The Daily Signal - Chinese Communist Party-Linked Exec Donated $50K to Spanberger Campaign

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Wednesday morning Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon reported that a gentleman named Pin Ni, who is a US-based executive with luxury electric car maker KARMA Automotive gave $50,000 over two contributions to the gubernatorial campaign of former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger. Ni, more troubling, listed as a member of the Chinese Communist Party.  US Election law prohibits campaign contributions from foreign nationals, and the Chinese government insists that you renounce your Citizenship in order to qualify for US dual citizenship. So, one or the other must be true. For Spanberger, a big contribution from an Electric Vehicle manufacturer that would certainly have an interest in making sure that the Virginia Clean Economy Act doesn’t get change or go away is problematic. Doubly ironic given the amount of angst that was expressed by the Democratic party leadership in 2021 about Glenn Youngkin’s extensive business ties having been CEO of the Carlyse Group before being elected Governor. However, that isn’t nearly the crime that accepting a political donation from a foreign national would be. The Beacon story says that Ni sits on the board of directors for the Wanxiang Group, which he founded in 1994. The company’s 2025 annual report says that Ni had "been recognized" as an "Outstanding Communist Party Member of the Group" 15 times. Spanberger needs to address this but without any debates scheduled, Earle-Sears may not get a direct chance so it’s up to the Virginia press corps. Before the story came out the Daily Signal spoke with Republican Party of Virginia Chair, State Senator Mark Peake about President Trump’s statements regarding endorsing Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in her race against Spanberger and her unwillingness to debate and that is the podcast you are about to listen to. After seeing the story, he told us; “It doesn’t surprise me that Chinese communists want Spanberger to win.  I am sure they have reviewed her voting record in Congress and prefer her to a true, conservative patriot like Winsome Sears.” Keep Up With The Daily Signal   Sign up for our email newsletters:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.dailysignal.com/email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠     Subscribe to our other shows:    The Tony Kinnett Cast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7AFk8xjiOOBEynVg3JiN6g  The Signal Sitdown: https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL2026390376   Problematic Women:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL7765680741   Victor Davis Hanson: https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9809784327   Follow The Daily Signal:    X:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://x.com/intent/user?screen_name=DailySignal Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/thedailysignal/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Facebook:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/TheDailySignalNews/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Truth Social:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://truthsocial.com/@DailySignal⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  YouTube:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1    Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and never miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thanks for listening to this bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast. I'm your host, Joe Thomas, Virginia correspondent for The Daily Signal. Before we dive into today's interview, I want to thank you for tuning in today. If you're a first-time listener, The Daily Signal, brings you fact-based reporting and conservative commentary on politics, policy, and culture. And I hope you join our band of regular listeners to our podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and also take it. Take a moment to rate and review us wherever you get your podcast.

You can find additional content at DailySignal.com. Now, let's get started with today's conversation right after this. At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure growth and expansion advice, and we can talk your ear off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do. Business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardin today.

We'd love to talk, business. I reached out to the next fellow on the line with us after the rage against the regime rallies over the weekend. And not because I'm a fan of the band or anything else or I don't mind a decent twist on words, But when we saw how poorly attended they were and their own Facebook page calling out and saying, what's happened? Where is everybody? What's going on? I'm told, I'm gaslit. People try to gaslight me all the time that, oh, Republicans are down in the mouth. Republicans have no enthusiasm.

Yet it didn't seem like anyone really had any enthusiasm to go out and protest the president, even though it would be a very nice weekend weather-wise across the country for the most part, outside of some storms in New York. So I reached out to the Republican Party of Virginia chair, Mark Peek, since he's the boss with the sauce for a gubernatorial election that even has brought presidential attention now to it. Mark, good morning, sir. Thank you for taking a little time out. How are you doing today?

I'm doing great, Joe. good morning to you. So we've discussed the voter enthusiasm gap before in your visits to the program, and you've said, no, no, it's not the Republicans are not down or anything like that. But it certainly seems like the pollsters are oversampling the enthusiasm of Democrats. Yeah, I had the same conversation with another media person, a reporter a week or so ago. And, I mean, do you see any enthusiasm among the Democrats and what you said happened this weekend just shows that? I mean, they got Clinton J. Jones has just refused to do debates. They've got Gazzala Hashmi, Palestinian supporting Gzala Hashmi, has turned down 10, 10 debate opportunities from John Reed.

And Spamberger hasn't committed to any debates with, went some seers. How are they generating any excitement? They are just hiding. It's again to Joe Biden hide in the basement and hope the bad news out there, the regular mainstream media can carry them. And I think they're making a big mistake.

Abigail Spanberger does not have the enthusiasm in the black community, and neither does Ghazala Hashmi. And you can see it. The rallies were not very highly attended. There's no boss. Well, and you talk about, you know, former CIA case officer Abigail Spanberger, who's running for the Democratic nominee for governor.

She is, you know, even though they say she has more money than Winsome Sears, she's paling in comparison to Terry McCullough's fundraising of four years ago as well. So I think it's an easy catch-up if you're just, looking at money but you know the other thing is I know too much about this stuff I think Mark but I look at these polls and say oh Spanberger double digits oh headline news on all the papers and then you look at registered voters in in an off-year election which will probably see maybe a 50% voter turnout if you're in and so I went and I looked for all the ones that were likely voters and that

one's four percent five percent well within the margins of error. Yeah, that's, and those polls are just a joke, and we're talking, Rono College was one of the worst. That poll they put out the first time, it was just citizens. It wasn't even registered voters that claimed a big difference, and they include that when they do the amalgamation of the polls. So, yeah, you've got to get to likely voters, which is always less in the off-year elections,

and then it's always pretty much within the margin of error. And that's after the, you know, just the constant bombardment of the mainstream media against Donald Trump. And it's just not taking, people don't like illegal immigration, and they like what Trump's doing. They don't like countries charging us 30% tariffs and then selling their stuff, government-backed, you know, products for free. So people like America, supporting America. And I think they're seeing the gas prices coming down and they're seeing, you know, I buy 88 that 15% ethanol for my truck. And that was down at 240 the other day.

So, I mean, people are seeing that. People are seeing groceries, things like that coming down in costs. People are seeing jobs opening up and things like that. So little by little, when the reality doesn't match the narrative, somebody pointed out to me that when some Sears polls in these likely voter polls are actually closer to former CIA officer Spanberger, yes, I'm doing that intentionally. What do you think? People are in my ear saying, are you saying that intentionally? You know, she was in Congress, you know, too, Joe. But the, then, then Terry McCullough and Glenn Yonkin were four years ago, the only difference I see,

and maybe this is why Spanberger doesn't want to. a debate. It was when that debate took place between Yonkin and McCalliffe that everything came off the rails for them. Because a political gaff is when you say what you really mean. That's what McCalliff said. And one of the other issues is energy, power. Everybody's power bills are going up and everybody knows it's because of the Green New Deal that they passed in Virginia and the Reggie deal that they put us in and adopting all those California regulations had it not been for Mierrez and Yonkin taking us out of the California electric car deal. We'd still be tied to that. And people know it.

And they can't get away from that. And of course, Spanberger is trying to Joe Biden hide in the basement. Don't debate, don't say anything. Put the videos out. And nobody's asking her any questions. none of the press ask her any hard questions at all about why'd you vote with Pelosi 95 98% of the time what's the difference between you and aOC and the squad on all these issues and when they do ask her a question about right to work she gets two or three different answers she doesn't want to answer anything well yeah and that's perhaps why she doesn't want to debate let me ask you about you know that that idea of squeezing out a little truth of who you are It is a tactic, but I don't think it's an inspiring tactic. And I go back to what we were talking about, these rallies over the weekend. And I'm seeing the same thing in New Jersey with the Chatterrelli is all of a sudden four or five points behind a congresswoman. I have family in New Jersey. People have asked people in the 11th congressional district of New Jersey who their congresswoman is, and they don't know.

But then they'll say, oh, but I'm going to vote for this woman. You don't even know she's your congresswoman, but I'll vote for her governor. You know, I just don't see the reality matching up to this, Mark. But you mentioned energy costs. And one of the things we're dealing with is these electric utilities are pointing to laws, laws that are built on flimsy foundations, laws where Democrats are actually starting to say, yeah, maybe we should reinvestigate some of these Clean Air Act legislations. We watched Lee Zeldon pull carbon dioxide and methane, the byproducts of human existence, off of the list of dangerous pollutants. So I imagine the cornerstones of the Virginia Clean Air Act are being challenged.

But now Dominion, just in the news, said, despite the military pulling out of their funding for the offshore wind farm and the fact that all of their stuff is made overseas, their claim. well, that's going to make Trump's tariffs raise your electric bill. I want to ask you this, is the electric utility company actually a paid-for apparatchik of the Democratic Party because it's starting to act like it is? Well, I don't think that's a dominion. I will say they give to both parties. There's a lot of debate about whether they should be allowed to donate in these political I understand, but I'm not even talking about their donations.

I'm talking about their words. They're in the paper this morning saying your rates are going up because of Trump. Well, I think everybody's electric rates are going up, and they're going to blame somebody else. And I guess Trump's the easiest target at this point on that. And that will, unfortunately, feed the Democrat statement. But our rates have been going up well before that. That's a win project. But let's not forget.

The reason that that wind project exists is because of the Democrats made them with the Green New Deal. There would have been no wind farm off of the coast of Virginia Beach had it not been for those policies. And now they're complaining, oh, we're not getting our subsidies or all. We've got to pay a little more to build them when the Democrats are the ones that force that on them anyway. Otherwise, we would have cheap, clean, easy, reliable energy that we've had for. centuries like natural gas, coal, those forms, and nuclear. And they block every nuclear plant for the last 50 years. And that's cheap, clean, affordable, reliable energy. And now they want to, and so now you get to the short term, they're forced these companies to go buy stuff from China

for windmills and for solar panels and are complaining and trying to blame it immediately when they look when they ignore the root cause, which are the Green New Deal. Well, and that's what you're in, so you kind of teed up my next question, which is, you know, in Virginia, there's also a House of Delegates race. If we win the House of Delegates, aside from, you know, stopping the most progressive and permissive abortion law on the planet, you might actually have a shot at getting us out of this Green News scam. Wouldn't we?

Oh, absolutely. And even the Democrats, you said that you talked about some of the national Democrats, but the local Democrats, Don Scott's made statements. Cree Deeds has made statements when Cree deeds brought that bill to allow Richmond to overrule localities on zoning for solar factories. Yeah. So, well, we can't meet the Green New Deal if y'all don't start putting up all the solar factories down in southwest Virginia. They know they can't reach these targets. They're not, it's not possible.

There's no way to power our economy. And that's not even including the data center drag on the electric grid. So they know it. And they don't want to anger their base by backing off of it. But in the next couple of years, they're going to have to do something because there's not going to be any power in the future. And then people are really going to get mad. So they are in a really bad spot. They passed a horrible law based on bad.

science and based on bad thought processes as to how they can produce the power. And now they're getting called by it. Mark, I wanted to ask you about the tarmac endorsement of Winsome Sears when the reporter asked the quiet part out loud, would you endorse Winsom Sears? And everyone in Virginia held their breath collectively because there's been this feeling that, oh, well, he's mad. You know, the characterization of Trump that he's, you know, thin-skinned and holds a grudge against everybody if they don't endorse him because statements Winsome had made in 2022. So when she asked everyone in Virginia that I knew went, and then he's, of course, I'll endorse her.

She's in a tough race, but I'll endorse her. And it's more important for me to, and I wrote a column about this for the Daily Signal that President Trump wants to put his name on races where there's some competition where he believes that the person can win. And I think that, you know, the Sears campaign and you guys at RPV have been showing him that. That's why he seems willing to endorse winsome Sears in this race and weigh in on it. Did you, what was your reaction when you heard the president say that Sunday? Yeah, I think people have been blown that all out of proportion.

it's Winsham is doing a great job if you'll look especially there are a couple articles out there a couple weeks ago a month ago but since then she's she's bought in a new campaign team she has been on the air she's been going to events all over the state

which is what she needs to do when she meets people they love her and people can see she's authentic and she believes what she says and she will make a great governor so I think Trump sees that as well. I think Trump, and I'm just, I don't have any connection, but I think he likes to make a big impact. He likes to announce big deals. I think he's probably waiting for the appropriate time where he

thinks his full-out endorsement can make the biggest difference. And I mean, I don't think July is that time. I think as we get closer to September, when voting starts after Labor Day, I think that would be my guess. and when he and Winsome and she said they're talking, I have no idea what their conversations are. So I don't have any knowledge on this. Oh, darn it. What we've seen from the president is he likes his statements to have a big impact. Sure. So it makes perfect sense that he hadn't done anything in May or June.

And when everybody's really paying attention to it after Labor Day, we'll see. And let me just, if you like Donald Trump, if you're a base. Republican, just know that all of your gun rights will be gone about the second, by July 1st of next year, if Spamberger wins and they hold the house because they're coming after your guns. Yonkin vetoed about 20 gun bills last year, 20 gun bills last year, doing away with semi-automatic weapons. There'll be no sales at gun shows. There'll be a five-day waiting period, probably be one.

gun a month and those are just some of them they're going to do away with liability for gun manufacturers so nobody's going to sell them i mean your gun rights if you're don't trump supporter your gun rights are gone your energy rights are gone they're going to follow up more with this california eva crap with mandates on regular energy so whether trump does or doesn't is really irrelevant as far as what will happen to you if the Democrats win the governorship and the House of Delegates. That'll do it for today's show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new episodes from The Daily Signal. Every weekday you can catch top news in 10 to keep up with the day's top headlines in just 10 minutes. And every weekday afternoon catch Victor Davis-Hanson's

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