Big Mellon bucks
Jake Johnson for Common Dreams
"We talked about not the values that separate us,
because we don't agree on everything, but on the values and issues that bind us
together," Kennedy said shortly after suspending his
independent presidential bid to throw his support behind Trump.
But Kennedy did not mention that he and Trump have in common
the same billionaire megadonor, a reclusive heir to a Gilded Age fortune who
has pumped over $165 million into the 2024 campaign thus far.
Timothy Mellon, the grandson of plutocrat Andrew Mellon, has poured tens of millions of
dollars into the campaigns of both Trump and Kennedy, making the secretive
billionaire the top individual donor to both.
The campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets noted Friday in an analysis of Mellon's donations that
the billionaire "made a $50 million cash infusion to pro-Trump super PAC
Make America Great Again, Inc." in July, according to new Federal Election
Commission filings.
This is how Bobby Jr. felt about his new master
"This brings his total contributions to the group to
$125 million this election cycle, including a $50 million check he wrote to the
super PAC the day after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies," OpenSecrets
added. "Mellon's latest $50 million contribution accounts for over 90% of
what MAGA, Inc. raised in July."
As for Kennedy, his hybrid PAC American Values 2024 received $25 million
from Mellon earlier this year. OpenSecrets observed that Kennedy is quoted on
the cover of the billionaire's autobiography, "praising Mellon as a
'maverick entrepreneur.'"
Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary, wrote Friday that "it's no surprise" Kennedy dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Trump.
"He and Trump both shared the same major
donor—billionaire nepo baby Timothy Mellon," Reich added. "RFK Jr.'s
campaign was always a MAGA spoiler."
Mellon is a member of a powerful group known as
"guardian angels," a label "for big donors who supply 40% or
more of a committee's funds and are a political group's top contributor,"
OpenSecrets explained.
Spending from super PACs and other outside groups has topped
$1 billion this election cycle, and the largest spender to date has been
MAGA, Inc.
But U.S. billionaires, who are collectively richer than ever, aren't exclusively backing pro-Trump
groups. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has cut huge checks to Democratic PACs, and groups backing
Democratic nominee Kamala
Harris have received large donations from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Netflix executive chairman Reed Hastings, among other rich executives.
In his primetime speech at the Democratic National Convention
in Chicago on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
condemned the outsized influence of billionaire "oligarchs" on the
U.S. political process, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court's
2010 Citizens
United ruling.
"Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy
elections," said Sanders. "For the sake of our democracy, we must
overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision
and move toward public funding of elections."
