GOP billionaires vs. democracy: they know what they’re getting into this time

Alright, joining me now is my old friend Sheila Kotkar. She is a staff writer at the New Yorker covering Wall Street, Silicon Valley and their intersection with politics. You are the perfect person to have

this

conversation. Are you even remotely surprised by these people's turnaround? who in many cases made public statements that Donald Trump is not for them. I think

this

is a really interesting

time

because suddenly we're looking at the moral dilemma that our class of donors face, the political donors who are backing all these candidates and have to make this decision

they

have to decide whether

they

're more concerned about the future of the

democracy

and the future of the United States of America and whether they stand up for the values ​​they have long professed to care about or whether they are more concerned about their bank accounts with their tax rate and the potential to pass on gigantic sums of wealth to their heirs in the future and, unfortunately, we're seeing a lot of them, you

know

, make the decision that they're more concerned about their short-term personal situation. self-interest and to be honest I'm not surprised, I'm a little disappointed and you

know

a lot of these people were embarrassed by Trump last

time

, some of them supported them, some of them didn't, but this right now they can't really argue that They don't know

what

they're

getting

into.

We have seen

what

Trump is capable of doing. On January 6 he demonstrates that he is willing to ignore the rule of law and short-term financial interests are taking priority. Many of these people, you and I, are financial reporters, so we don't understand it, we understand the capitalist system. I totally understand that everyone in America doesn't want to pay a dollar more in taxes than they think they should and the government is being responsible for this, I get it, but what do you say to the people who are facing this because all these

billionaires

They're pretty smart, no one just dropped billions of dollars, most people and some people did, but what do you tell them, when, when, when?

That argument arises that yes, you may save less money, but in the end you save

democracy

. Well, this is a really difficult time because all of a sudden a lot of these people who have spent their entire lives benefiting from the system that we've built here that allows everyone you know to have a fair shot at building a fortune and making a good life for themselves and suddenly they find themselves the beneficiaries of all of that and now you know that they almost want to put up the walls and protect what they have accumulated for themselves and not necessarily spend any of their resources on future generations and the other people's concerns, so I think it's a moment where we could really redefine the idea of ​​patriotism.

Well, you know, Republicans have long used this as a kind of patriotic term in their campaigns, but I think Democrats need to get back to this idea of ​​what it means to be a patriot and I think it means the courage to defend democracy and the values ​​that we have long held dear in this country, even when they go against their short-term financial interests, so that's the speech I would make to some of these rich businessmen who are Heming and complaining about what they should do this time and one One of the interesting things is that you could have been a rich B billionaire in Putin's Russia, that's not working out very well for you right now, so even if you have many billions and want lower taxes, being in a democratic country Society in general speaks better in the long run, oh that's absolutely fine, I mean, again, the defense depends on the kind of world you want to live in and some of the

billionaires

I've interviewed and the past that They refuse to support Trump, uh.

You know, they feel very strongly that they don't want their children to grow up in a country where they have to live behind fortified walls and can't go out in public and the inequality of income and wealth is so severe that our country is at risk of collapsing, you know, There are some people who really don't want their children to grow up in that world. Unfortunately, we've entered this Zone where a lot of people, you know, thinking about investing money in this race, are succumbing to this idea of ​​false equivalence that has plagued our political discourse since the 2016 election, where you have two candidates and neither of them he's perfect you know Joe Biden you know he's not ideal yeah it would be great if maybe he was a little bit younger or maybe we wish.

He had slightly different policies on the border or in Israel, but those problems and inconveniences are not the same ones that one faces with Trump, who has really proven to be a dangerous person who doesn't believe the law applies to him, so, yeah You know. Once again we must move away from this idea of ​​equating two people who are imperfect but one is downright dangerous and the other is imperfect. Well, Sheila, thanks as always. Sheila call hotar is a staff writer at the New Yorker and author of black edge insider trading, dirty money and the quest to take down the most wanted man on wall street.

Hello everyone, MSNBC has a new and improved app. You will receive alerts and analysis in real time. Live blogging. In-depth essays. Featured videos and the best coverage of the 2024 election. download the new MSNBC app, here's how. Tap the App Store on your phone. Press search in the bottom right corner. Type MSNBC. Click on the MSNBC app. Click Get or the cloud icon and enjoy.