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Mehdi on the billionaire oligarchs funding Project 2025 if you're a subscriber to Z as I know you all must be then chances are you're well aware of project 2025 yes the dangerous farri policy agenda that Trump is desperately trying to deny involvement with despite over 140 of his former staffers having worked on it and the DNC were focused on it too last month in Chicago with Democrats zooming in on the bits from it that they think voters will be most concerned about like the project plan to create backdoor abortion bans and the vast expansion of presidential Powers both of which are in major threats to our democracy and to our rights but what they're not really mentioning is how this is more than just a plan from the Maga Mastermind it's also from and for the country's ultr Rich oligarchs I'm talking about people like the coke family the oil billionaires famous for using dark money to kill climate action time after time I'm talking about the groups run by people like Leonard Leo who with the help of billionaire doners like harand Crow Paul singer and yes the coke family used his influence over Trump to create the Supreme Court's current conservative super majority Leo and the kooch family are just a few of the big money meddlers who have already helped funnel Millions into project 2025 on top of their donations the lever has also reported that the Heritage Foundation aka the organization behind project 2025 has received over $18 million from wall Street's Donor advised funds since 2020 and that number is only continuing to increase now whether or not all that support is the cause or the con consequence of project 2025 plan to water down campaign Finance laws one thing is for sure those dark money oligarchs are becoming more and more successful when it comes to thwarting our democracy and its rules that's exactly what former senior Communications advisor and speech writer to the Bernie Sanders campaign and founder and editor-in-chief for the lever David serota exposes in his excellent new investigative podcast series master plan the show takes you through a decades long scheme to effectively lead legalized corruption in the United States of America and David Sera joins me now David thanks so much for coming on the show thanks for having me um David when people talk about the When did the ‘master plan’ start? normalization of dark money and billionaire influence in our politics they tend to go back to the citizens united Supreme Court decision from 2010 but when you talk about all this corruption in master plan you go back even further where do you start the clock when you look at the timeline of this corrupt influence on our election system the early 1970s is where all this really started and there was the Watergate scandal which was basically the first major campaign Finance Scandal of the modern era I think a lot of people know about the break-in they don't know that corporate money illegal secret corporate money funded uh part of the Breakin uh and Executives were prosecuted at the time and after that came the post-watergate campaign Finance reforms but at the same time that was happening those victories were happening uh there was a guy named Lewis Powell uh he was the head of the American Bar Association a tobacco industry lawyer uh who wrote a memo for the Chamber of Commerce uh that was a directive that corporations needed to do a much better job of essentially owning the government because the government had become too democratically responsive uh to the to the public uh and what ended up coming out of that was a series of task forces uh that included some of Executives of the top biggest corporations in the country and they focused on taking over the Judiciary and deregulating the campaign Finance system so baked into the post-watergate campaign Finance reforms as one example were the loopholes that created corporate packs in the first place an explosion of corporate packs what came out of that LE the conservative legal movement from the pal memo was the case what was then a radical idea that money in politics isn't corruption money in politics is constitutionally protected speech the Buckley V valo case and also what came out of that was that Lewis Powell soon after writing the memo was installed on the Supreme Court yes where he engineered a ruling after Buckley vivalo which says money is not only constitutionally protected speech but corporations have a right to those Free Speech protections when spending in elections that decision authored by Lewis Powell the the creator of the pow memo uh became the basis for Citizens United so the point is is that this is a long plan implemented to focus on deregulating the campaign Finance system ending the anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws and you may ask why why would they want to do that because in a one person one vote democracy it's much harder for oligarchs and corporations to pass the unpopular self-enriching policies they want they need to use the thing that they have the most of money to rig that and short circuit that process so just on the What’s in it for Wall Street? money and the short circuit and thank you for that summary let's now look at what's happening today based on what started in the 70s we have project 2025 we have the Heritage Foundation which has got a lot of money as your news outfit the lever has reported Wall Street has donated Millions to the Heritage Foundation which then gives Trump project 2025 What specifically obviously we know generally you mentioned but what specifically is in it for Wall Street here what are they going to get out of this it's it's a great question I mean there's all sorts of efforts to resend the regulatory regime the the frankly uh weak regulatory regime uh that exists to regulate uh Banks uh and financial institutions stuff like how much money you have to keep in reserve uh Capital requirements and the like how much uh Federal regulatory oversight on on what kinds of Investments you're making same thing with with the SEC and I should mention uh that this all project 2025 directly goes back to the same plan we're talking about uh the the pow memo inspired the seed funding for the Heritage Foundation the the major donor a guy named Joe Kors that that's we we uncovered that others have have noted that uh and the Heritage Foundation found its niche in creating these long detailed policy templates for Republican presidents project 2025 is the ninth iteration of of what it was called mandate for leadership the reason to be concerned about it is because when we've seen other Republican presidents come into office they have used mandate for leadership uh to implement these policies this is not just like pie in the sky stuff the project 2025 in the Mandate for leadership series is designed to be implemented on day one Project 2025 post-Biden and as we say we've talked a lot about the implications for abortion rights for the doj a lot of that is getting a lot of play and it should but you're one of the few people sounding the alarm saying actually this is really going to be a gift to billionaires coming off the back of a Biden presidency which for all its many faults did a lot of good stuff on the domestic front from the inflation reduction act uh to the bipartisan infrastructure act to the American Rescue plan and obviously building on the Obama Affordable Care Act a absolutely I mean that the the Biden Administration on domestic economics uh has been the best Dom domestic economic policies in really 50 years uh and and look the inflation is a serious problem but when you look at the FTC the cfpb labor policy the American Rescue plan I mean you may be it's it's so much better than what has come in the last 50 years now you could say well well that that's more referendum on how bad the policies have been over the last 50 years but life is relative yeah exactly it's undeniable and project 2025 is in to revert all of that so we've seen big How can Democrats respond to AIPAC? money uh involved in our elections for many years in the most recent primary Cycles we've seen APAC for example the uh very powerful pro-israel lobbying group managed to OU two very Progressive members of Congress two critics of Israel Jamal Bowman Corey Bush I think they spent something like $23 million in those two races combined more than many foreign countries spend on their entire elections in these two districts what do you think the Democratic party can do should do in response to groups like APAC almost buying elections some might argue it's a really difficult quandry I think first and foremost there needs to be public financing of Elections Bernie Sanders mentioned this at the Democratic Convention it seems like a pie in the sky idea but it is fundamental to our democracy which is to say there should be a way for people to run for office where they can have adequate resources to run a a serious political campaign and adequate resources that aren't from private sources that are coming with the expectations of government favors right now from because of the master plan uh the deregulated campaign Finance system forces candidates to rely on private sources and allows essentially uh billionaires and Wealthy special interests to buy these elections uh and uh public financing of Elections has passed in other states uh it's it's been supported by democrats if you want to make a a a more Level Playing Field it's not going to be perfect but a More Level Playing Field this is essential so isn't Democrats part of Project 2025 the real Evil Genius of the master plan that isn't just focused on Republicans right corporate interests have managed to get both parties on board with their deregulatory um small government agendas the Democratic party parts of it are also beholden uh to oligarchs billionaires big donors there was a a fascinating moment revealing moment at the DNC where Illinois governor JB pritzer took the stage just before four-year-old boss Senator Bernie Sanders and and joked about being a billionaire and got huge Applause from the crowd like billionaires not all baddies if they're hand happen to be a Democratic governor um and of course the Democrats themselves get a lot of corporate uh pack money can the Democrats be the party then that reforms the system it's a really good question I I I think the answer is it's it's it's hard to really say one thing that can be said is that the Democrats have sponsored for instance the disclose act which would require better disclosure of anonymous money flooding into politics it's been the Democrats who have co-sponsored bills like a public financing bill but I think it's an entirely fair question to ask can a party that that is dependent as much as the Republican party on oligarch and uh big money can that party will that party really want to reform the system I would just say this that I think it's possible but it's going to require a reform movement I think back to John McCain in 2000 a republican where he raised this issue of corporate money and corruption in politics to such a national level that it compelled the human personification of money and politics George W bush to sign campaign Finance reform and that happened because he galvanized public support for it the question is is there a similar set of of of leaders in the Democratic party willing to Galvanize that support uh for the same kind of cause I don't know the answer to that uh Right wing billionaires like Elon Musk last question we talk about the Democrats But ultimately you know the master plan is about the Republicans it is about uh right-wing billionaires uh our most famous right-wing billionaire Elon Musk is now being touted for a position in government in a future Trump Administration he says he can't wait to help Donald Trump cut government spending and inefficiency and waste uh in 2025 um what does it say to you about our political moment right now that that someone like musk who's so unashamed of his billionaire St just buys Twitter rebrands it as X turns it into a vehicle for the right talks openly about you know there's reporting he's denying it about spending money on trying to elect Trump and of course him wanting to work for Trump which he's open about what does it say about our political moment that this guy is still seen as some sort of hero genius someone to emulate and aspire to be in America in 2024 by vast uh sections of the populace this to many liberals this is the danger of normalizing corruption there's legalizing corruption where we deregulate the campaign Finance laws the Supreme Court says essentially bribery is is legal but there's normalizing it where we as a culture and a society say this kind of corruption where for instance somebody like Elon Musk says he's going to give millions of dollars to Donald Trump and then is asking for things from Donald Trump or Donald Trump is running out and saying to oil billionaires and or companies give me a money and I'll give you climate policy when we say that this is no longer corruption this is just what politics is that is going to be the barrier to any kind of Reform movement because if it's it's like the David Foster Wallace speech about the fish two fish are swimming along one fish says Hey how do you think the water is today and the other fish says what is water if corruption becomes the water where we don't even recognize it as anything outrageous or anything unacceptable then it it is true the master plan will win but I don't I don't think it has to go that way I I I maybe I'm an eternal optimist I still think that a lot of Americans and the polls show show it a lot of Americans don't think this is acceptable but they're waiting for leadership to Galvanize a more of a movement to say here is how it can be fixed and and fought well I'm not an optimist David but I am hopeful and I stay hopeful uh thank you for joining me master plan is currently the top of the charts for news and politics on Apple podcasts and you can listen to on Spotify apple or wherever you get your podcast David Tera thank you so much thanks so much for That’s our show having me did you like this video don't forget to subscribe to this YouTube channel and turn on notifications for exclusive content and to support our independent unfiltered journalism head over to z.com your support matters