Dan Friesen and Jordan Holmes clarify their earlier oversight on Robert Mercer’s $15.5M to Trump’s 2016 campaign while noting his $14M to Hillary Clinton, debunking the idea that she lacked major donors. Goldman Sachs banned partner donations to Trump/Pence over pay-to-play risks but not to Clinton, as her VP pick Tim Kaine wasn’t a governor. They highlight unions—like teachers PACs—funding Clinton’s campaign, exposing billionaires’ strategic hedging and political influence beyond party loyalty. [Automatically generated summary]
We're here really quick just to drop in with what I'm going to call a spiritual correction.
On the last episode, we talked about campaign donations that Trump had gotten and Hillary Clinton had gotten, and we were not inaccurate.
But I found information later that, after we'd recorded the episode, that I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't point out and call myself out on.
One of those things that's most important is that Renaissance Technologies, the company that is owned by Robert Mercer, gave Trump $15 million in the campaign.
$15.5 million.
But I later found out he also gave Hillary $14 million.
So...
unidentified
So he's hedging his bets, which is what literally every billionaire did.
Like, everybody at Goldman Sachs gave Hillary a shit ton of money, and also Trump a shit ton of money, and they would have wound up in the cabinet either direction.
And the reason is that they had made a policy change about supporting candidates running for state or local offices, as well as giving money to people who are sitting state or local officials running for federal office.
And a quote from a memo that was distributed to Goldman Sachs employees.
This policy change is meant to prevent inadvertently violating pay-to-play rules, particularly the look-back provision when partners transition into roles covered by these rules.
The policy change is also meant to minimize potential reputational damage caused by any false perception that the firm is attempting to circumvent pay-to-play rules, particularly given partners' seniority and visibility.
So basically what it comes...
unidentified
Says the company with all of its fucking former members in the goddamn cabinet.
So the situation is the bank's compliance team pointed to the Trump-Pence campaign as a donation no-go because Pence is the governor of Indiana, giving him influence over state pensions.
Meanwhile, the new rules at Goldman Sachs don't restrict contributions to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton because she currently doesn't hold office.
Her vice presidential candidate, Tim Kaine, is a U.S. senator, so wouldn't be subject to the rules either because he's not a state or local.
So Goldman Sachs employees were unallowed to give money to the Trump campaign, but it wasn't because they hated Trump.
It was because of state and local...
unidentified
So this particular thing, this particular rule that they implemented somehow wound up happening to the Trump campaign.
But I just wanted to do this because, you know, it's about being above board, and I felt like when I listened back to that episode, it was slightly unfair.