When campaign-finance law looks like an unfunny joke

Make Me Smart January 23, 2024 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

All right. Man, we’re a little overmodulated there, sir. Oh my God, I don’t even know what’s going on. Jay Siebold is in the house and taking over. Hey, everybody. I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense. Jay’s like sitting there rockin out.

Kimberly Adams 

And I am Kimberly Adams. Thank you for everyone who chose to join us on this Monday, January the 22nd, which is pretty chilly in many parts of the country, including here in DC.

Kai Ryssdal 

It’s 59 degrees in Los Angeles. We’re dying, man. Kidding me?

Kimberly Adams 

Of cold?

Kai Ryssdal

Yes! And it’s raining!

Kimberly Adams

Bless your little heart. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.

Kai Ryssdal 

You’re wearing a sweatshirt? I’m wearing a sweatshirt. It’s a sweatshirt day. This is awesome.

Kimberly Adams 

I’m trying to be cozy, man. Need to be cozy.

Kai Ryssdal 

Make me cozy. We should do an episode called make me cozy. Oh, man. All right. So, we will do what we usually do on a Monday. Little news, all smiles and then we’ll get out y’all’s way. So, what do you got?

Kimberly Adams 

I have you know, of course, as an everybody knows at this point, Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the GOP primary, endorsed former President Donald Trump. As you know, there weren’t a lot of options there. He didn’t really see a path forward to success in that primary. So now it’s just Trump and Haley. But one of the things when I was reading The Washington Post story about this today, they made passing reference to something that I hadn’t been following super closely just because I wasn’t sort of deep in the nuances of the DeSantis campaign. But then I found a deeper article about this in The Conversation. So, there are all sorts of allegations of severe campaign finance violations by the PAC associated, the super PAC associated with Ron DeSantis’ campaign. It’s Never Back Down. And I’m just going to read here from The Conversation. The Conversation is a website that publishes articles by academics in their area of expertise. So, Barbara Trish, who is professor of political science at Grinnell College wrote this piece, “Never Back Down, the Ron DeSantis super PAC played an outsized role in the Iowa caucuses campaign for the Florida governor. Its impact on the results, in which DeSantis came in second to former President Donald Trump, will likely remain an open question. But one thing is sure: It mocked the already weak regulatory framework governing money in politics.” So just step back for a second, super PACs are allowed to exist. They can raise unlimited money. They can spend unlimited money. Citizens United case, that’s what that was all about. But they’re not supposed to coordinate directly with the campaigns. And they’ve done all sorts of shenanigans over the years, like a candidate will post on their campaign website, all of this on, you know, branded B-roll so that any super PAC can take it and use it, or they’ll list their campaign, they’ll telegraph their campaign strategy and let the super PAC do whatever they want with it. So, in this one here. I’m reading again, “In the 2024 Iowa caucuses campaign, the DeSantis-backing super PAC staked out some new territory by largely funding the candidate’s ground game, recruiting and training organizers in Iowa and sending them out early to engage Iowa Republicans face-to-face. But the new territory didn’t stop there. Never Back Down appear to disregard the ban on coordination with the campaign. They boldly posted online its memo laying out a proposed strategy for the candidate before the GOP debate. Never Back Down appears to have helped pay for the candidate’s air travel, according to The Washington Post. It recruited donors to contribute directly to the campaign. It sponsored candidate events where it picked up the food tab for registered attendees,” among many other things. Campaign Legal Center has filed a complaint to the FEC. The FEC has been famously toothless on this issue. But if this is what’s happening in the caucuses, right this early, you can imagine that unless the FEC really comes down hard on Never Back Down, which it’s unlikely that they will, given the FEC. We can expect to see even more flagrant violations in the, you know, general election.

Kai Ryssdal 

Campaign finance regulation in our system is a joke. Full stop. Fight me on that. I will die on that hill.

Kimberly Adams 

Absolutely. I will not.

Kai Ryssdal 

And appalling, by the way.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. So, I would highly recommend folks read this. It’s pretty astonishing, but just worth remembering. it’s not supposed to work this way. There actually are laws on the book, books and it’s yet another example of laws don’t mean much without enforcement mechanisms.

Kai Ryssdal 

Exactly. So, I’ve got two, neither quick but both of note. Number one, we all know that Boeing is having all kinds of problems with the 737 9 Max and also now the 737 900ER because they have that door plug. It’s a really big problem for a major manufacturer in this economy, and we’ve all known that for a while. Bloomberg reports today that Scott Kirby, the CEO of United has gotten the CEO of Boeing on the phone and given him a piece of his mind. Vents frustrations is the very polite way that is being put. And let me just say that when you are a Boeing manufacturer, when you manufacture airplanes, and United is pissed off at you, that is not great. That is not great. And it goes back to something that I think I said on this podcast when this news first broke, you know, one of my kids said to me, dad, why can’t they all just go to Airbus, and setting aside for a second the production lags and the timelines and the fact that there just aren’t enough Airbus workers and factories to make as many planes as we need. Look, Boeing’s in a jam, and if they decide not to buy any more. If United decides not to buy any more Boeing planes, that’s a really big problem. It’s a really big problem. And let me just say, not just for Boeing, but for this whole economy, right? Boeing has an ecosystem of suppliers and subcontractors and Sub Sub Sub Sub subcontractors, which is enormous, which I would guarantee you rivals the auto industry. And so, it’s just not great. Not great news at all.

Kimberly Adams 

Is the defense side of things enough to cover them?

Kai Ryssdal 

I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe. I mean, look, Boeing’s big player in defense, but still civil aviation in those civilian aircraft, right? It’s a big deal. I don’t know.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, it is.

Kai Ryssdal 

I don’t know. Okay, so there’s that. My other one is just a cautionary tale. And news came this afternoon, the Dexter King has died. He was the second son and third child of, the youngest child of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King. And I mentioned it, because he died of complications from prostate cancer. And he was only 62 years old. And Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense, who I believe is 70 years old now, also has been hospitalized as you know, because we talked about it, for prostate cancer. And number one, if you’re a man, and you’re old enough, you’re going to get prostate cancer, so get it checked. But number two, health outcomes for Black men in particular, with ailments such as these are incredibly bad. And it’s incredibly sad that this happened now to Dexter King, and has happened to General Secretary Austin, and who knows how many other Black American males who aren’t getting a check. Don’t get a check for whatever reason. Get it checked. It’s no fun, but get it checked. 62’s too young man, are you kidding me? That’s crazy.

Kimberly Adams 

I mean, similar things with heart disease and the outcomes for Black American men in particular. My dad died at 59 of a heart attack. Yeah. I think my friends, my best friend’s father passed, you know, around that same window. And like, it’s, there are a lot of healthcare outcomes that skew pretty bad for Black people in general, but Black men in particular, and there’s research layering on just sort of like the stress of existing as a Black man in America adds to that as well. So, yes, 100% on what you said. Now, we really need smiles. Yeah, really. Okay. Okay. So I was down to the wire, trying to find a make him smile, and thankfully, came across this. So ever since I discovered that these creatures existed as a child, I have been a huge fan of manatees. I think they’re great. They’re so cute and wonderful and large and ponderous and innocent and don’t deserve to be run over by motorboats, but very, very cute. And so, they’re all these efforts, obviously in Florida and elsewhere to protect the manatees and preserve them and rebuild their habitats and save them and love manatees. Very, very cute. So was very happy to see a post from Blue Spring State Park in Florida, where a lot of manatees hang out and they count them. And they had a record-breaking morning at Blue Spring State Park in Orange City, Florida yesterday that they had a grand total of 932 manatees that they counted. Their previous record on New Year’s Day 2024 was 736. And then they have a photo of all the manatees in a little lagoon hanging, well not all 932 of them, but a bunch of them hanging out, looking adorbs. So, that made me smile.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s great. That’s awesome. Mine is a little zeitgeist. It’s a little bit of, you know, political news with a little bit of humor. So, as you mentioned a minute ago, Ron DeSantis is no longer a candidate for President of the United States. He dropped out before the New Hampshire primary, which is, of course, tomorrow, depending on when you’re listening to this. And DeSantis made a video giving a speech, in which he quoted Winston Churchill as saying this, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Of course, people checked that. And it turns out, according to the International Churchill Society, that Winston Churchill never said that. Now that’s not my make me smile. You could get hoisted on the baton of misquoting Churchill or Lincoln or whatever. It just happens. I get it. These things get passed around, and I totally understand. The beautiful part of this one. The chef’s kiss part of this is that it turns out that that quote, again, “Success is not final failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue the counts.” It’s from a Depression era advertisement for Anheuser-Busch beer. Come on.

Kimberly Adams 

Go ahead.

Kai Ryssdal 

No, I will not. I will not even disparage Anheuser-Busch beverages. I will not even do that. It’s just. It’s too delicious. Come on.

Kimberly Adams 

Well, no, it’s because DeSantis went after Anheuser-Busch along with half the others.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, did he go after Anheuser-Bush as well? He went after Disney for sure. Did he go after Anheuser-Bush?

Kimberly Adams 

Because of the Dylan Mulvaney thing.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh my God. Oh, I’d forgotten that. Oh my Lord. Now you have to explain to people what that was.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, hold on. I think they mentioned it in this piece in The Atlantic. Let me just read what they have. Hold on.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yes, of course. It was Bud Light. You one upped my make me smile. No, more power to you. That’s great. Go on.

Kimberly Adams 

Here it is in The Atlantic: “DeSantis critics pointed out that he ordered a state probe of Anheuser-Busch last year. It sounds too strange to be true, but it happened: A ring-wing rage mob objected to Bud Light’s brand deal with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender social-media influencer, and the ensuing boycott dented sales of the beer, weighing on the parent company’s stock. Amid this outburst of transphobia, DeSantis told his government to investigate whether Bud had ‘breached legal duties owed to its shareholders.’”

Kai Ryssdal 

Read the damn article, guys. That is so much more perfect than I had even imagined it could be. Oh my lord, I love that. Oh, that’s.

Kimberly Adams 

Well.

Kai Ryssdal 

Let’s go. Let’s just go out on that little just bit of perfectness.

Kimberly Adams 

All right, that is it for us today. Join us tomorrow for our weekly deep dive, which will be probably a little less petty. This week we are talking about the economics of the nursing home industry. It’s a very serious thing, and the role of private equity in particular and this is something that many of us are going to need to deal with either for ourselves or for our loved ones, so definitely stay tuned.

Kai Ryssdal 

Till then though keep the comments and the questions coming. You can leave us a message at 508-U-B-Smart or email me at makemesmart@marketplace.org. That gets to us.

Kimberly Adams 

Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s program was engineered by Jay Siebold. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. I can’t talk today. Our intern is Thalia Menchaca.

Kai Ryssdal 

Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. Francesca Levy is the executive director of digit.

Kimberly Adams 

Least you can talk today.

Kai Ryssdal 

Slowly and in very short bursts.