Knowledge Fight - Spiritual Correction Aired: 2017-05-17 Duration: 05:27 === Trump's Unexpected Donation (05:21) === [00:00:00] Andy in Kansas, you're on the air. [00:00:01] Thanks for holding. [00:00:04] Hello, Alex. [00:00:04] I'm a first-time caller. [00:00:05] I'm a huge fan. [00:00:06] I love your work. [00:00:07] I love you. [00:00:07] Hey, everybody. [00:00:08] Welcome back to Knowledge Fight. [00:00:09] I'm Dan. [00:00:09] I'm Jordan. [00:00:10] We're here really quick just to drop in with what I'm going to call a spiritual correction. [00:00:15] On the last episode, we talked about campaign donations that Trump had gotten and Hillary Clinton had gotten, and we were not inaccurate. [00:00:26] 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. [00:00:35] 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. [00:00:46] $15.5 million. [00:00:48] But I later found out he also gave Hillary $14 million. [00:00:52] So... [00:00:53] So he's hedging his bets, which is what literally every billionaire did. [00:00:58] Absolutely. [00:00:58] 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. [00:01:08] Actually, that's kind of interesting. [00:01:11] That's the other correction that I needed to make. [00:01:13] We weren't specific enough about the Goldman Sachs stuff with Trump. [00:01:17] Okay. [00:01:18] The reality is that Goldman Sachs banned all their partners for making donations. [00:01:23] Interesting. [00:01:24] To Trump and Pence. [00:01:25] Interesting. [00:01:26] 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. [00:01:41] And a quote from a memo that was distributed to Goldman Sachs employees. [00:01:46] 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. [00:01:55] 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. [00:02:07] So basically what it comes... [00:02:08] Says the company with all of its fucking former members in the goddamn cabinet. [00:02:14] Right, right. [00:02:14] But here's the issue. [00:02:16] It has to do with state and local representatives. [00:02:19] Right. [00:02:19] Because those are the people who can make rules that more directly fuck with their offices. [00:02:25] Yada, yada, yada. [00:02:26] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:02:27] 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. [00:02:39] Right. [00:02:41] Right. [00:02:42] where they couldn't give to him because he was a state official. [00:02:45] Okay. [00:02:46] Meanwhile, the new rules at Goldman Sachs don't restrict contributions to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton because she currently doesn't hold office. [00:02:54] 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. [00:03:01] So Goldman Sachs employees were unallowed to give money to the Trump campaign, but it wasn't because they hated Trump. [00:03:10] It was because of state and local... [00:03:13] So this particular thing, this particular rule that they implemented somehow wound up happening to the Trump campaign. [00:03:24] It was not purposeful. [00:03:28] It was just kind of coincidental. [00:03:30] If Tim Kaine had been a governor, it would have been exactly the same. [00:03:33] It would have been exactly the same. [00:03:33] They would have been banned from giving money to Hillary Clinton. [00:03:37] But it's fine that they gave Hillary Clinton money, and they would have given Trump money if it weren't for Pence. [00:03:44] Yeah, for sure. [00:03:45] And the other thing is, while I'm calling myself out... [00:03:50] There were, you know, people who gave tens of millions of dollars to Hillary, too. [00:03:54] And I feel like when I listened back to it, I was misrepresenting things by, you know, these million dollar, two million dollar donations. [00:04:01] And then we said Mercer gave 15 million to Trump. [00:04:05] It gave the appearance that she didn't have large-scale donors. [00:04:09] Right. [00:04:09] And that was kind of unfair of me. [00:04:10] It was unintentional, but... [00:04:12] But even then, the larger point is billionaires don't... [00:04:17] Give a fuck. [00:04:18] And they're just gonna give millions to anybody. [00:04:21] Yeah. [00:04:21] Because if they become president, fuck it. [00:04:23] We already gave you millions. [00:04:25] But also, the other point is that a lot of those high donations on Hillary's side were from unions and stuff like that. [00:04:32] Okay. [00:04:33] So there were, like, teachers unions and stuff like that. [00:04:35] Right, right, right. [00:04:36] Their political action committee... [00:04:38] No, one of the larger, like, in the... [00:04:41] There's a pantheon of donors, there's billionaires, and then there's unions that are not equivalent, but they still give a shit ton of money. [00:04:50] So anyway, this has been a tiny drop-in. [00:04:53] Please enjoy the longer episode today. [00:04:56] 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. [00:05:05] Something that Alex Jones has never done! === Hello, Alex (00:20) === [00:05:09] Probably not. [00:05:10] Anyway, thank you all for listening. [00:05:12] We do appreciate it. [00:05:13] We'll talk to you real soon. [00:05:14] But until then, Rappaport, he still lives. [00:05:17] Does he still live? [00:05:18] He still lives. [00:05:19] Andy in Kansas, you're on the air. [00:05:21] Thanks for holding. [00:05:23] Hello, Alex. [00:05:24] I'm a first-time caller. [00:05:25] I'm a huge fan. [00:05:26] I love your work.