David Squires on … trophy-loving Trump crashing Chelsea's Club World Cup party
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The Independent
27 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump's super PAC has ballooned to $200M thanks to Musk and other Silicon Valley heavyweights
President Donald Trump's super PAC holds nearly $200 million after donations from Elon Musk and other Silicon Valley heavyweights. The funds may be spent to take on rivals in both the Democratic and Republican parties. During the first half of this year, the Trump group MAGA Inc. gathered about $177m in total from Musk, TikTok investor Jeffrey Yass, Silicon Valley executives Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, and others, a Thursday filing with the Federal Election Commission states. Trump has held several fundraisers this year, costing as much as seven figures a seat, The New York Times noted. The dinners, which have often been held at one of the president's properties, have allowed lobbyists and executives to make their case to Trump about their business interests. The filing states that the super PAC has $196.1m in cash on hand. Politicians haven't previously been so meticulous about raising money when they don't have a campaign in the future. Comparatively, a group backing term-limited former President Barack Obama raised $356,000 in the first half of 2013. That June, it had $3.4 million in cash on hand. MAGA Inc. has collected almost double the money as the Republican National Committee. But the RNC is restricted by contribution limits. Yass donated $16m to MAGA Inc. while Horowitz and Andreessen jointly contributed $6m. Trump has boosted the crypto industry from which his group collected several seven-figure donations. The group also received a $5m donation from a crypto entity co-founded by Sam Altman, the chief of OpenAI. Some Republicans have grown confused as to why Trump has been raising so much money for the group. Some of the president's top supporters have pushed for him to run for an unconstitutional third term. Trump aides have said it would be unwise not to take money that is essentially up for the taking. The funds can be used to attack the president's enemies. With such a sizable money pot, MAGA Inc. is set to play a significant role in Republican primaries, boosting the value of an endorsement from Trump. Some conservatives have grown worried about the amount of money collected by the Super PAC, with the group likely to be a bigger spender in the 2026 midterm elections than groups connected to the Republican leadership in Congress. As of June 30, the Congressional and Senate Leadership Funds held $32.7m and $29.7m. Filings show that a super PAC supported by the crypto industry, Fairshake, had $140m on hand, according to filings. Musk at first said he would spend roughly $100m on Trump's political operation, but in the end, he spent only $5m. Musk and Trump's close relationship has since come to an apparent end. Musk also contributed $5m each to the Senate and Congressional Leadership Funds some weeks after his public feud with the president. But soon after, following the passage of Trump's budget bill, Musk said he would leave the Republican Party to start his own party.
The Independent
27 minutes ago
- The Independent
Palestinian lives lost in the pursuit of food aid in Gaza, in photos
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference.
Daily Mail
28 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Highly strung MSNBC anchor soapboxes about why he quit plum job at Washington Post
Longtime Washington Post opinion writer and current MSNBC anchor Jonathan Capehart has detailed his decision to leave the paper after nearly two decades. Subbing in for Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC's 'The Last Word' Thursday, Capehart said it was the editorial board's increasingly conservative tone as of late that led him to make the call. 'American democracy is in peril', he claimed, after taking a buyout from the Jeff Bezos-run paper nearly two weeks ago. He will still have his own show on MSNBC to go back to - 'The Weekend' - where Eugene Daniels, a self-professed ' Kamala Harris expert', and the Post's current congressional correspondent, Jackie Alemany, are his co-hosts. Also a frequent PBS NewsHour contributor, Capehart told O'Donnell's usual audience that it was Bezos's increasingly hand-on approach to the newspaper that set him off - as well as Americans' 'optimism' under Donald Trump. He explained: 'In February, the owner of the Post decided that the section would focus on the twin pillars of personal liberties and free markets.' 'We in the section received an email from our new editor, which reiterated that and added, it's also important that we communicate with optimism about this country in particular and the future in general. 'How can we communicate with optimism about the future in general when we're living in the here and now, where American democracy is in peril?' The spiel saw him take aim at Post owner Jeff Bezos, who announced the Post's opinion section would only focus on 'free markets and personal liberties' back in February Capehart, 58, had been referring to Bezos' recent interference with the Post's editorial process since Trump's reelection, which was followed by a wave of exits from the Post's largely progressive opinion section. Back in February, Bezos announced the Post's opinion section would only focus on 'free markets and personal liberties' - sparking the negative response. Months before, Bezos ruled to not endorse a presidential candidate shortly before the election, after years of propping up Democrats. Around that time, the Post's then-new publisher and CEO, Will Lewis, a former editor of the British Daily Telegraph, flat out told Post journalists: 'People are not reading your stuff'. A round of layoffs ensued, in late February, after which The Post announced it was implementing a buyout program targeting veteran staffers. Capehart, on-air, said he accepting the offer because the editorial board he belonged to since 2017 was now being expected to "constantly extoll the beauty of a home's doors, crown moldings, and windows when the rest of the house is engulfed in flames and its foundation is flooding." He further claimed 'patriotism is incomplete' if the ideology does not allow for a "mirror to be held up" to the US and its citizens. 'The administration is playing chicken with federal courts,' Capehart said. 'The administration is using masked federal agents to snatch people off the streets and send them to hellish prisons abroad. 'The administration deployed the military on the streets of an American city,' he continued. 'The president is using his office to enrich himself and his family. 'The president has turned Congress, a co-equal branch of government, into the staff wing of the executive branch,' he claimed. 'And we're supposed to ignore it, leave it to others to wrestle with on their news pages and websites? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. 'The Constitution gives us the inherent, unapologetically patriotic right to rail against such affronts to democracy and the rule of law, and the First Amendment demands it,' he added. Capehart famously cried while reflecting on the memory of the January 6 riots live on MSNBC, during the insurrection's third anniversary. He specifically cited the January 6 Capitol siege as a turning point in where MAGA supporters of former president Donald Trump violently invaded the Capitol Building in Washington DC in an effort to disrupt a joint session of Congress that was busy counting electoral votes in Joe Biden's favor. Back in 2021, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the same MSNBC host announced that he believed that Trump supporters are more of a threat than the Taliban or ISIS. Capehart famously cried while reflecting on the memory of the January 6 riots live on MSNBC, during the insurrection's third anniversary in 2024. He currently hosts The Weekend with Eugene Daniels and former fellow Post staffer Jackie Alemany At the time, Capehart called out 'MAGA and the domestic threat', which he said was far 'more worrisome than any foreign threat', during an appearance at PBS NewsHour, where he is a regular presence. The Pulitzer Prize winner has continued the decry Trump for straying from the country's founding principles since. Such a stance was effectively barred with Bezos's edict back in February. The move saw the Post's longtime editorial page editor, David Shipley, resign immediately, before dozens of others followed suit. The terms of Capehart's buyout, meanwhile, remain unknown.
