MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The home stretch of the presidential campaign means huge rallies, a final barrage of campaign ads and massive multi-state get-out-the-vote efforts. All of that costs money. That is why, in addition to asking for your vote, the campaigns have been asking for your cash. In social media ads like these in support of the Democratic ticket...
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BARACK OBAMA: This is it, folks. We need you to send a donation to help...
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: And look, $5 may not seem like much, but our path to victory relies on all of us chipping in together.
TIM WALZ: That way, you and I can both wake up on Nov. 6 knowing that we did everything we could.
KELLY: They are asking in emails with jump-scare subject lines and in untold numbers of unsolicited text messages.
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KELLY: Those asks have paid off for the Harris campaign, which raised a record billion dollars in the span of three months. Former President Trump nodded to that haul in his own pitch.
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DONALD TRUMP: The one thing her campaign has is money. They get it from a lot of people that you don't want to hear about. These are not the people that you agree with. A donation of just $10 from patriots like you will help us to fight and to win big.
KELLY: Previous Trump campaigns have been powered by small donations like that. This year, not so much, according to the political spending tracker OpenSecrets. Instead, Trump is relying on massive contributions from wealthy individuals to super PACs that support him. None more notable...
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TRUMP: Where the - where is he? Come on up here, Elon.
KELLY: ...Than Elon Musk.
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TRUMP: Take over, Elon. Just take over.
KELLY: That is Trump onstage with Musk in Butler, Pennsylvania last month. The tech billionaire has poured more than $118 million into his America PAC in support of Trump. And again, according to OpenSecrets, Trump has said he will appoint Musk to a new efficiency czar position if elected. Here's Musk at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally last month.
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ELON MUSK: Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that.
KELLY: Musk has offered registered voters in crucial battleground states a chance at a daily million-dollar prize if they sign his petition in support of the First and Second Amendment. And he's knocking on doors. The Trump campaign has outsourced much of its get-out-the-vote effort to Musk's group.
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MUSK: Get everyone, friends, family, people on the street. Put the signs up. Put the hat on. Let's go.
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KELLY: CONSIDER THIS - as we publish this episode Tuesday afternoon, we do not know who will win this election. We do know that outside money has played a bigger role than ever before.
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KELLY: From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.
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KELLY: It's CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. This election, like the one before it, and the one before that, and the one before that, will be the most expensive election in U.S. history. OpenSecrets is a nonpartisan group that tracks election spending. It estimates the 2024 federal election cycle will cost nearly $16 billion. It was around $15 billion back in 2020. Daniel Weiner is director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Elections and Government Program. He tracks the influence of money in elections. And I talked to him about what role money has played in this presidential election. Hey there, Daniel.
DANIEL WEINER: Hey, there. It's a pleasure to be with you.
KELLY: So go to that number I just cited - $16 billion spent in this federal election cycle. What pops into your head?
WEINER: What pops into my head is that's a lot of money, but I am most interested on where that money is coming from. There is a big difference between $16 billion coming from millions of Americans in small increments versus just coming - a significant portion of it coming from a handful of billionaires. What we have seen is that the trend is towards more and more of that money coming from the very wealthiest donors.
KELLY: And tease out for me why. What has changed in this election cycle?
WEINER: A couple of things have changed. So the largest overarching trend is that since the - a decision called Citizens United in 2010 swept away a lot of limits on campaign fundraising and spending, more and more groups like super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, have played a prominent role in U.S. elections. In the meantime, the laws that remained on the books, which we're supposed to, for instance, keep those Super PACs from collaborating with candidates, have gone largely unenforced.
So you have a situation now, for instance, with former President Trump's campaign, where he has actually outsourced quite a bit of that campaign to super PACs funded by folks like Elon Musk. Kamala Harris also has a lot of billionaire backers. Although she is following a more traditional model, where still the organization taking the lead is her traditional campaign committee because that has had very successful fundraising on its own.
KELLY: The question of what all this money buys. We've mentioned Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Trump says, if elected, he would name Musk to a new efficiency czar position. How unusual is that?
WEINER: Well, I think it's important to not overstate how unusual it is because you have to remember, we have a long tradition in this country of major donors getting things like ambassadorships...
KELLY: Right.
WEINER: ...Right? - which both parties have done. What is unusual is the potential for a donor to take a role that would have so much direct oversight over matters in which the donor has a direct financial interest. Remember, Musk is a major government contractor. His companies, like SpaceX, have billions of dollars of federal contracts.
KELLY: Talk to me about what you were seeing on the Democratic side. I'm remembering that back when she was a senator, Kamala Harris was prone to speaking out against corporate cash and political action committees. She spoke out against so-called dark money, anonymous contributions. In this presidential campaign, she has not seemed that bothered about benefiting from outside money. What do I see when you look at that?
WEINER: I see that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are fighting a very close election, and in the climate that we have, I don't think either side is going to leave anything on the field. More and more on both sides, the super PACs supporting them are relying on donations from dark money groups that do not disclose their donors that are basically funneled through the super PAC. That's a feature of both Harris and Trump's campaign. But by and large, you know, big money is playing a role in Kamala Harris' campaign. She also has a very wide donor base of smaller donors. What's fascinating...
KELLY: You don't see hypocrisy there in a political candidate who was happy to call out dark money until it was directly benefiting her presidential campaign?
WEINER: I would say that in this era where our elections are very closely fought, I think that there is going to be a willingness to use any legal lever possible across the board. I just don't think it's realistic until you change the rules that either side is going to unilaterally disarm.
KELLY: Can you ever get money out of politics? Or when I talk to you four years from now, are we likely to be saying, once again, this has just been the most expensive election in U.S. history?
WEINER: Well, interestingly, this may not be the most expensive election in U.S. history. This election we thought was going to break all records, and now may be on track to actually clock in about where 2020 clocked in, but then you have to factor in inflation. So here's what I want to say. I think getting money out of politics is the wrong question. The question is, where does the money come from?
So what I would like to see, and although the Supreme Court has made this harder, it is not impossible, I would like to see an election where there are more small donations and where, you know, most of the money, at least most of the big money, is transparent. In the medium term, that is what I think we could achieve. And you know, I do think it's significant that however Kamala Harris is raising money now, she has made those sorts of reforms a central promise of her campaign.
KELLY: If we had those guardrails, a big if, but if we did, is there an argument to be made that all this money on some level is good for our democracy? It does show engagement?
WEINER: You know, it's such a great question. I think, again, I come back to this idea. Politics is always going to cost money. Elections are expensive, and elections are important. So, arguably, you should be spending money on them. I think it's a problem when so much of the money comes from just a very small group of what amount to oligarchs. That is not healthy for our political system. But the mere fact that we spend money on politics, I don't think is a particularly bad thing, no.
KELLY: Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Elections and Government Program. Thanks so much.
WEINER: It was a pleasure. Thank you.
KELLY: This episode was produced by Connor Donevan. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
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KELLY: It's CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.
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