The Daily Signal - #496: The Truth About Money and Politics

Episode Date: July 1, 2019

Money in politics has gotten a bad rap, especially from the left -- which is odd, because some of the biggest money around in politics is liberal money. The Capital Research Center has traced where the money is in U.S politics, and recently I spoke with their president, Scott Walter. He unpacked the idea of “dark money” and explained who’s paying who, and what kind of impact it actually has. Plus: As we approach Independence Day, national pride is at a new low. What’s up with that? We’ll discuss.We also cover these stories:•The House Ways and Means Committee has filed a lawsuit to get President Trump's tax returns. •The Border Patrol is saying Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez misrepresented the detention facilities at the border.•President Trump is promising planes--and tanks--at this year's 4th of July celebration in Washington, D.C.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, July 3rd. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Well, money in politics has gotten a bad rap, especially from the left, which is odd because some of the biggest money around in politics is liberal money. The Capital Research Center has traced where the money is in U.S. politics, and recently I got to speak with their president, Scott Walter. He unpacked the idea of dark money and explained who's paying who and what kind of

impact it actually has. Plus, as we approach Independence Day, National Pride is at a new low. What's up with that? We'll discuss. By the way, if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes and encouraging others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. The House Ways and Means Committee is determined to see President Trump's tax returns and is now filed a lawsuit to get those returns. The lawsuit, which is against the Treasury Department and Secretary Steve Muni,

as well as the IRS states section 6103F of the Internal Revenue Code requires in mandatory terms that Treasury shall furnish the committee with any requested tax return information. Enacted in 1924 in the wake of congressional attempts to investigate agency wrongdoing in the Teapot Dome corruption scandal, Section 6103F was intended to provide the committee with unfettered access to tax return information necessary to keep. carry out its broad mandate to oversee Treasury, the IRS, and the nation's tax laws. Well, President Trump is signaling interest in taking on the homelessness crisis. In a recent interview taped in Japan, Fox News host Tucker Carlson noted the increasing filth of American cities,

saying that Japanese cities were cleaner by comparison. The president called it disgraceful and said, quote, we're looking at it very seriously. We may intercede. We may do something to get that whole thing cleaned up. end quote. He continued, we have to take the people and we have to do something. The president didn't mention any concrete proposal, however. U.S. homeless levels have been relatively stable in the past few years,

though certain cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco face worsening situations. In Los Angeles alone, there are now 60,000 homeless people, a 12% uptick from just last year. President Trump is super excited for the 4th of July. Here's what he has planned. We're going to have a great 4th of July in Washington, D.C. It'll be like no other. It'll be special.

And I hope a lot of people come, and it's going to be about this country. And it's a salute to America. And I'm going to be here, and I'm going to say a few words. And we're going to have planes going overhead, the best fighter jets in the world and other planes, too. And we're going to have some tank stationed outside. Border Patrol Chief Brian Hastings is defending his organization after allegations from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio, Cortez that Border Patrol agents told detained migrants to drink water from the toilet. Ocasio Cortez visited an immigration detention facility over the weekend and had this to say.

They put them in with no running water and these women were being told by CBP officers to drink out of the toilet. They were drinking water out of the toilet and that was them knowing a congressional visit was coming. This is CBP on their best behavior telling people. to drink out of the toilet. She later tweeted, quote, now I've seen the inside of these facilities. It's not just the kids. It's everyone. People drinking out of toilets, officers laughing in front of members of Congress. I brought it up to their superiors. They said officers are under stress and act out sometimes. No accountability. End quote. While appearing on Fox News, Border Patrol Chief Hastings responded. As I said earlier, we don't treat people that way. We provide fresh water. We provide

food. We provide sanitary and sanitary items as well as items for bathing and personal hygiene. Are you saying that she's lying? I'm telling you what we do. And we've been open and honest. We've had these tours quite frequently. And those are the things we provide. We have fresh water available at all times in our facilities. Hastings also condemned offensive Facebook posts discovered on a secret Facebook group made up of roughly 10,000 current and former Border Patrol officers. Those posts included disrespectful comments about a father and daughter who recently drowned in the Rio Grande and sexualized pictures of immigrants and several members of Congress, including Ocasio-Cortez. The Border Patrol chief said those posts were,

quote, not representative of the standards of conduct that we as Border Patrol agents hold ourselves accountable to. Quillette's Andy No, who was attacked by Antifa activists over the weekend in Portland, appeared on CNN to talk about what happened, definitely sounding the worst for where after his hospital stay that occurred as a result of his injuries. I, as a journalist, was covering a protest organized by Antifa activists, and the event was billed as resisting fascist violence, but as a journalist of color and a gay man, I ended up in the hospital. covering that event with a brain hemorrhage.

A brain hemorrhage. How are you doing this morning? What are your injuries? I'm glad to be out of the hospital. I'm surprised at various times I'm having these cognitive hiccups that weren't really apparent to me from just laying in bed in a hospital. But now that I'm trying to return to more normal activities,

and they're becoming more apparent. You were out there covering this. Again, it was, there was some kind of proud boys and they're sort of white nationalists, and there was the Antifa counter-protesting out them. It was the Antifa protesters whom you've had issues with before. They're the ones who came after you, you say? Yes, they're the ones who came after me.

I think this country, rightfully, is very tuned to knowing and sensing when the right goes too far. It was only just days ago that James Fields was sentenced for his murder of Heather Hire. I wonder if the rest, if this country, though, is also attuned to when the left can go too far. In the city of Portland, it's become a hotbed for far left militancy. Arizona governor Doug Ducey is retracting special insubesial. incentives for a Nike plant after the company canceled a new patriotic shoe.

Nike reportedly canceled a new USA-themed sneaker at the urging of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The sneaker featured a Betsy Ross flag on the heel. According to the Wall Street Journal, Kaepernick said the flag could be offensive due to its connection to the era of slavery. Well, Ducey responded swiftly announcing on Twitter, quote, Words cannot express my disappointment at this terrible decision. I'm embarrassed for Nike. Nike is an iconic American brand and American company. This country, our system of government and free enterprise, have allowed them to prosper and flourish.

Instead of celebrating American history the week of our nation's independence, Nike has apparently decided that Betsy Ross is unworthy and has bowed to the current onslaught of political correctness and historical revisionism. He continued, Nike has made its decision, and now we're making ours. I've ordered the Arizona Commerce Authority to withdraw all financial incentive dollars under their discretion that the state was providing for the company to locate here. Arizona's economy is doing just fine without Nike. We don't need to suck up to companies that consciously denigrate our nation's history. Next up, we'll feature Daniel's interview with Capital Research Center's Scott Walter. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues?

Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. In the agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. Well, I'm joined now by Scott Walter. He is president of the Capital Research Center,

and he previously served as the special assistant to the president for domestic policy in the George W. Bush administration. He was also vice president of the Philanthropy Roundtable. Mr. Walter, thanks so much for your time. Great to be here, Daniel. So I want to talk to you about the left. Your organization maps the left, and specifically dark money. This is something that both sides talk about the dark money on the other side, and we have things like campaign finance reform to block this kind of free.

thing supposedly. You know, the left talks about the Koch brothers, folks on the right, talk about the Soros money. I want to ask you about all of that and the research that your organization has done to actually map out what the reality is and whether, what the, how the two sides kind of match up to each other. So what's your basic analysis of which side has more dark money? Well, it's easy. All types of money, there's more of on the left than the right. A classic simple example of how the media then lies and misportrays this is Jane Meyer, famous New Yorker writer. She won a New York Times book award for her book a couple of years back entitled Dark Money. Before that, she had a big article in the New Yorker on the biggest Republican donor in North Carolina, Art Pope. And she made a big deal out of how the Republican side had more independent expenditures, which is one of the sort of three types of monies that can go into political campaigns. And it was true. They had a bit more in that. But overall, when you count up all the money on both sides, in fact, the Republicans were outspent in the election that they won.

So I guess they must have actually persuaded voters. So there's a great irony to this. And of course, all this talk about money that people are constantly doing, it's a way to avoid the substance of issues. So most recently, just a few days ago, the Washington Post had a huge long thumb sucker, as they're called in the journalism business. A big long article that was attacking Leonard Leo, who's associated with the Federal Society and other efforts to put judges on the bench who actually think the Constitution should be obeyed, which is pretty nefarious, I admit, but anyway, that's what they do. And this article attacked him for all this dark money he has. And the bottom line was there three interlocking non-profits that he's associated with. And in 2016 and 17, they raised $33 million.

Now, nowhere in the thousands of words in the article was there a hint of the least illegality of any kind whatsoever. Everything was completely above board, nor was there the least hint that there was anyone on the other side making arguments for the other side or that they had raised a penny. But in fact, the other side in that particular battle is led by an entity called demand justice. I say entity because it's a complete abstraction. It does not exist as an independent organization. It doesn't file the typical 990 forms that regular charities file about their expenses, their revenues, their salaries, their vendors. It is just a website run by a giant 501-C4 nonprofit on the left called the 1630 Fund. which even left-wing places like the Center for Responsive Politics explicitly call a dark money group.

And would you care to know how much the 1630 fund raised in 2016 and 17? How much? 101 million. Okay. So three times. But it is only one of four interlocking nonprofits in something called the Arabella Advisors Empire. Elbella Advisors are actually a for-profit consultancy that runs all these in-house nonprofits. And in toto, those four interlocking nonprofits raised $939 million in 2016-17.

So I guess the moral of the story is everyone raises money. Yes. And it sounds like the media just is honing in on one specific group that's raising money, but not really, you know, I guess the assumption behind that is that this other side is wrong on all the issues. Well, this is the funny thing. You know, we know that we've won the battle of ideas on the courts. because when left-wing justices like Sotomayor, for instance, get nominated, and they sit in front of the senators, they swear up and down that,

oh, no, they would never legislate from the bench. Oh, of course, they always want to follow the Constitution, and then, of course, they make a mockery of it on the bench. But obviously, we must have won the Battle of Ideas, therefore they don't want to talk about those ideas. They don't want to make the argument for what they actually believe in. But it's nice if you have the Washington Post to obscure all that and just say, this right-wing guy, he raised money to argue.

argue for a position, whatever that was, and we're not really going to discuss that. Right. Well, you know, there's been so much talk about money in politics, especially since the McCain-Feingold campaign law was struck down in the Citizens United case. A lot of folks on the left really tend to see money as determinative. You know, there's an equal, you know, there's an equal relationship between money input and policy output, and you're just buying policies through money. Do you think that money is a bit overrated, particularly in elections? We talk about buying elections. Do you think it's a bit overrated?

Oh, it massively overrated. We actually did a fun little two-minute video that people could find on our YouTube channel about this. The single largest donor for, I forget how many elections back, we looked, six cycles, seven cycles, eight cycles. The single largest donor in every cycle did not get most of what he wanted in that election. Wow. There is no clear. The other thing is, you know, Jeb Bush would be president today if money mattered. Right.

The 2016 was the greatest example of the idiocy of money determining everything. Didn't he spend like almost $3,000 per voter in Iowa? Yeah, he had hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump had virtually nothing and Trump wiped the floor with him. And then in the general election, Hillary outspent Trump. So either Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton should be president if money is all. Yeah. So when you think of money going to these big groups, you know, George Soros has his Open Society's Foundation,

billions, billions of dollars going through that. And that's going to pretty left-wing causes, right? It's not just center-left stuff. Oh, no, very far-left stuff. So are both, you know, are both polls of the political spectrum getting more money than, like, the center-left and center-right? Is it kind of a polarized money game? It tends to, you're quite right. somewhat polarized, I would argue that on the left it's actually much more polarized because

things like Black Lives Matter, I mean, what on the right is as radical and violent as that? I mean, there are a few crazies who are like that, but they're certainly not getting money from big right-wing foundations. In fact, of course, the Cokes, who are the ones most typically paired with Soros, have pulled back for some years now from being as political in their giving. So you have that. We did another study. You mentioned Citizens United. And this is, again, a classic example of the left focusing on some little tiny part of the whole truth in order to make a dishonest point.

So there are three rivers of money into politics. One is the hard political dollars going straight to candidates and parties, right? Then there's the independent expenditures, which is the only type of money that Citizens United's decision actually covered. And then the third river of money is 501C3 money that goes to politically engaged places. Now, Heritage is politically engaged. You talk about all kinds of public policies. We're politically engaged. We talk about public policy.

The sorts of things open society funds. Same thing. Well, our study looked at the years before Citizens United in 2010 and the years after Citizens United. And what we found is all three types of money increased. So if Citizen United made a huge difference, the other two streams, besides the independent expenditure stream, would have shrunk right and it would have gone into that, but it didn't. All three expanded significantly.

And the bottom line is that before and after Citizens United, the left-wing money is significantly larger than the right-wing money. They're roughly equal in the hard dollar category. In the Citizens United style, for some years they did expand, although in 2018, guess what? The left now has more even of that money than our side does. There's basically the 501C4s that are called. And then in the 501C3 world, which is private foundations and public charities like Heritage and Capital Research and whatnot, it's two or three to one for the left. And that, by the way, is by far the largest river.

So the tiniest river is the Citizens United River. And that one for a while, the right-wing folks had an advantage on. So everyone became obsessed with that and pointed to that and said how terrible that money was. while completely ignoring all the other money that dwarfed that stream. Very interesting stuff. You know, it seems like that should be an encouragement to those who are running and operating in politics with less money because you really can't substitute for a good message. No, that's true.

Although it also shows how the media bias and the media gatekeepers trying to keep out everything conservative are enormously powerful. You know, if you had to choose between the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, pick the mainstream media every time. It's a much more powerful weapon. Yeah. Well, Scott Walker, really appreciate your time on the podcast here. Thanks so much, Daniel.

Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at letters at dailysignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast. Fewer than half of Americans are extremely proud to be American, according to a new Gallup poll, which found that 45% of Americans are extremely proud to be American, and 70% overall are proud to be American. Among Democrats, only 22% are extremely proud to be American, while 76% of Republicans are.

Gallup notes that while Democrats being proud of their country has gone way down since President Trump was elected, 68% of Republicans were still extremely proud to be American when President Obama was in office. So it doesn't seem that partisanship cuts the same way on this issue. Daniel, what did you think about this poll? Yeah, that was just a stunning gap. I mean, 22% of Democrats alone are extremely proud to be American. And yeah, I mean, that's coming at a time when, I guess, with the exception of Trump in their minds, we're at this tail end of progress

where we've had all this historical progress in America and now still only 22% are proud to be American. I'd be curious to ask them why it is. Is it because of our history or is it because of the way we are today?

I don't know. I mean, liberals tend to not be so much fans of our history but like the direction of the future. But if they're talking about today, it's like that seems kind of hopeless. But I do wonder though about the political differences.

You did mention that when one president was elected, people of his party became more proud of the country and it went down for the other party. I think that's definitely part of it. And it's only accentuated now because of just how polarized we have become. So for Democrats, I guess Trump represents what America is now. And so I guess they don't like that. Yeah, I mean, as you say, there could be a lot of factors at play.

But I do think it's extremely troubling in the sense of, you know, we constantly hear from the left about systematic problems. And that seems to be a mindset that's taking more of a hold among the left. It's becoming more mainstream on the left. And, of course, the United States has had flaws. It was a moral outrage that slavery was allowed for so long and that there was discrimination for so long after that. But, you know, every nation has had slavery, basically, has had, you know, huge moral outages or, outrageous. I just, there doesn't seem to be an ability on the left to recognize what was good and unique about America. It seems like they almost are approaching life in this somewhat childish,

like you either had to be perfect or you're no good at all. Yeah, no, it's definitely a zero-sum mentality. I was also going to say maybe all the pride went to gay pride because you know we are on the tail of the gay pride month. But I mean, if it did go to gay, I mean, I guess they would say like transgenderers aren't accepted in America. I mean, the, I mean, what you were saying about the present. I mean, look at what the left has achieved. I mean, we're, you know, screaming about it every day. Like, it would seem that they would say America is on a trend that they would appreciate, you know, including stuff like a pride parade being something that all the city officials go to. And, but it's not, I don't know. And I think, you know, especially coming, this poll, of course,

came out the same day that we found out about the Nike shoe, which we covered in the headlines. And, you know, it's just so interesting. Like here, We have, you know, this great story of our founding, this desire for freedom and liberty. And they just can't accept it at all because it was accompanied by the evil of slavery. And I just, I mean, yeah, maybe you have to, I mean, you sort of see where the America hatred seeps in here. If it's all or nothing, then I guess you want to start another country almost. Yeah. And that it's kind of a concerning mentality because when you think of like what's the logic there of all or nothing?

Well, that means we burn Monticello to the ground. It means we rename Washington, D.C., because it's named after a slave owner. I mean, you could literally apply this everywhere, you know, that we've got to just remake everything. And it really requires us to be able to look in the past and see threads of real goodness woven in with threads of real evil, like slavery, and distinguish between them. I think that's just essential and it's something that we're losing. Yeah, and I think also, you know, we have a culture that's becoming increasingly intolerant in some ways. You know, there's this whole cancel culture on Twitter where if someone says one thing that's politically incorrect, it's sort of like they're over for life. And, you know, I point that someone raised on Twitter and I can't remember who, but, you know, it's sort of like Christianity has this idea of forgiveness for sense.

And if we're moving into a post-Christian world, are we also losing the ability? you know, whether you agree with Christianity or not, to process that every single person does bad things. And how do we deal with that? Yeah. Oh, man, that's a potential can of worms there because that brings to mind the Me Too movement. Remember last year we were talking about this,

how, you know, there's no real standard for, what if someone committed some, like, quote, unquote, minor offense or something within the Me Too movement? Like, is there a way for them to get redemption and to come back into society? it's hard to see what that is without some standard. I mean, like you mentioned, at least in Christianity, you've got this spiritual realm where forgiveness is actually possible,

regardless of what a consequence is you have to pay in society. But we've sort of collapsed, like, that spiritual space into the world, you know, the rest of the world now. So there's really no chance of forgiveness at all. Right. And I don't really know. It's just perpetual pendants, basically. And I don't really know.

know, like what the right answer is in a lot of these cases? I mean, me too is the perfect example. It's a thorny question. I would say, like, yeah, I mean, if you rape someone, you're done with public life, definitely. But yeah, as you say, what about some of the in-between cases? I don't know what I think. I don't know. But I do think that this is sort of a new thing, this sort of mob justice mentality that we're seeing through social media. And I think it's a fascinating example of how technology is changing us in ways that I don't think we foresaw. And anyway, we strolled a little bit far away for the original question. Basically, America get patriotic again.

Yeah, but I think. Maybe Trump's military parade will do that. Maybe all the kids, no, watching, you know, from home in America, even the liberal kids will see like, oh, those tanks are awesome. Go America. Okay. I don't know. But I think more so I would, I think that Gallup's only been doing this poll since 2000 or 2001.

Of course, they mentioned the historic highs were immediately after 9-11 in the years following, which makes sense. But I do think what we're seeing here is a bigger and bigger gap between the left and the right.

And this is like one of those cultural battles that we didn't used to be fighting and we are fighting now. We didn't used to fight. You're right, because even a lot of mainstream people on the left, like John Stewart from The Daily Show,

he was very pro-American, even though he was criticizing a Republican administration, he was, you know, even before the congressional committee a few weeks ago, he said specifically, this country is great and worth fighting for and so on, that kind of thing. Like, when you lose that base level of, even if I disagree with who's in power, at least I love this country. That's a problem.

Yeah, and I don't know how you bridge that gap. Well, a good place for us to leave it. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please do us a review or rating at iTunes to give us feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. You've been listening to The Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis,

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