Billionaires who are selling out America with support for TrumpThey claim President Biden's plan for them to pay taxes is unfair. So?
By DOUG THOMPSON
March 29, 2024
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends the Trump Organization civil fraud trial, in New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City.
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An old saying in politics is “money talks and bullshit walks.” Plans of some billionaires who withheld money from disgraced sexual predator, rapists and criminally-indicted Donald Trump after his seditious actions during the Capitol Riot on Jan. 6, 2021, are crawling back to Trump with their checkbooks open.
Their money is not just talking, they re whining about President Joe Biden’s intent to make them pay taxes on their billions, so they want to put Trump, who has already been found guilty of fraudulent lies to tax authorities, back into the White House so they can avoid paying their fair share.
Call them the billionaire bullshitters. Their money talks to Trump’s wallet and that is bullshit.
Reports The Washington Post:
The day after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, billionaire and GOP megadonor Nelson Peltz called the attempted insurrection a “disgrace” and expressed remorse for voting for Donald Trump. “I’m sorry I did that,” Peltz said of supporting Trump in 2020.
But earlier this month, Peltz had breakfast with Trump and other billionaires — including hotelier Steve Wynn, Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk and former Marvel chairman Isaac Perlmutter — at Trump’s luxurious Palm Beach oceanfront mansion, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private gathering.
Peltz, a renowned activist investor currently in a battle over Disney, then told the Financial Times that he would “probably” vote for the GOP front-runner in 2024. The New York Times first reported that Trump dined with Musk and other donors but did not name Peltz, Wynn or Perlmutter.
As hopes of a Republican alternative have crumbled, elite donors who once balked at Trump’s fueling of the Capitol insurrection, worried about his legal problems and decried what they saw as his chaotic presidency are rediscovering their affinity for the former president — even as he praises and vows to free Jan. 6 defendants, promises mass deportations and faces 88 felony charges.
The shift reflects many conservative billionaires’ fears of President Biden’s tax agenda, which if approved would drastically reduce their fortunes. In some cases, it also points to their discomfort with the Biden administration’s foreign and domestic policy decisions. Some of these billionaires have been assiduously courted by Trump and his advisers in recent months.
“If it starts to look like Trump may win, despite his legal troubles, it is inevitable that Republican business people who have not been fans will open their wallets in self-defense,” said Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for New York City, the top lobbying group for major corporations in New York
–The Washington Post
One billionaire not listed is Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who also owns The Post. Noe so we see Warren Buffett, considered one of the richest of the rich, or Microsoft founder Bill Gates. They belong to a group that pledges the bulk of their wealth to important causes that help America and the world.
“The billionaire class is really threatened by Biden: These guys are about creating a dynasty of wealth for themselves, and hoarding it for their posterity, at the expense of everyone else in society,” Steve Rosenthal, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank, told the Post. “That’s the striking story at the moment.”
Some of these donors are not enthusiastic supporters of Trump — they wanted other candidates and still express misgivings about Trump and his ability to win a general election. “This isn’t a passionate embrace. It’s just reality,” one person close to major donors told the Post. “No one is particularly excited about it.” In this case, money talked and any claim of caring a damn thing about the future of this nation walked out with their bullshit.
The Post continues:
Trump could desperately use the cash infusion as his campaign and the RNC trail Biden and the Democratic National Committee, and as he faces growing legal bills. Next month, he is planning a fundraiser hosted by a range of billionaires, including oil tycoon Harold Hamm, sugar magnate Jose “Pepe” Fanjul, real estate mogul Howard Lutnick, megadonors Rebekah and Bob Mercer, wealthy business executives Todd Ricketts and Warren Stephens and real estate magnate Steve Witkoff, according to an invitation reviewed by The Washington Post.
The price of admission is $250,000, but many donors are giving the maximum contribution of $814,600 — which will be split between Trump’s campaign and other entities, including the Republican National Committee and a leadership PAC that pays many of his legal bills. It is being hosted by John Paulson, a billionaire investor backing Trump. Giving $814,600 gets a seat at Trump’s table.
"We are not only raising the necessary funds, but we are deploying strategic assets that will help send President Trump back to the White House and carry Republicans over the finish line,” said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.
Wynn has helped orchestrate some of the conversations. He and Trump talk regularly. But Trump in recent months has complained that Wynn has not given him a dollar even though they have been friends for years, according to people familiar with the remarks. Now, Wynn is headlining the fundraiser as well.
Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, who rejected Trump in the 2024 GOP primaries, is now considering backing the former president, people familiar with the matter said. A top adviser to Schwarzman has spoken to multiple Trump advisers in recent weeks, according to the people familiar, but Schwarzman has not made a final decision on giving.
Oracle’s Larry Ellison — a billionaire who backed Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley in the GOP primaries — is in discussions about writing a large check in support of Trump, people familiar with the matter said. Trump and his aides have courted Ellison in recent weeks. Richard Uihlein and Elizabeth Uihlein, conservative billionaires and heirs to the Schlitz brewing fortune, told the Financial Times that they will donate to Trump as well.
–The Washington Post
They are called “the billionaire class,” a group that, like Trump, cares far more about their “brand” and their wealth than a country where they made their riches and thrived from its existence.
Some, like Buffet and Gates. have pledged the bulk of their wealth to charitable causes and groups that are trying to improve society and its culture, but they are a minority among those who accumulate wealth, often at the expense of the poor and shrinking middle class. They care only for themselves and others of “their class.”
Their money is talking to Trump, and their bullshit claims of caring about what is right are walking right out the door to leave America and democracy behind.
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