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Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. Today, we've got part two of our crazy week in politics, the money talk.
President Biden's decision to drop out was about age, sure, but it was also about dollars and cents, which is what all campaigns are really about. Big donors have been closing their wallets. Some fundraisers were being canceled and others backfired, like when George Clooney held one and then wrote an op-ed telling Biden to save democracy by signing out. Many people in Silicon Valley have been expressing worries to me over the last few weeks, too, saying that they're not going to be able to do it.
especially because Trump seemed to have recruited some of the Silicon Valley bad guys like Elon Musk to raise money for him, and they felt overwhelmed.
Well, the dog days are over. Kamala Harris's presidential campaign announcement triggered a blue tsunami of donations, $81 million in the first 24 hours to her campaign, not to mention the packs and super packs. A lot of small donations, but also big money, especially from Silicon Valley and Hollywood. And yes, Clooney has endorsed Kamala too.
Presidential candidate Harris held her first campaign event in Milwaukee on Tuesday, and even her stump speech sparkled with California gold. So Wisconsin, today I ask you, are you ready to get to work? Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America? Are we ready to fight for it? Yes!
And when we fight, we win. God bless you. God bless you. In case you don't know, that song is Freedom from Beyonce. Queen B is letting Harris use it throughout the campaign. Unprecedented for her. Read the lyrics. That's all you need to know.
Today, we're going to talk to two reporters who've been following the money and Harris for some time and know their stuff. New York Times campaign finance reporter Teddy Schliefer, who used to work for me, and Wall Street Journal business and politics reporter Emily Glazer. We'll talk about who's writing checks or zelling or Venmoing and what the big guns hope to gain. Of course, we'll talk about the rash of tech titans, Elon Musk and company, who are endorsing and supporting the Trump campaign. And we'll talk about the
And I want to ask them about the GOP's threats to sue Kamala Harris for using Joe Biden campaign funds, which seems like desperate nonsense. She was on the ticket, boys. Plus, what other celebs, looking at you, Taylor Swift, could jump on the Harris bandwagon? And what song she might give Kamala Harris? My choice? No, it's not Haters Gonna Hate, Hate, Hate from Shake It Off, but of course, The Man.
It is on.
Emily and Teddy, thanks for joining us on On. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. So, okay, the news of the week is obviously President Biden dropping out of the race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. There are a lot of people saying money was a huge part of that decision. Money always is a huge part of the decision. So let's talk about money, which is what you guys' expertise is. The Harris campaign announced it would raise $81 million in Kamala Harris' first 24 hours as candidate. That was just her fund. Of
A flagship super PAC, Future Forward, raised $150 million in commitments for her in the same period. There are other groups, too. Emily and Teddy, you followed campaign finance and Kamala Harris for years. Were you surprised or did you immediately see dollar signs for Harris after Biden's announcement? Why don't you start, Emily? I was not surprised at all. So let's just go back to Biden's disastrous debate performance. There were already Kamala Harris allies and donors kind of quietly rallying behind the scenes for weeks, right?
And a number of them had made their frustrations clear to Democrats, to Chuck Schumer, to Hakeem Jeffries, to Nancy Pelosi, basically saying, we're not going to give money to Biden. We're not going to give money to you guys. And we're not going to give money to down ballot races unless there's a change with the Democratic presidential candidate. So they were already signaling that. And we knew even back to July 3rd, there was a whole memo about how to get Harris onto this ticket.
There was a lot going on behind the scenes. Harris did a pretty good job in staying away from that, trying to kind of keep her profile low. But you better believe those donors and supporters were getting those wheels turning for weeks. With her cooperation or not, just on their own? As far as I know, it was...
a little removed from her, and I think they were very careful to do that. She was obviously out there supporting Joe Biden, fundraising for their combined ticket. But there was this memo that leaked, Teddy has reported on this too, it was an 11-page memo about how to get Kamala Harris to the ticket, why she is the right person, and that was shared with a number of donors and other supporters. And that was roughly two weeks ago, right, Teddy? And the author of that?
We still, we actually still don't know who wrote that. Do you, Emily? I wish I knew. Teddy, it would be great if like right here it would be like, oh, do you know? Do you know? No, I don't, no one, no one, I don't think anyone really, I don't, I also don't think it's one person, by the way. I think it could be like a combo Google Doc. Sure. You know. It was called The Case for Kamala. Yeah, I remember I first saw it like,
A couple days after, it was fast and it spread fast, too. I mean, I remember everyone, everyone sharing it. It's one of these. They love to show their work, but go ahead. It just it just one of these. It wasn't purely to show the work, though, is also to sort of like just change the narrative. Right. I mean, for the entire Biden-Harris administration, you know, she's been this kind of beleaguered,
or are perceived as a couple of leaguer politician who, you know, is can't hold a candle to Joe Biden or Donald Trump or to Gretchen Whitmer, you know, choose your replacement candidate. Um, and you know, I think that, that memo actually did begin to change the narrative among elites, at least about whether or not she was the best person for the job. Did you have a sense of who would be Hollywood Silicon Valley? Who? I mean, I think she had, has pretty, uh,
I would say she has like solid relationships everywhere, but not fantastic relationships anywhere. You know, look, I mean, she's obviously been in public life for like 20 or 30 years at this point. Everyone knows her. She was a senator from the largest state in the country. I think among major donors, she, at least right now, she's benefiting from the fact that she's the other option, right? Democrats have been so downtrodden for so long. There's optimism for the first time. I want to
pop in there. I was looking back to 2020. Teddy and I have both covered this for, you know, quite some time. And I found this article from, okay, I wrote it. I'll be honest. I found an article I wrote from 2020. It was when Harris was named as Biden's VP pick
And she brought out major Hollywood names. We've got Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon and Shonda Rhimes co-chairs for her first solo fundraiser. Billy Porter was singing at a fundraiser. Sterling K. Brown and Kate Hudson are there. So we've got a number. Oh, and Ken Burns. You've got like highbrow, lowbrow, mediumbrow. You've got a lot of Hollywood support for her. And let's not forget, she and Doug Emhoff live in Brentwood. They're on the West Side. They've got their relationships there.
We're going to get into the rest of it because I think you're absolutely right. I've been to many events with her and she does know everybody and they love her, that kind of thing. It's interesting. And one of the first interviews I ever did with Lorraine Powell Jobs, the very first one, she asked me, she was nervous because she'd never done an interview, and she said, can I bring a friend?
to the onstage at our event, our code event. And I said, really, I mean, come on. And she goes, it's Kamala Harris. And I'm like, okay, you can bring your friend. So we often see donation surges, though, after news events. The campaign's released new campaign filings last week. How does it compare to
other news events. Did Kamala beat the money that Trump campaign pulled in after the felony conviction or the assassination attempt? Teddy first and then Emily. Yeah, I mean, my recollection is that, you know, Trump raised somewhere in the $50 million neighborhood after his conviction. I mean, this is double that and it's only in a recording Tuesday morning here. I mean, look, I mean, I think Democrats have...
spent the last couple of weeks being despondent and withholding money. So I'm curious what the net benefit here would have been as if in the alternate planet Earth where Joe Biden doesn't bomb that debate. So some of this money is just kind of making up for the last couple of weeks. But it's clear, I mean, every Democrat, major donor, small dollar donor, person next door, is just excited for this to be over, frankly. I don't necessarily even know if it's like
explicitly Kamala as much as it is just like, thank God we're done with the last couple of weeks. I would add that I agree with a lot of Teddy saying. I also do think for a number of women donors and especially very wealthy women, this is a historic moment. And so within an hour of Joe Biden exiting the race, I was chatting with a Democratic donor strategist who was on a Zoom call with all these like
We call them the wealthy L.A. women. And they were plotting out their next steps of how they were going to do anything they could to support Harris. So I do think that gender can play a role here for her benefit. Oh, absolutely. And then, of course, other constituencies. We know in a memo that Harris's team sent to donors and other supporters on Sunday that they were telling—
touting that she can reach women voters, she can reach black voters, Latino voters, she can reach, you know, LGBTQ community. So that is a talking point for them. And I think one that so far we're seeing play out. Well, it's interesting. I've seen it was, I think it was Anil Dash said the Desi-Auntie network was suddenly in hyperdrive.
And certainly I've gotten 20 or 30 gay network things like crazy all of a sudden, which is interesting. And she has very tight relationships in that community. I was just going to say the last fundraiser that Harris did for Biden, I believe, was in Provincetown, in P-Town. We know who's there. Pete Buttigieg was with her.
Yeah.
And, you know, I think there's an expectation that, you know, yeah, Sheryl Reenpower Jobs is excited about Joe Biden. She would have voted for Joe Biden in the privacy of her own voting booth. But she has not been very involved in the Biden campaign. Could she get more involved? You know, there's lots of women who kind of rose up with her in California politics who are about her age, who Joe Biden is has not made enthusiastic about the ticket.
And, you know, I think a lot of those people could be supporters. Let's get into tech about where the money's coming from. Kamala Harris, as you said, is from California, which is home to two huge bastions of Democratic support, Hollywood and tech. They've been drying up for Biden, definitely in tech and definitely in Hollywood after the George Clooney op-ed. The mega donors were among those calling for him to drop out. Yeah.
What role, Emily, do you think it played in the decision that he didn't have these relationships and these were really big donors? And you could imagine a troika of, or actually more people, if you're speaking of just women in tech, is Mackenzie Bezos, Melinda Gates, Lorraine Powell Jobs, the Wojcicki sisters, et cetera. I think that it hurt Biden tremendously. I remember hearing from some folks at one point that they did a fundraiser and Marissa Mayer was the person there. And then you compare that with Trump, who's got
as we know now, Elon Musk and a bunch of other really big-name venture capitalists, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and others, folks at Sequoia. So it seemed for some weeks now that Elon Musk was really bringing a lot of the Silicon Valley kind of power money within the
minutes of Biden's announcement that he was dropping out, Reid Hoffman endorsed her. And then we saw Ron Conway endorsing Harris on Monday. You know, her ties began during the time when she was San Francisco district attorney. That's going back to 2004. You can't replace, you know, 20 years of home court advantage in some ways. And so I think that's going to help her.
Well, one thing is Ron is very connected, much more so. I mean, the Elon list that David Sachs put out, that's the group of them. That's it. That's the gang. I don't think there's anybody in Silicon Valley that has not received an all-caps email from Ron Conway vacationing somewhere in Europe over the last couple of weeks. He's been very active behind the scenes. Explain who he is, Teddy. Explain.
Sure. He, he is, you know, I think in a lot of ways, the OG, like, you know, tech power broker, at least of the 21st century, you know, mile a minute, you know, shoot first, aim later sort of person in terms of his kind of political activity. Um,
But he's powerful. I mean, he's muscular. He gets stuff done. And Conway, you know, was ready to back Kamala. And Vinod is, talk about Vinod Kostler, for those who don't know, is another very big, very big, after Kappa's very wealthy. Although he's still calling for an open convention. And I don't know if you want to put Mark Pincus, the former CEO of Zynga, in there too, who also is saying that he wants an open convention. So I do still
think there are two camps out there. And I've heard this from some of Kamala's biggest supporters. There are people that have hopped on the bandwagon right away. They were ready. And then there are those that are saying, let's have an open convention. We want this to play out so that people can really see who the party wants. Even if it does turn out to be her, they want it there to be a process. Whereas the other camp is like, we got to get this show on the road. Clock is ticking. We
Let's move forward. And last night we actually saw she's got the delegate count. Yeah, though I do think, Emily, that the recording this Tuesday morning, even the momentum behind the open convention group has wilted away. An open convention or at least a competitive primary requires other people to run. And when Vinod was saying don't jump on the Harris bandwagon immediately, that was Sunday afternoon when we thought maybe someone else would run. But then over the next 24 hours, we've seen this incredible increase
I don't know if you want to call it, you know, resignation or something more active or, you know, respect for the vice president, but there's no one's been eager to challenge her. And now I think we're beginning to see any donor, any donor.
Any donor who did not want Harris to be the nominee has folded because she is going to be the nominee, and that's reality. Is there anyone with financial prowess? I mean, I was joking about Dean Phillips because he's so thirsty, but is there anybody? My issue when they were talking about that was like, who's going to raise money like her? Like, I don't know, Emily, I mean, I don't see anybody. I mean, one question mark is Michael Bloomberg. That's just like one big money person, but we did see
George and his son, Alex Soros, major, major Democratic donors endorsed Kamala on Sunday. So, I mean, she is getting a lot of the big name people. To Teddy's point, I will add, like, we also saw a lot of the politicians that would have potentially been the contenders endorsing her. We've got Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Wes Moore of Maryland, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. So a lot of the people that would have potentially been in opposition are
Right. They have been meeting with those donors. Trust me. They've asked me for their phone numbers and I'm like, no. Not giving it to them. But, Teddy, put these donors in perspective. How important are these donors compared to those other groups Emily mentioned, the fundraisers that focus on women, Latinos, unions, et cetera, the small money donors?
donors. And sometimes Scott calls himself a dolphin. Like he's pretty, he gives a lot of money, but not the whales, essentially. Can you put those three groups in perspective? Sure. I mean, the folks who could give, you know, in the post-Cindy United era, who can give seven or eight or, you know, frankly, even a nine-figure check, you
I don't want to say they're, you know, the people in the smoke-filled room, though the events of the last week might contribute to that stereotype. But those people have a lot of influence, right? I mean, when they're out there saying it's Kamala Harris, it's Kamala Harris, it's Kamala Harris, if you're Wes Moore or Gretchen Whitmer, you know, who would have to raise money on your own, you can read Twitter. You can read the tea leaves. You can see the fact that, you know, they're not going to be running to endorse you. And, you know, that's going to create a huge disincentive to run.
So I think that these people have an enormous amount of kind of agenda setting power. You know, I think whether or not they have power when these people are actually elected, whether you're a whale or a dolphin or whatever, you know, aquatic species you want to be. I mean, that's less clear to me. I think some of that statement, some of that kind of rhetoric around money and politics, I feel from my reporting is overstated about sort of the quid pro quo. But certainly the last couple of weeks is,
And frankly, Cara, one of the interesting things in the aftermath of this is Biden, who is not the world's greatest populist, has been very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
very bitter toward all these mega donors for what he sees as them forcing him out of the race entirely. You know, Ron Klain, I thought was interesting. And one of the first comments, one of the first comments, he's like going after all these big donors. These big donors like played a role in Joe Biden becoming Democratic nominee in 2020, winning the election 2020. And now, you know, he's talking like Trump. He's talking like, you know, these evil rich people are
It was a spicy tweet. I was like, drop the spicy. What's going on? But Emily, is that they think Biden couldn't win and she can? Or is it more about business-friendly tech policy? Was it the age thing that Harris is better for, you know, tech titans and Hollywood people? What was their motivation from your perspective? I'd say a little bit of everything, Cara. So, you know, the Wall Street Journal, my colleagues reported more than a month ago about Biden's
mental acuity and major problems that lawmakers were seeing. A few weeks ago, we wrote about how this really went back about two years. And there were a number of situations where donors were in settings with Biden and they thought he was just having a bad day. They didn't see him enough to feel like they...
And I believe that the debate was like the final straw.
As we know, there were concerns, you know, around the midterms and questions about whether Biden would run again. I've talked to some donors that said they tried to, you know, raise alarms. We know, obviously, the whole Dean Phillips thing. But I think that they just didn't have the confidence in Biden anymore and worried as Trump was also gaining momentum at the same time. Right. What was your perspective? Was there a biggest thing? Did they think she's going to be nicer?
to tech or media or business? Because you saw David Zaslav say, I don't care who wins. I just want no regulation. Sure.
Cara, how much does Lena Kahn come up in every conversation for you? I feel like when you talk with business executives, they talk as if Lena Kahn is president of the United States. They talk as if she's effective, too, which I was like, I'm about to be winning. She clearly is in the psyche of every major business leader. And, you know, obviously people are entitled to their disagreements with Lena Kahn. But I've been, you know, I think for years,
anti-Biden donors, a lot of this comes back to this belief that, you know, their industry is kind of being too regulated, M&A is too hard, yada, yada, yada. And my question for them going forward would be like, do you really think a Harris administration is going to be any different? She's running on a ticket with them. Yes, sure, she might have some better personal relationships with some individual people. But one interesting question for me going forward is to what extent
Harris tries to distinguish herself from Biden, which is obviously going to be difficult given, you know, the same people and the same administration. And, you know, Harris is going to be running to a large extent on the Biden record. Yeah, I've spent a lot of time with her talking about it. I think she's
more capitalist than Biden, less populist, that's for sure. But I do think she's very aware. We had a long talk about AI. She does a lot of like checking around. And Biden, of course, doesn't, right? I never heard from Biden. I heard from her many times about those things. I mean, Kamala is known for major prep work here. But I would also just go back to 2020 again. When Joe Biden announced Harris as his VP pick, he pointed to her tough on banks record as
And much of Wall Street cheered anyway. You know, she has a lot of big supporters in business and finance. And I think then they expected her to have a moderate voice. You know, we've got Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders at that time where people weren't sure who Biden would put on the ticket. And I do still think that that carries through four years later where a number of people in finance expect
her to be moderate. Yeah, I think she's more moderate. But Kamala Harris spoke at the campaign headquarters on Monday. Let's listen to a clip. So in the next 106 days, we have work to do. We have doors to knock on. We have people to talk to. We have phone calls to make. And we have an election to win. Woo!
Emily, let's talk about the phone calls. You reported that she and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is very well-liked, let me just say, and is a very likable person, held private conversations with donors that sent out a document to supporters that highlighted some of her accomplishments as VP. Can you tell us more about the letter? And if she's so well-connected, why do this? Why does she need to make her case? Well,
Well, look, I think that if anybody is a politician, they're going to make sure they reach out to their big time donors as everything's going down. So we know that they were having these private conversations over the weekend, kind of letting people know that she is ready. And in some cases, these conversations were before Biden then came out to also endorse her. So this is a lot of this is happening in real time. And then her
team, you know, on Sunday is circulating this memo, a pretty detailed memo, making the case for why she should be the Democratic presidential nominee. And it literally says she is VP Harris is ready to earn and win the Democratic nomination. That is like the tagline, I think, that they want to keep using earn and win. We'll be back in a minute.
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On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Watch Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app to watch live. Learn more at globalcitizen.org.com.
Hey, Kariswisher listeners. Sue Bird here. I'm Megan Rapinoe. Women's sports are reaching new heights these days, and there's so much to talk about. So Megan and I are launching a podcast where we're going to deep dive into all things sports, and then some. We're calling it
a touch more. Because women's sports is everything. Pop culture, economics, politics, you name it. And there's no better folks than us to talk about what happens on the court or on the field and everywhere else too. And we'll have a whole bunch of friends on the show to help us break things down. We're talking athletes, actors, comedians, maybe even our moms. That'll be a fun episode.
Whether it's breaking down the biggest games or discussing the latest headlines, we'll be bringing a touch more insight into the world of sports and beyond. Follow A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Wednesday.
So, Teddy, the entertainment industry is important. You have Julie Louise Riefes, who's actually very active politically. Selina Meyer becoming a meme. Maya Rudolph getting more SNL cameos. Beyonce is giving Kamala permission to use her song Freedom during the campaign, which is huge.
You know, Emily has written about Harris bringing in Hollywood cash. How are her contacts? And talk about Doug Emhoff's role here because for people who don't know, he's a former entertainment and media lawyer. He's got a lot of ties in Silicon Valley and Hollywood. And let me say he is just a delightful man. Everybody likes Doug Emhoff essentially. So talk – and that goes a long way. I'll tell you that. Yeah. It definitely does.
Big guy in the Washington social scene, too. I feel like you can't show up at a party and not see Doug Emhoff there. I know. He's always there. He obviously also would make some history. You know, he's Jewish, and he could be the first Jewish spouse of a president. And there's kind of a Jewish donor community that I think Emhoff would cultivate during this campaign. He has also. Yeah, right. I mean, the names in Hollywood that come up, you mentioned some of them. I would even talk about some executives like Dana Walden. Yeah.
who is close with Harris. Um, you know, I'm very curious about what role Jeffrey Katzenberg plays going forward. I mean, yeah, what happens with him? He, I ran into him at the, one of some of the white house correspondents dinner parties, and he was, you know, all in on Biden riding with Biden. Uh,
I think he was nervous. He had a nervous feel about it, for sure. But he, of course, delivered the news to Biden. And Jeffrey Katzenberg is a longtime Hollywood mogul, essentially. He's worked at many places, but was really spearheading a lot of this. Yeah. I mean, you could argue he's almost doing this full-time or quasi-full-time. He's not just the finance chair. He's a national co-chair of the campaign, which is up there with, like, Gretchen Whitmer and, you know, traditional politicians. Yeah.
Then you had this kind of business executive. And, you know, Katzenberg has taken a tremendous amount of incoming over the last couple of weeks from major donors, people who feel that, you know, he gaslit them or even lied to them about Biden's mental state. You know, because over the last year or two, Katzenberg invited lots of major donors to the White House. Spend time with Biden yourself. You'll see how good he is. You'll see there's nothing to worry about.
Now, I don't think all that criticism of Katzenberg is fair. He'll still eat lunch in Hollywood just fine. But he is a Biden guy. And it's going to be interesting to see whether or not he is vocally pro-Harris. I will say, at least as of this recording, he's been pretty darn quiet over the last 48 hours. I don't think he said anything. And people have asked. Trust me. Oh, OK. All right. I think he's been pretty darn quiet for weeks.
For weeks, actually. Yeah, he wants to get away. Yeah, I think he's going to like hold off on his, I don't know whether it's like the polo bar or what. I feel like his lunch reservation is going to be a little quiet. That's exactly where he goes. Yeah, I wrote him a hey girl text. I was like, hey girl, and then nothing. He's usually very voluble.
So last thing on Kamala, we're seeing these coconut tree memes on TikTok, which I love. Obviously, the Republicans tried to get her with coconut tree. It's turned into everybody loves Kamala and her coconut tree, which was a mistake. When they started that, I was like, no, no, this is great, good content. This is really good content. But CharlieXCXKamala is the brat endorsement, which...
Nobody understood except for the right people. I think it's Kamala is brat, by the way. And I still don't know what that means, just to be clear. She's cool. She's cool. It's his brat. She's cool. Kara, we got your kids on the pod. They'll explain this better. Well, you know, they'll see. My one son is voting for the first time and he likes her. But these are great rallying for Gen Z and getting them excited about it. Do you think that will translate into dollars or do we need Taylor Swift to enter the scene?
immediately. Yeah, look, I think it does not hurt at all. And she's got this celebrity and influencer following back in 2020. Ariana Grande. Yeah, I was going to say Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, like they were going to her fundraisers. And so I think, look, there were close to 900,000 grassroots donors from that 24-hour period when Harris raised 81 million. So we can't
discount people that are just kind of your average individual. And I think there was a really big portion of them, 60%, ActBlue said, made their first contribution of the 2024 cycle. So I don't think we can discount the power of celebrity, the power of influencer, the power of getting Gen Z to the ballot box. That's something that is
always been, whether they're called Gen Z or whatever generation it is, it's always been hard to get younger voters. And that's definitely a big time thing, both for Harris and Trump. The Democratic talking point that sprung up out of nowhere over the last 48 hours is that, you know, Harris is the youngest presidential candidate in the race. She's not quite Gen Z, but far from it. Not yet 60. Close. Yes, sure. But, you know, I mean, it's interesting to see Democrats try to appeal to younger voters and use age to
as the argument, which is obviously a total 180 from where they were 72 or 96 hours ago. Look, I mean, clearly Joe Biden was not going to be the favorite candidate of the cool and hip people of Hollywood or the cool and hip people of Silicon Valley or the cool and hip people anywhere. And for Democrats, I think Harris just offers a refresh broadly.
This is literally a bullet point on the memo that they circulated. I'm just going to read it to you guys. Quote, she represents the next generation of the Democratic Party and can make the issue of age and fitness a liability for Trump. Right. When I read that, I was like, oh, my God, we are we've twisted this already. This already needs
She's very fit. She's very fit and energetic. But in terms of who the most important celebrities are, again, I'm going to ask about Taylor Swift. Is there any celebrity? Is it George Clooney? Is it Beyonce? Who does move things?
I mean, I think it's Taylor. I think she is like the one person everyone's wondering what will happen. Teddy, I'm curious what you think. I'm the wrong person to ask because I'm voting for whoever Taylor Swift tells me to. But look, I think Swift is somebody who has been obviously not that political until really her regrets after 2016. And then I remember she did that tweet about vote.org a few years ago that really got people to register to vote.
You know, she's one of the few people kind of totally break through here. You know, Clooney, you mentioned, Cara, Clooney this morning, I don't know if you saw this like half hour ago, said he's endorsing Kamala. And of course, he played this key role in kind of the dam breaking open against Biden a few weeks ago. So Hollywood's going to come back to the table. I mean, I think there's the...
The Biden campaign clearly wants to remind people about how disruptive the Trump presidency was the first time. And the question is, can Harris make it clear enough to Hollywood and to every influencer out there, whether in music or sports or culture, just, you know, remember how bad the Trump presidency was? That's going to be the message they're delivering. Obviously, this is happening against the backdrop of a slew of tech bros shifting the resources to the Trump campaign. Let's move on to Trump and his gang.
You reported on this, Emily. You and your team reported last week that Elon Musk said he'll commit $45 million a month to the new pro-Trump super PAC. Talk to us about the America PAC. And he's denied it, kind of. I'm not sure. He denies everything. Not totally. And buckle up, Teddy. Teddy and I are probably going to go after it here. But look, we reported that Musk has said he plans to commit around $45 million a month
to the America PAC. And... Probably all those profits from Twitter, but go ahead. Sorry. Look, he's got money from lots of different places, so I won't opine on that. But Musk has said on X, he posted a meme in response to the article with the caption, fake news. He later said he had created a PAC and that, quote, funding to date has been far below that level. He has not specifically denied what we've reported. All he said is he's not donating $45 million to Trump. And...
We all know that a lot of people will say their donations might not go to a specific candidate because he can say that it's going to a PAC. So it isn't going directly to Trump. So I'm just saying with Elon Musk reporting, you always have to parse the words. He can get really into semantics.
And of note, we have not corrected our article. We have multiple sources on it. And I fully stand by all of our reporting. Oh, you don't have to convince me. He's disingenuous. Well, I might need to convince Teddy because he keeps writing articles about how we're wrong, which— Teddy, make your case. I am more skeptical than Emily is that the money is 100 percent in or that the commitment is in. I'm not skeptical that Elon, quote, unquote, has said it.
But more broadly here, look, I mean, he is clearly involved in this group. He has confirmed he has created the group. You know, his allies and his donors and people who are associated with him are funding this organization. There's certainly the expectation that he will give to this group. I mean, that's why he created it. It is interesting that he is kind of wink-wink saying that it is not a Trump group. And I know some donors say,
to that organization that have sort of positioned it as almost like an election integrity play, you know, quote unquote election integrity, saying that it is a organization that is meant to kind of safeguard American democracy and, you know,
Last night, Elon was saying that it is not a group meant to be that partisan. But look, I think we're optimistic to take the bigger picture swing here. I mean, look, Elon Musk has a $250 billion fortune, which he's going to be spending on politics,
Clearly, the Trump campaign expects him to be a huge part of their war chest. And, you know, there was a lot of rumors last week about, is Elon Musk going to speak at the convention? Is Elon Musk going to be, you know, talking about Trump every single day? And clearly, you know, I
Kara, as you know, this is a wild swing from a few years ago when or maybe at least 10 years ago. A hundred percent. He had donated money, by the way, to Democrats and Republicans in the past. It just wasn't big money that we know of. I'll tell you, I had a lot of conversations. He didn't like Trump at all. He hated Trump. I don't know what else to say. He just thought he was an idiot.
But he was engaging with him because he thought he could change his mind. He was part of two strategic advisory councils that Trump put together and then fell apart. I would also just say, let's not forget about documents here. So with the America PAC, the filings show that if you have to check the box for support or oppose, in each case they list for Trump. Good point.
They check support. And then with Biden, they check oppose. So they can say all they want about what it's for. But I like to go back to the documents with a lot of our reporting. That's a great point. On Jen Psaki's show, I said he was going to support Trump. It's like he settles a brick what he's doing. And then, of course, he did. Right. Because I think he doesn't tell the truth all the time. But let's talk a little bit with the broader tech industry. Biden hasn't, as you said, been friendly to Silicon Valley. Right.
But Trump is really also hostile, I would say, to some of it. He attacked a lot of social media platforms. He's been attacking Mark Zuckerberg. He's an EV skeptic. He's trying to parse that, but he certainly is sort of against switching to EVs. Explain to me what's happening here. How do they fit together from your perspective?
I don't think it's that complicated. Elon Musk likes to be liked. People like to be liked. You know, he feels aggrieved. You know, I would not understate the impact of Elon not being invited to that one meeting for EV manufacturers. Like seven years ago, like, you know, he's going to be talking about this. Three years ago, yeah. I heard from him for weeks.
weeks on that issue. Till the end of time. It was weird. Yes. And look, I mean, the Republican Party is embracing him and, you know, he feels the Democratic Party is pushing him away. And, you know, like Elon Musk obviously spends breaking news a lot of time online where he is being
um, heralded and saluted by every conservative, uh, with the following who are all saying that, you know, he's the greatest person ever and that's got to feel good. Um, I think a lot of this can be, can be pretty simple, which is that, or can be reduced to a pretty simple proposition, which is that he is, is, is gravitating toward the, uh,
audience of people who seem to like him. And, you know, I think it would be different if Elon Musk represented a company that, you know, wanted to be broken up, something like, you know, Facebook or Google or like a big tech company. I think lots of Republican voters probably don't even know what Tesla is.
All right, Emily, I'm going to ask you. Well, yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready to dive in. What kind of influence are people like Marc Andreessen and David Sachs and Peter Thiel getting by supporting Trump? I understand the Elon thing because I think he's in a world of hurt if a Harris administration is going to look at him on the SEC. He's going to deal national security issues around SpaceX.
I think he's in quite a world of hurt, and many people have said that to me, that he's very worried about a Democratic administration and his businesses. But what kind of influence – and I think that's – it's always at the heart of him is his businesses. I was going to say, this isn't just about Elon being liked. There is a major financial play at hand here with his six businesses. And you –
yes, it's great to be liked. Also, it's great to have influence over policy when you run six companies and have billions of dollars in government contracts with SpaceX where you want to know what's going on with AI regulation. And to Teddy's point, none of your companies right now are at the risk of being broken up. So okay, with J.D. Vance and his views on Lena Kahn, that might not matter as much to Elon. When you ask about Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz,
We know that they told staff last week that they intended to contribute personal money to support pro-Trump political organizations and that part of that decision was made after they decided and concluded that Trump would do more than Biden to support startups. So that's kind of where their thinking is at. On Peter Thiel, I'll just say a lot has been kind of talked about that isn't quite right. He has said he isn't planning political donations this cycle so far. Yeah.
Obviously, it's a little confusing because he is the person tied to J.D. Vance, and now we've got J.D. Vance as Trump's VP pick. So I think that's a big question mark, like does Peter Thiel get involved this cycle or not? And that's a lot of potential big money there too. Why did he pull away? I have speculation, but why did he pull away? So last year, Donald Trump and Peter Thiel had a very tense phone call that I think –
I believe is the last time they've spoken directly, which has sort of frozen that relationship. And the irony here is rich that Peter Thiel, who's the person who introduced J.D. Vance to Donald Trump or effectively introduced J.D. Vance to Donald Trump during Vance's Senate run. Vance is now Trump's vice president, while the person who made that introduction, Peter Thiel, has not spoken with Donald Trump in a long time. And that relationship is icy cold.
You know, I think there's a lot of anxiety and hostility and tension over the 2022 election where Donald Trump endorsed both of Peter Thiel's protégés in their Senate runs, J.D. Vance and Blake Masters. And Trump feels that Peter did not adequately repay him during Trump's run in 2024. Thiel did not endorse Trump. Thiel, you know, when you talk to people around him,
feels burnt out by politics. He feels like he became almost too much of the main character for a certain period of time. You know, Thiel believes there have been like threats to his personal life because of his political advocacy. So he is uninterested, at least in politics. The Vance selection changes things. Obviously, Thiel, if he's looking for an opportunity to get back into the fold, he has one with the fact that his VP is somebody he knows pretty well. I would not be surprised to see Thiel at least...
get a little bit warmer to Trump over the next couple of months. We'll be back in a minute.
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So, Emily, what hopes do they have for J.D. Vance? I'm going to make a comment. I think he had an entirely unsuccessful tech career in the middle of a boom with an assist by Peter Thiel. That's an astonishing accomplishment of inadequacy.
But they have some hopes about him. When they call him a tech guy, I kind of laugh. Listen, that one to two years as a venture capitalist has gone a long way for him. He just was not successful. I don't know what else to say. He left no mark whatsoever. I mean, I think RFK's running mate had a better success. Oh, let's not get into that on this podcast. I can't. So I would actually go back to the June 1st.
that David Sachs co-hosted in San Francisco when all of a sudden, you know, people were around the streets of San Francisco wearing all their MAGA gear. And it's something that I think people, many bystanders were very surprised to see. J.D. Vance spoke there, no script. And one of the things he said was,
was that he wanted to have kind of like looser AI regulation. And as you can imagine, the people, the audience there were like salivating. They're eating this up. That is what they want to hear. So even though J.D. Vance has said he likes Lena Kahn and he's kind of a fan of what the FTC has been doing... He's a conservative. Right. So which is confusing because you'd think most people in tech would not support someone who has those views. I do think...
what he's saying on AI regulation, and frankly, whether he might shift his views on con or antitrust. Like, that's what I think we should be watching for. Of course he will. What are you talking about? He's an empty vessel of whatever. I'll let you say that. He's a billionaire butler. And I think my favorite is Rachel Maddow is calling him a Peter Thiel's intern. Teddy, any thoughts? I feel that the Vance-Silicon Valley relationship has been pretty vastly overstated.
I just wrote with Ryan Mack a few weeks ago about this. We were trying to even determine how many years he was actually even in the Bay Area. It's like probably less than five. Do you have an address for that? I would love someone to actually find, like, did he live there actually? Yeah, great. Good question. He left not a mark, let us just say. He had a few junior jobs.
You know, he worked at Peter Thiel's venture capital for Mithril as a very junior person. Then he went to work for Steve Case, mostly outside of Silicon Valley. And then Steve, who never says a bad thing about anyone, said he didn't do much work at all. Case has definitely downplayed the J.D. involvement.
look, but I think to Emily's point, like, even though in a very short amount of time, Vance has been able to kind of leverage those relationships to help him with everything from Hillbilly Elegy, you know, promotion, which Peter Thiel blurbed, even though he didn't even really know J.D. Vance that well. You know, he was able to use the money, obviously, for the Senate race. He was able to use tech money to help get the vice presidency or kind of the ability to get tech money. So,
So J.D. has done a great job at taking a relatively short amount of exposure to these people and leveraging it. And, like, I don't mean that as a negative. I mean, that's politics, right? You're able to use your relationships to your advantage. J.D. Vance has always relied on the kindness of strangers, as Blanche Dubois said. So one more question about that. A lot of people are talking about Trump as a threat to democracy itself. How do you think this partisanship is affecting democracy?
You know, donations from Silicon Valley. He doesn't have a lot of Hollywood backing, that's for sure. This isn't just about who gets invited to David Sachs' dinner parties, which sounds like the 10th ring of hell to me. But these people are making business deals with each other, raising money. Is there a real big ideological divide in Silicon Valley? I don't think so. When the information just did a poll, most people were voting for Biden, right? Right.
Is it a real one or is it just these very loud people with the side order of Bill Ackman doing conspiracy theories now online? I do not think there has been a full-blown sea change of Silicon Valley turning rightward. I do think there are a number of very loud voices and people that follow them. Kara, I believe you've called these folks lapdogs before. That's your words, not mine. Yes.
I have a lot of words.
a little bit, but it's not like the average person and like the average engineer is going out and screaming from the rooftops that they're voting for Donald Trump. I was told that's still a career ender. And so I think there's a little bit of a shift. I would not call it full-blown change. I would say they were never political at all. I think that was always the canard of Silicon Valley people. The libertarian. There were some louder, there were libertarian light even. Before this recent Elon Musk change, I
I didn't even know who he supported. Like, it was even not knowing. You know, there's a lot of San Francisco liberals, absolutely, no question. But it wasn't as pronounced as Bill Gates. I don't know. I have no idea. Well, they care about policy and they care about their business. A lot of the people that we're talking about in tech, it's like they're annoyed about the SEC and Gary Gensler and crypto regulation. They're annoyed about Lena Kahn and the FTC. So a lot of them are voting with their pocketbooks around their business.
And that's just normal political lobbying or kind of voting for the person who's going to help your industry, right? If you're in the agriculture industry. That's why the first line of my book. That's not special. No, that's why the first line of my book. So it was capitalism after all. It's always tax breaks and repatriated money. Can I play devil's advocate? Sorry, I'll be remiss if I don't mention this. I do think there is a little bit of the like kind of anti-woke.
like diversity, equity, inclusion, plus the people that are one-issue voters on pro-Israel. So that's like around a cultural thing, not just policy. I do think that's driving some people to vote for Trump, including people in the Valley. And I'd be remiss if I didn't say that. I would agree with you. The Israel thing is a big deal for several people. I would agree. You're 100% right. That, to me, is the most potent issue.
if you go away from money, right? To me, I've heard that the most is that they were upset with the Biden administration. The woke thing, I think, is just...
cosplaying a little bit. You know what I mean? Like, I think they just, they act like victims and they're not victims at all. But let's finish up with the lawsuits. The big question, whether Kamala Harris can even use the money that was raised for the Biden campaign. Pretty much every lawyer I've talked to in the last two days, it was like, of course, they're going to give them a hard time, but they're going to get the money. It's reportedly about $95 million before this latest fundraising blitz. Republicans say she would, if she does, it's a campaign finance violation, threatening to sue. Campaign finance lawyers are
arguing both sides, but mostly people think she can use it. Yeah. Thoughts of each of you. Teddy first. Yeah, I think that's a fair summary of where we're at. I think that Republicans...
belatedly and maybe meekly are kind of raising some concerns about this. Obviously, it's unclear exactly how the next couple of days are going to play out. I would expect them to raise some stink, but I think the general legal consensus, including from some Republican campaign finance lawyers, is that Harris will be able to access this $95 million. We should also say it was $95 million as of June 30th. It's probably well more than that when all is said and done here. Though, you know, the last...
Last day or so, you know, all this money is being raised for the Harris campaign itself. But clearly, there's gonna be a lot of money at stake. It's politics. Republicans will challenge it, blah, blah, blah. But to dumb this down as much as we can, essentially, the money was raised by Joe Biden with Kamala Harris as his running mate. It is the Biden-Harris ticket. That's how the money was raised for the last year and a half.
Now it's going to be the Harris somebody else ticket, the Harris-Bashir ticket, the Harris-Cooper ticket, blah, blah, blah. And she is probably going to be able to access that money. And that was a big reason why she was also able to clear the field so effectively was that if somebody else took over the money, it would have been
certainly much more legally treacherous for Democrats to take that over. Probably would have been transferred to a super PAC or something like that. Emily? I'm going to go back to the documents here. Look, I think Teddy made the case on what's going on with the courts. I'll just say in the memo that was shared with her supporters, they said she can immediately tap the campaign's nearly $96 million in cash on hand. And I'm quoting here, the campaign has already filed paperwork to redesignate the committee as Harris for president and senior leadership held a call with staff.
on Sunday to stress the campaign's commitment to supporting VP Harris and defeating Trump. So obviously that's their messaging, but they've been saying that since the beginning, and I'm sure they're going to do whatever they can to make sure she gets that nearly 96 million. Right. So what about campaign fine issues surrounding Trump? There have already been complaints filed that he's used campaign funds to pay legal fees, and he's got a lot of them. Are you going to see a tip for that? Because they haven't really pushed it that hard, the Democrats, but I think if the Republicans raise this, they're going to focus on Trump's campaign issues. Teddy?
Yeah. I mean, look, Democrats for a while have been, have been pointing out the fact that donors are effectively paying for the Trump legal bills. Um, the amount of money that's been going for his legal bills has actually been dropping over time. Uh, in most recent filings this week, it was, it's, it appears like he's no longer, uh, paying for as much in legal bills, at least with campaign dollars. Um, look, there's not as much of a scandal or perceived scandal with Trump right now from a campaign finance perspective, especially now that, you know, it's not even clear there's other trials that are even gonna be happening. Uh,
uh, that he's going to be facing in the next couple of weeks. Um, I think a lot of the campaign finance lawyers time will be spent, uh, debating the Kamala question going forward. Emily, the Republicans must be gobsmacked by the amount of money that she's been able to raise so quickly. He's certainly got a lot of big donors. He's going around to the fossil fuel guys, the some wall street guys that's kind of split. Is it going to be kind of an equal thing from your perspective with her and him? I,
I think it went from Trump having unbelievable financial advantage to a more equal playing field. But I, you know, a lot of people say just wait till October 15th. That's when the next set of these filings come out. We'll see exactly like how much has been raised more recently. So I'm going to go with
will tell, but I do think it's a lot more even than it had been when Biden was on the ticket. Definitely, yeah. I mean, the swing of the narrative here has been, you know, Joe Biden is outracing Donald Trump. Joe Biden is outracing Donald Trump. Oh, my God. Donald Trump suddenly is, you know, competitive financially. And then, you know, over the last couple weeks, Democrats have been despondent over their financial situation, you know, so much so that tens of millions of dollars is frozen. Can Joe Biden even compete? And now I think we're settling back this July into, like,
some element of parody here, right? And, you know, presidential politics, this election is the most important of our lifetime, blah, blah, blah. Everyone's going to have plenty of money. I almost feel like the top line here is not going to be that interesting. I feel like both of these campaigns will be somewhat competitive. Some months, Harris will outrace Trump. Other months, Trump will outrace Harris.
The interesting story is going to be in the details here. And I think a lot of the – it's flowing back to the down ballot races. I know a lot of rich people I know are focusing there. They continue to focus there, correct? Oh, yeah. And they were saying just, you know, a couple weeks ago that they weren't putting money in those races because that was one of the cards that they were levering to say we're not going to give to Biden. We're not going to give to these down ballot races. That's – the doors have swung open again. Yeah.
And so that's absolutely something where they're putting their money on the ground. More of those Hamptons fundraisers aren't just going to be for Harris. You know, they might not be for Trump. They're going to be for other politicians that these folks believe in. Right. So last question. Most of the governors touted as potential presidential candidates are now falling in line. A number of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, for example, said they're not interested in being VP. Some of them didn't. Some of them are very much in the race that could
can feel it. Is there anyone the big donors want on, they've already got J.D. Vance. Are they happy? Are those donors happy with J.D. Vance? And then who do they want for the Democrat? Very briefly, each of you. Sure. It's been interesting. Silicon Valley is very excited about J.D. Vance. Wall Street is not. And the more hawkish community of major donors is not excited about J.D. Vance. But look, he's the choice. On the Democratic side, it's
probably too early to tell. I think lots of major donors, frankly, don't really know who a lot of these people are. They're searching who is Andy Beshear on Wikipedia, just like millions of Americans are. Look, I mean, the options for Kamala Harris, whether it's Tim Walz or Andy Beshear or Josh Shapiro, all fit the same sort of demographic profile, white male moderate governors. I haven't detected a groundswell of support for either of them, but we'll know more in a week or so.
I would just add Roy Cooper of North Carolina. I've been hearing his name a little bit more. I know he's under active consideration, but until someone's actually getting vetted, I agree with what Teddy's saying. A lot of people are kind of doing their homework on different folks and, and, you know,
A lot of them are a similar profile. Mark Kelly. You left out Mark Kelly. Right, from Arizona. Mark Kelly, who actually is the one Democrat that Elon Musk actually likes these days. They're actually pretty close. He's an astronaut. Bingo, right? Bingo. Suddenly, oh no, wait, I changed my mind. I decided not to be such a horse's ass. Okay. All right. This is really helpful. Thank you so much. I think people don't realize how important money is to this thing.
in the emotion of it all. And I think that it does come down to spending and the ability to do so. And I appreciate your insights. Thank you. Thank you, Karen. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro-Russell, Kateri Yochum, Jolie Myers, Megan Burney, and Gabriela Bielo.
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