:42
had 5,000 people in the room, so there's a
27:44
lot of smaller donors. You know what, there were
27:47
also people raising or giving $100,000 that they were
27:49
gonna get a picture with
27:51
the presidents, right? The next day, he had a smaller gathering
27:53
of 175 of his donors in New York City. Those
27:57
people got sort of personalized briefings the
28:00
entire senior campaign team. How
28:02
much did that cost? You had to, I
28:04
think, at least given 47,000 something dollars. That
28:07
is the entry level. The highest tier
28:10
for his bundlers, $2.5 million. Wow.
28:13
Now if you're raising $2.5 million, you might not be going
28:15
to a big group briefing. You might be getting the president
28:18
visiting your house on a fundraiser, but
28:20
there's enough people that at a roughly $50,000
28:23
limit, you
28:25
still have 175 of them coming to New York for
28:29
that personalized briefing. So your
28:31
first question, where is his advantage right now? It's
28:33
a lot of these major donors. They have been
28:35
tapped. They've built out a whole system. Jill
28:37
Biden, Jill Biden, Kamala Harris, Doug Emhoff.
28:40
They've been traveling around the country at
28:42
events and scooping up big checks, right?
28:45
In the coming months, though, there's
28:48
a wider expectation that Jill Biden's advantage
28:50
will be driven by smaller donors online,
28:52
that online democratic giving
28:54
has become almost habitual
28:57
for liberal donors who are amped
29:00
up about an election. Even about the
29:02
candidates they may not be excited about. They
29:04
give tons of money, right? Key Senate races
29:06
are flooded with money each cycle.
29:08
And whether the Democrats have household name or
29:10
not, they end up raising a lot of money. And
29:13
there's a wide expectation that online, even
29:16
if Democrats aren't enthused about Joe Biden, they're
29:18
gonna be enthused about giving money to
29:21
stop Donald Trump. Okay, okay. Let's focus now
29:23
on Donald Trump, someone who famously
29:26
has a lot of money until he
29:29
doesn't. Why is he struggling in fundraising so much,
29:32
considering he has historically done well with
29:34
small dollar donors? And it
29:36
seems like what you're saying, those donations are slowing
29:38
down. Why is that? Do we know? Yeah,
29:41
I mean, let me give you an answer. I want
29:43
to take one little step back, which is that like
29:45
Trump is facing multiple different financial challenges
29:47
all at once. It's hard to keep them straight.
29:49
It is hard to keep them straight. So number
29:52
one, you're talking about just like politics, like how
29:54
much money does he have in his campaign account?
29:56
And some of that is, look, he just got
29:58
through a nominating contest. and
30:00
he was raising money and spending money
30:03
to win the nomination, now less than
30:05
maybe some others have before, usually
30:07
at the end of that you end up with a little bit less and you have to
30:09
build up. And he hasn't had
30:11
that joint agreement with the Republican Party until
30:13
just now, basically, to raise those bigger chunks
30:15
of money. In fact, he's doing that. Just
30:17
this coming week, he has a big event
30:19
in Palm Beach that they've said they're gonna
30:21
raise 25, 30 million dollars. I
30:24
think they put out the number 33 million dollars
30:26
from a single dinner, because he's getting all
30:28
these people who have not given till now.
30:30
They're gonna come and, you know, a couple,
30:32
right, each member of the couple gives 800,000 dollars, that's
30:34
1.6 million dollars for that couple at that
30:37
dinner. Okay, so this is his answer to
30:39
Radio City. This is his answer, it's his
30:41
coming out party for those mega donor checks.
30:43
It's just coming this week. So
30:46
the first financial challenge is political
30:48
and he just has less money than Joe
30:50
Biden does. The second one is his legal
30:52
bills. And he has been spending, now we've
30:54
reported more than 100 million dollars since he
30:57
left the White House on legal bills, and
30:59
the pot of money he's been tapping for
31:01
that mostly has been this money
31:03
raised in the aftermath of the 2020 election. And
31:06
that money's almost all gone at this point.
31:08
Is that a different pot than the
31:10
money he was spending to win the primary? It
31:13
is, a completely different pot. So what
31:15
happened is, at the end of 2020, he
31:19
loses the election and he says, please
31:21
give to me, dear supporters, this thing
31:23
was rigged. And there's no evidence of
31:26
this yet, but I'm gonna fight this in the
31:28
courts, I'm gonna fight it everywhere I can, my
31:30
election defense fund. And Republican donors gave more money
31:32
to Donald Trump in the post election period of
31:34
2020, than almost
31:36
any period they gave during the actual campaign.
31:38
That is so wild. They were so, you
31:41
know, denying the election result
31:43
paid off for him. He
31:46
raised 250 million dollars online between
31:50
the day after the election And
31:52
the day that Joe Biden was inaugurated. So He spent
31:54
some of that money fighting, recounts, whatever. But you know
31:56
what? he pocketed most of that money, not personally pocketed,
31:59
but he put it. In a political action
32:01
committee and that huge chunk of
32:03
funds paid. Has been paying
32:05
his lawyers ever since then and so
32:07
that money has been spent down slowly
32:09
for we now quickly and quickly. And
32:12
the total amount of money last in
32:14
the account that's been doing that Save
32:16
America Is Political Action Committee is less
32:18
than Five million dollars This point, because
32:21
he's basically tapped out that posts twenty
32:23
twenty surge of money that he got
32:25
through people giving out of the election
32:28
denial space. Correct. Okay, and so he's
32:30
facing not just a political sort fall
32:32
versus Joe Biden, but the legal. Fund
32:34
that he than using to pay. Where's that's
32:36
also. Going. To and for for And
32:38
by the way, he's going on a trial soon. Yeah,
32:40
the cost don't go down Typically when you go on
32:43
a criminal trial and illegal problem have no signs of
32:45
slowing in terms of what the as to. Oh correct.
32:47
So the first one is that political, second, is this
32:49
legal and a third one. We have a little bit
32:51
of resolution right now, but it has been a big
32:53
one. has been like the bond he had to post
32:56
in order to keep all of his businesses active during
32:58
his appeal. On. One of the
33:00
many cases you face which is a
33:02
civil fraud case in New York and
33:04
that's just went down from what I
33:06
understand, The Times reported he posed one
33:08
hundred seventy five million dollar bond with
33:10
a civil fraud case which means that
33:12
the New York authorities can't see says
33:14
while he's appealing that larger four hundred
33:16
fifty million judgements against them to explain
33:18
what that means and more simple terms.
33:20
Jez is that third categories like. Can
33:22
he keep his businesses And can they keep
33:24
running in New York Because the risk was
33:26
that if he could not pay that he
33:28
would have to sell off the businesses to
33:30
pay said judgment? Yes of he has lost
33:33
the case and he's appealing that ruling. And
33:35
under New York law when you lose, you
33:37
still have to pay basically the penalty. And
33:39
so he thanked. The penalty is so big,
33:41
was four hundred and fifty four million dollars
33:43
in so onerous that I can't even get
33:45
a bond to do that And so that
33:47
has been reduced. So now one hundred and
33:49
seventy five million and he has since lined
33:51
up money and so. it's like you're
33:53
borrowing in order to appeal and eventually
33:55
look if he loses a d p
33:57
appellate court levon he loses at the
33:59
final the final court, then he
34:01
will have to make an actual payment, but for now we
34:03
can borrow a bond to like save off. And does that
34:05
actual payment have to be 450 or 175? As
34:09
of now, it's still the 450, but
34:13
some of the legal experts say the fact
34:15
that the bond itself was being reduced is
34:17
maybe a sign that eventually a final judgment
34:19
could be shrunk, but we don't know yet.
34:21
Well, we previously talked to Maggie Haberman about
34:24
how Trump's legal fees were basically consuming the
34:26
campaign in a way that you really just
34:28
laid out for us, but one
34:30
thing I couldn't understand is like, what
34:32
are those possible solutions he has to this? I
34:34
know we have seen some of the efforts with
34:36
things like truth social, his social media company, and
34:38
other ways he's been trying to maneuver. I remember
34:40
hearing about the RNC kind of having an open
34:42
question about whether they would do it. What is
34:44
his best shot to come up with some of
34:46
these answers? I mean, the number one thing
34:48
to remember is that he could, of course, pay for his
34:50
own lawyers with his own money. He's chosen
34:53
not to do so, so far, right? He has
34:55
chosen not to use his own personal finances to
34:57
pay for attorneys. All these buckets are separate from
34:59
Donald Trump's bank account. Like, he could
35:01
choose to use his bank account to solve the issue that
35:04
he's running out of money to pay his lawyers. He's just
35:06
running out of other people's money. It doesn't mean that he
35:08
doesn't have any money left. That is an important reminder. Right?
35:10
Like, he has his own set of money that he
35:13
has chosen not to use to pay his lawyers in
35:15
his multiple criminal cases because he had this big pot
35:17
of money from 2020. So option
35:19
one is you just pay
35:21
for them yourself. There's other more
35:23
complicated options like you
35:25
create a special legal defense fund, what are
35:27
the rules around that if you're an active
35:29
candidate for president? There are other
35:32
ways he can raise money into the pack
35:35
that has been paying the lawyers. And in fact, he's
35:37
done a small thing along those lines. Right? There
35:39
was a little float. Well, will the RNC actually pay its
35:41
legal bills? And they said no. Absolutely
35:43
not. But then that
35:46
first mega committee we talked about, you can
35:48
raise those really big checks. There's a sort
35:50
of order of operations of who gets the
35:52
money. The first always is the candidate. Right?
35:55
The candidate gets the money first. Typically second is the
35:57
party, like the Republican National
35:59
Committee. But in this case, Trump didn't actually put
36:01
the party second. He put his
36:03
pack second. And that pack isn't paying his
36:05
lawyers. So we see Trump coming up with
36:08
these sort of solutions. At this point, if
36:10
I were to give $100 to
36:13
Donald Trump's campaign, do we know how much of
36:15
that is going to save
36:17
America and the legal fees versus how much
36:19
is going to the actual job of winning
36:21
an actual election? Yeah, since early last year,
36:24
10 cents of every dollar that's been
36:26
given online has gone to that Save
36:28
America account, which is paid almost exclusively
36:30
for legal stuff. And so yeah, all
36:32
those small donors, it's 10% of
36:34
what they've been giving for the last year,
36:37
which is not an insignificant amount of money.
36:39
And it's helped pay for some of those.
36:41
Look, the intertwining of all these things is
36:43
real, right? Like to differentiate what is the
36:45
Trump legal issues with what is the Trump
36:48
political issues is kind of, it's
36:50
a fool's errand, right? One of his
36:52
lawyers was recently
36:54
co-hosting a fundraiser for
36:58
his super PAC, right? So
37:00
like, they're not totally
37:02
separate. They have been separate
37:04
in terms of like actual cashflow, right, the
37:07
campaign has not spent money on his personal
37:09
lawyers, but the idea that they're like separate
37:11
things, no, I think it's very
37:13
much the Donald Trump 2024 campaign is
37:16
happening in and around courtrooms. I
37:20
know this is a really unprecedented
37:22
situation that we're in, but like,
37:25
are these rules being made up as we
37:27
go along or like? That's an existential question.
37:29
Yeah, it is kind of, I'm like,
37:32
because we've never been here, like is
37:34
he just test casing new theories about how you
37:37
use money in politics? Like, is it just
37:40
completely uncharted? It's a
37:42
little bit uncharted. It's also that it's
37:44
not just him, right? We're in basically
37:46
20 years of candidates testing new theories
37:49
of how they wanna spend and
37:51
raise money in politics and very little
37:54
policing by the group that's supposed to
37:56
oversee them. So like, there are
37:58
rules that Trump is taking advantage. of that
38:00
others have plowed before him. There are rules that
38:02
he's expanding. But I would say that
38:04
this is not just a Trump issue. This is just
38:07
the broader regime of campaign
38:09
finance that how we run this stuff
38:12
is no longer a thing
38:14
that makes intuitive sense to a
38:16
regular American. You know, I wanted to ask
38:18
specifically about the true social Trump media as
38:21
he's turned into a source of revenue. I've
38:23
only been like kind of halfway following this
38:26
storyline. I guess like help
38:28
me understand how something can become such a campaign
38:30
boom. Or was it or has it
38:32
been? Yeah, so this is
38:34
his private social media company and
38:37
it just went public. And on
38:39
paper, Trump has become a multi-billionaire
38:41
in a way that he really hasn't
38:43
been. And so it's a dramatic increase
38:46
in his wealth on
38:48
paper. This is a stock that
38:50
when they have to also file all these official
38:52
reports now that you're publicly traded stock, you have
38:54
to reveal your books. And the
38:56
books don't look like a multi-billion dollar company.
38:59
There's nothing in the books that's like $4.1 million of
39:02
revenue last year that screams multi-billion dollar company,
39:05
but what it does have is supporters who
39:07
are buying this stock online and driving up
39:09
price. And we've seen this not just for
39:11
Trump. We saw it in like all these
39:14
meme stocks around. GameStop, AMC, right? And it
39:16
bears a lot of similar, the actual finances
39:18
don't merit the valuations that it
39:20
has on the market, but it is valued at
39:22
what it's valued at. Now Trump is the biggest
39:25
shareholder. And so again, multi-billion dollar windfall, but he
39:27
can't sell those shares yet. There's a bunch of
39:29
rules about how long he has to wait. And
39:32
so all of this is really like
39:34
theoretical money for him and certainly
39:36
very theoretical in terms of the campaign.
39:38
I would actually pretty much wall that
39:41
off because for now that isn't money
39:43
he has access to and it's not expected
39:45
to immediately impact the campaign. So that doesn't
39:47
impact those initial three buckets, but it gives
39:50
him money on paper that he can possibly
39:52
leverage to solve one of his many other
39:54
problems. Hope on the horizon. Gotcha, gotcha. Oh,
39:56
what about these $60 Bibles? Are
39:59
we should, should we just expect? a
40:01
level of Trump gimmick-y-ness to
40:03
raise money. I guess
40:05
I look at those things, and he's always
40:08
felt someone willing to grift, to sell, to
40:10
do whatever he needs to. Is
40:12
your sense that we're entering a moment of
40:14
desperation for them? And how's
40:17
that read the Bible? I wouldn't read it as
40:19
something different in kind. You
40:22
go back to 2016 when he was winning those
40:24
competitive primaries, and he had Trump branded stuff
40:26
all around him. He was using that as
40:29
a sales pitch opportunity. He went
40:31
to sneaker con to roll out his own
40:33
set of sneakers. He
40:35
has rolled out his own picture book. Yeah,
40:37
a Bible, I guess, is the next step
40:39
in the journey. The Bible is just, I
40:42
mean, it's hard to say, it's just the
40:44
next step, it's certainly a step, right? But
40:46
we've been on this pathway for a long
40:48
time. Trump's selling his name to sell things
40:50
and make a profit. And again, this
40:52
is money for him personally. This is not a Bible that
40:54
you buy it from his campaign. This
40:57
is just a personal private business deal that
40:59
he's entered into. Oh, this isn't even helping
41:01
these buckets. This is just helping his own
41:03
individual bank out, which he is not famously
41:05
tapping to pay the lawyers. Or
41:08
for his campaign, right? He has not put
41:10
money into his own political campaign. Basically,
41:13
since he became the nominee in 2016, he relied
41:15
on donors and the Republican Party ever since. That
41:17
was such a huge part of his brand when
41:19
he was running in 2016. It
41:22
was like, I am not owned by these people. I
41:24
mean, you talk to voters all the time, it is
41:26
still part of his brand. Republican voters bring this up
41:29
all the time. That's exactly what I was gonna say.
41:32
It's amazing how that brand
41:34
has lasted. But it hasn't
41:36
in our reporting seeped into anyone. And I was gonna
41:38
ask you, have you heard someone think,
41:40
oh, Donald Trump with less money is a
41:43
less appealing Donald Trump? I
41:45
mean, I think some of this is just sort
41:47
of the media silos and what is the information
41:49
that you're consuming. But I think on
41:52
a regular basis and traveling in Iowa, New
41:54
Hampshire and other parts of the country this
41:56
year, last year during the primary, bring
42:00
up his independence and say he doesn't need
42:02
to be running. He doesn't need the money
42:04
that he is not beholden the way that
42:06
Nikki Haley is beholden. He's not beholden the
42:08
way that Rhonda Santos is beholden. Meanwhile, he
42:10
is raising all the money from other people.
42:13
But it was that initial spend that it was
42:15
his own money and his vast claims of wealth
42:17
and his idea that he didn't
42:19
need their money. Even if he's taking it,
42:21
that has taken hold in such a real
42:23
way. It's hard to overstate how
42:26
important that's been in his appeal. I
42:28
think not just to Republican primary voters, but across
42:30
the board. Yeah, it is a core part of
42:32
the brand, even if it's gotten further from the
42:34
truth. I'm gonna ask, what
42:37
do you think are the long-term impacts of
42:39
this current cash crunch with Trump? When
42:41
it comes to the campaign, what will he not be
42:43
spending money on, what will he not see from the
42:45
campaign that otherwise, if he was flush, we would have
42:47
seen? We're
42:50
talking a lot about money, but I
42:52
think that money is often vastly overrated.
42:55
That's my next question. It's importance in
42:57
presidential elections in particular. I've covered House
42:59
races and Senate races, and in an
43:01
average House candidate running, they're not known
43:04
in their community. Even the best House
43:06
candidates aren't particularly well known. So
43:08
if somebody comes and sends a million dollars
43:11
on television ads, that dominates the average voters'
43:13
knowledge of those candidates. With Donald
43:15
Trump and Joe Biden, a bunch
43:18
of advertising isn't introducing you to
43:20
these two candidates. You know who
43:22
these candidates are. You even know
43:24
some of their positions on issues.
43:27
And so money is incredibly
43:29
important in American politics. It
43:31
is least important in
43:34
the biggest races. I guess with that in
43:36
mind, then, what does it do? It
43:38
does a few things. I mean, the number one thing I think
43:40
that it does is it allows
43:42
the candidate or the campaign
43:45
with more money to expand the map of
43:47
what they're looking at at presidential politics. If
43:50
you are the Joe Biden campaign and you
43:52
know that Michigan,
43:55
Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are your absolute must-win
43:57
states, right? You want to hold those
43:59
three. You hold those three states and
44:01
you win the one little electoral college
44:03
vote in Nebraska, you can get reelected,
44:05
right? But that's not where they're spending
44:07
exclusively. They're also spending in Nevada, in
44:10
Georgia, in Arizona. They just released a memo about
44:12
Florida. They released a memo about Florida, about let's
44:14
see if they spend real money in Florida. But
44:17
like North Carolina, which they lost last time,
44:19
right? Even as he won by a relatively
44:21
large electoral college, they are spending in a
44:23
state that he lost by the most narrow
44:25
margin because they have enough right now to
44:28
spread the map. So if you're the Democrats, elections
44:31
aren't usually won in the winter spring
44:33
before the election, but you can get
44:35
an edge, right? If you're Joe Biden,
44:37
you enter this campaign behind in most
44:39
public polling. The money is allowing you
44:41
to either close that gap or build
44:43
things like campaign offices that can pay
44:45
off over time. But it's
44:48
really the like, how thin can you stretch
44:50
the defenses of your opponent? Can
44:52
you make them need to spend money in North
44:54
Carolina if you're Trump and
44:56
take away from the state that he may otherwise have to
44:58
win? Right. And so the speaking
45:01
of the importance of this period of the race, the
45:03
place we have seen the Biden campaign be the weakest
45:05
is probably with enthusiasm among kind of court constituents. They
45:07
talk a lot about kind of bringing people home right
45:09
now and wanting to do that even more so than
45:12
they think about persuasion or all that type of things
45:14
come later in the year. When
45:16
we think about the impact of money, like how
45:18
much love can money buy? Like when
45:20
you think about the impact of that
45:22
specifically to people who are probably Democrats,
45:24
but maybe soft on Biden. Is
45:27
that ads that they're supposed to convince them?
45:29
Is that texts? Is that door knocking?
45:31
Is it I guess it's all of the above? Yeah.
45:33
I mean, I think that the most recent
45:35
New York Times poll we did had Trump
45:38
winning 97% of the
45:41
people who voted for him in 2020 and had Joe Biden winning
45:43
83% of the people who voted for
45:47
him in 2020. That gap tells you
45:49
why Joe Biden was losing in that poll.
45:52
And so what they're going to try to
45:54
do is use their money advantage to tell
45:56
that chunk of Democratic voters this election is
45:58
coming. on the place, give
46:01
them a reason to care or to
46:03
highlight their awareness. I live this
46:05
every day. You live this every day. This
46:07
is not a central part of most
46:10
people's lives. And if you're
46:12
an average voter, the whole promise of
46:14
Joe Biden was partly, I didn't need
46:16
to care about politics every day. And
46:18
so people have intentionally tuned out. And
46:21
so they're trying to re-engage voters who might be
46:23
likely to vote for Joe Biden, but not
46:25
likely to be tuned into why they should
46:27
care yet. And sometimes that's
46:30
advertising, sometimes that's spending in other ways that are trying
46:32
to reach them. But that is their chief
46:34
goal, and money is one of the ways they're trying
46:36
to resolve it. Thanks,
46:39
Shane. I really appreciate it. This was really
46:41
helpful. All right. Thank you.
46:49
As of Wednesday morning, Justin, Shane
46:52
and Robert predicted Republican fundraising
46:54
numbers were going up. The
46:56
Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign
46:59
announced that they'd raised over $65
47:01
million in March, ending
47:03
the month with $93 million in cash
47:06
on hand. The
47:08
Biden campaign has yet to release its
47:10
March total. So a
47:12
campaign spokesperson said we can expect the
47:14
numbers in the coming days. The
47:23
less your business spends, the more
47:25
margin you keep. But today, everything
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costs more. So smart businesses are
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graduating to NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite
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right now. netsuite.com/ made the move to NetSuite. Now through April 15, NetSuite is offering a one-of-a-kind flexible financing program. Head to netsuite.com/earnings right now. netsuite.com/earnings. NYT. Thursday,
48:00
April 4th, 2024. And
48:03
now, the rundown. All right, this
48:05
morning, counting votes in four states
48:07
that had presidential primaries. Voters in
48:10
Wisconsin, New York, Rhode Island, and
48:12
Connecticut went to the polls on Tuesday.
48:15
And although Biden and Trump won all those
48:17
states easily, there were warning
48:19
signs for both campaigns. On
48:21
the Republican side... This primary is long
48:23
over, but look at the
48:26
support for Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley won
48:28
at least 10% of the vote in
48:30
all four states, despite having
48:32
dropped out of the race last month. And
48:35
on the Democratic side... More than 45,000 people
48:39
in Wisconsin voted un-instructed. That's
48:41
the terminology. People continue to
48:43
voice their disagreement with Biden's handling of
48:45
the war in Gaza by
48:47
staging a protest vote at the ballot box. Also
48:50
this week... U.S.
48:54
Donald Trump held rallies in Michigan and
48:56
Wisconsin, and in his
48:58
speeches... Under crooked Joe Biden, every
49:00
state is now a border state. Every
49:02
town is now a border town. His
49:05
rhetoric about immigration escalated. The 22-year-old nursing
49:07
student in Georgia, who was barbarically
49:10
murdered by an illegal alien
49:12
animal, the Democrats
49:14
said, please don't call them animals. They're humans.
49:16
I said, no, they're not humans. They're not
49:18
humans. They're animals. Used
49:20
dehumanizing language about migrants. But it's
49:23
a border bloodbath, and it's destroying
49:25
our country. It's a very bad
49:27
thing happening. And called what's
49:29
happening at the border a bloodbath. There
49:32
are now 102 days till the
49:34
Republican National Convention, 137
49:37
days till the Democratic National Convention, and
49:40
215 days till the general election.
49:44
See you next week. The
49:49
run-up is reported by me, Estet Herndon.
49:51
And produced by Elisa Gutierrez, Kate
49:53
Leno-Keeffe, and Anna Foley. It's
49:56
edited by Rachel Dry and Lisa Tobin. With
49:59
original music. by Dan Powell,
50:01
Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Cyann
50:03
Wong, Sophia Landman, and Alicia
50:06
Bechit. It was
50:08
mixed by Sophia Landman and fact-checked by Kaitlin
50:10
Love. Special thanks
50:12
to Paula Schumann, Dan Dolnitz,
50:15
Larissa Anderson, David Haufinger, Matti
50:17
Messiello, Mahima Chablani, and Jeffrey
50:19
Miranda. Do
50:21
you have a question about the 2024 election? Email
50:24
us at therunupatnytimes.com. Or
50:28
better yet, record your question using the Voice
50:30
Memo app on your phone. And
50:32
then send us the file. The
50:34
email again is therunupatnytimes.com. And
50:38
finally, if you like the show and
50:40
want to get updates on latest episodes, follow
50:42
our feed wherever you get your podcasts.
50:45
Thanks for listening, y'all. The
50:53
less your business spends, the more
50:55
margin you keep. But today, everything
50:58
costs more. So smart businesses are
51:00
graduating to NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite
51:02
is the number one cloud financial
51:04
system, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory,
51:06
HR into one proven platform, helping
51:08
you reduce IT costs, maintenance costs,
51:10
and manual errors. Over 37,000 companies
51:12
have already made the
51:14
move to NetSuite. Now through April 15, NetSuite is
51:17
offering a one-of-a-kind flexible financing program.
51:19
Head to netsuite.com/earnings right
51:22
now. netsuite.com/earnings. netsuite.com/
51:26
nyt.
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