Oct 9, 2024
These Pro-Trump Podcasters TORE Into Trump After Jan 6. Now They're Fundraising For Him.
All In Podcast co-hosts David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya made a case that former President Donald Trump wasn't fit for office after the January 6 riots.
- 14 minutes
Thomas and I, we we had a great time
at the at the fundraiser
that we did a couple weeks ago.
I think it turned out great.
Time turned out great.
I would rather take every single person
arrested and give them zero days in jail,
and add it all up and give it to Trump.
[00:00:15]
- He is a complete piece of scumbag.
- He's garbage.
Fascinating.
Coming from individuals who are
now raising money for Donald Trump.
What you just watched
is a newly unearthed video showing two
[00:00:30]
of the four hosts at the All In podcast.
Basically saying
that they're not huge Trump fans.
And this was after January 6th, I believe
this episode was recorded on January 8th.
So the Capitol riots
were fresh in their minds.
[00:00:46]
They were not happy about it,
so they had no problem being far
more critical of Donald Trump.
The two key players in this are
long time Republican host David Sacks
and Trump convert Chamath,
with a very long last name that I'm not
even going to attempt to pronounce
[00:01:02]
because I'm going to butcher it
and I'd rather not do that.
So they were basically joined
by a curious host, John Calacanis,
and David Friedberg, who is a long
time Democrat, not a Trump fan.
Now again, this clip is from January 8th,
2021 and was unearthed by Tim Miller,
[00:01:23]
who's the host of bulwark podcast
and an MSNBC analyst.
So let's hear a bit more.
I would rather take every single person
arrested and give them zero days in jail,
and add it all up and give it to Trump.
[00:01:39]
- He is a complete piece of scumbag.
- He's garbage.
Is Trump responsible? Yes.
I mean, clearly 100%. 100%? Yes.
Because he he is the one who, who, who
put forth this theory that the election
[00:01:54]
was stolen and was constantly repeating it
for the last two months.
If you want to see this mob as a gun.
I think he loaded the gun.
He pointed it in a certain direction.
- And even at the.
- End of his political career.
I think he's I think he's disqualified
himself from being a candidate at,
[00:02:11]
you know, at a national level.
Can I ask you guys what you think of this?
Basically, Pelosi has told pence,
you have to invoke the 25th amendment
or they're going to take up impeachment.
- What do you guys think about that?
- I think it's the right thing to do.
He's a maniac.
I mean, this is insane, deranged,
criminal, lunatic behavior.
[00:02:29]
It's completely possible
that he could do something more
dangerous in the last 14 days.
It really is incredible how much things
have changed since then,
especially considering the comments
we heard from Chamath in that video.
He's the one who said, you know,
I would prefer that the rioters
[00:02:47]
don't get a single day in jail,
and instead we take all of what would have
been their sentences and add it all up
and have Trump serve that time in prison.
He's singing a very different tune today.
So look, it is true that David Sax
is a long time Republican,
[00:03:04]
but at one point he was a Never Trumper.
Those sax has long been a conservative.
He donated to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
In recent years, he's thrown his support
behind the Republican Party
and started publicly backing Trump
when it was clear that Trump
[00:03:19]
would be the Republican nominee.
Chamath donated more than a quarter
million dollars to Biden in 2020, which,
God, this is even though he donated to
Biden like it is a sickness in our system.
We have to get the money out.
This is crazy.
But yeah, he donated
a quarter million dollars to Biden.
[00:03:36]
But in June, Sax and Chamath
hosted this huge megadonor fundraiser
for Donald Trump, which was a signal for
not just their political shift, but the
political shift in Silicon Valley overall.
[00:03:53]
And I think if you've been paying close
attention, you might have noticed that.
So David Sax, a prominent venture
capitalist and part of the PayPal Mafia,
held the fundraiser
at his Pacific Heights residence.
Tickets sold for $50,000 a head
with $300,000 with a $300,000 tier that
[00:04:11]
includes perks like a photo with Trump.
I can't.
I was invited to a Biden fundraiser,
not as a donor.
Obviously.
It was someone I know
within the media industry, and I'm like,
I'm not going to donate any money.
So like, why are you inviting me?
[00:04:27]
And he was like, no, no, I just want you
to come as my guest so you can see what,
like happens, what it's like.
And they're so excited to take a picture.
So excited.
Like paying that kind of money just to
take a picture with someone blows my mind.
Okay, but anyway, the event sold out
and is expected
[00:04:43]
to raise $12 million for Trump.
So I'm going to get to potential reasons
for their political shift.
But John, I'm curious what you think
about their political shift.
Yeah, I hadn't been I think
I'd heard of David Sax.
I wasn't familiar with any
of the other guys, but I think we've
[00:05:02]
obviously seen things like this before.
The statements they made were back,
you know, in the wake of January 6th
were pretty strong.
And that's always what makes these,
like, all the more amazing
that you could go from that point
and then maybe honestly not even realize,
[00:05:19]
like they may not think of themselves as
really changing at any particular point.
It was probably gradual.
They probably criticized him
for weeks or a month or two after that.
But some of the criticisms
start to drop away.
And then Biden is president
and we don't like what he's doing.
[00:05:35]
And Trump goes away for a few months.
You're not thinking about him.
And that's how these things can,
I guess, creep back.
There's not a lot of examples
I can think of where the statements were
as strong as you just showed.
Maybe JD Vance with he could be America's
Hitler or some of what Ted Cruz said
[00:05:51]
in the 2016 primary
was pretty brutal against him.
But this is the the evolution that a lot
of Republicans have have had to have.
There's only been a few of them in media
that have been willing to be like,
no, I'm going to make my moral stand.
He's not right. He's not qualified.
[00:06:07]
And if that means that my career
is different for the rest of my life,
that's just what it's going to be.
There's a few like that. Not a lot.
And you can understand why there's way,
way less money in it.
And I'm not saying that's
what motivates any individual,
but that's that's definitely a factor.
[00:06:23]
And so yeah, I and by the way,
really fast, you could,
you could go from being highly critical of
a politician to supporting them.
I do think there should be a story
about why why exactly you went.
And I do think it matters
what your criticism was about
[00:06:38]
criticism about a particular policy.
Maybe you can get past criticism
of a particular comment.
Maybe you can get past.
But criticism of what you found to be
an unacceptable extrajudicial attempt
to overthrow American democracy.
I don't think you should be able to bounce
back from that and support a guy.
[00:06:56]
- But yeah.
- I look, I totally agree with you.
Especially that last part.
Because for me, even if I went through
some sort of like insane political change
and I'm now like, you know,
voting along with Republicans
[00:07:11]
or whatever, which I'm not.
But even if that were the case,
the whole fake electors scheme and the
disrespect of our democratic process,
as flawed as it is, and believe me,
I recognize how flawed it is.
But it's all we've got in terms of voicing
[00:07:28]
who we want to represent us disrespecting
that, and going against the will
of the American people in order to reverse
the results of the election.
That is unforgivable for me. Okay.
And I could never support anyone Democrat.
Republican doesn't even matter.
[00:07:46]
I could never support anyone
who disrespects this country
and our voters like that.
And so when it comes to people
like Chamath, you know, sacks, Calacanis,
you know,
There's something else in it for them.
And it's abundantly clear through this
story that the, you know, the willingness
[00:08:08]
of Trump to go against the will of
the American people to to basically steal
an election that's secondary to them.
The priority is something else right now.
What is the priority?
They didn't give us any real reasons.
We can only speculate.
But currently, you know,
all four of the hosts on this podcast
[00:08:25]
are located in San Francisco.
They're part of Silicon Valley.
And despite San Francisco being thought
of as a, you know, liberal area,
it's actually not that surprising that key
figures in that industry in Silicon Valley
are like shifting toward the right,
[00:08:40]
because they view the Republican policies
as far more friendly to the tech industry.
They're concerned about regulations.
They're concerned about,
you know, antitrust lawsuits.
They certainly are not fans
of the head of the FTC, Lina Khan.
[00:08:56]
And so when you consider their
business interests, their switch tends
to make a little more sense.
But what's also interesting, John,
is in recent weeks,
we've been getting a lot of messaging
from Kamala Harris that has shifted on
a little more to not a little more, a lot
more toward the pro-business community.
[00:09:16]
And, you know, she's talking about like,
how moderate she is,
how much she's she's she's a capitalist.
She loves business.
And apparently that signaling is
not really working for some of these
wealthy tech bros, but we're
in a we're in a dire situation, man.
[00:09:33]
Like, right now,
we don't really have someone
who's talking about substantial policies
to improve the lives of ordinary people.
And I just feel like every election cycle
tends to devolve into that.
But any thoughts?
[00:09:49]
Some ordinary people
or ordinary tech people, I suppose.
And by the way, look, I understand,
like on a logical level,
why you would make the decision
If that's the decision they're making,
that they want the deregulation
or they want the tax cuts or whatever,
that's fine to say.
I care about a favorable business
environment and more income for me.
[00:10:08]
So I'm willing to accept
the demonization of outsiders, the end
of popular democracy, all of those things.
I think it's understandable that some
people would make that decision.
And I think in the rise to power of every
fascist regime, there's been a lot of
people who've made that decision and have
been perfectly willing to allow, you know,
[00:10:25]
under groups and all sorts of
other other people that aren't like them
to be demonized or have their
rights taken away or be imprisoned
or possibly killed
because that's what you think it takes
for the business environment or the tax
structure to be favorable to you?
- I think it sucks.
- I mean, I do too.
[00:10:42]
I mean,
what are what are your real values?
I mean, in this case,
I think their values are pretty clear.
So I don't know I. Don't know the I
literally don't know those guys.
I've never heard of them before.
So I can't speak for them.
So let's, let's you're going
to hear from them right now
because they are very concerned about
regulations against cryptocurrencies.
[00:11:01]
Under Biden, the SEC has taken measures
against cryptocurrencies
and his antitrust regulations have cracked
down on megacap tech companies.
David Sax, by the way,
has been clear in his displeasure with the
Biden administration and the economy that
he blames the Biden administration for.
[00:11:19]
He says Biden came into office
promising a return to normalcy.
What has he actually given us?
A decelerating economy.
A spike in inflation. A world on fire.
Vindictive partizan witch hunts.
Democrats are going all in on lawfare
because they've
[00:11:35]
got nothing else to run on.
But I think what's also informative here
is the appearance that Trump made
on their podcast back in June.
Because the issue of crypto did come up,
the issue of tech companies did come up.
Let's hear what he had to say.
You know, one of the things I think we
heard a lot at that dinner was just the
[00:11:53]
difficulty that people in business were
having under this Biden administration.
You got the crypto guys
who just want a framework.
They just want the government to tell them
how to operate, and they can't get that.
You got no M&A happening
right now in tech.
[00:12:10]
The real estate guys, they can't get loans
because the interest rates are through
the roof and there's a credit crunch.
So I think one of the common themes we
just heard across that dinner was that it
was just so hard to do business right now.
And I guess maybe a good place
to start would just be, you know,
[00:12:26]
what's the number one thing?
Or maybe the top three things
that you would do
to kind of get things moving again?
You know, if you're reelected.
So I'd say regulation,
regulation and taxes.
When I asked a lot of people,
a lot of big people, a lot
of corporate types, big corporate types,
[00:12:43]
they said if you had your choice between
just the taxes or just the regulations,
where did I do better?
He said the regulations.
I was the biggest cutter
of regulation in four years.
I cut more regulations than anybody
by far, by far, not not even close.
[00:13:00]
Feel like that has a lot
to do with their support.
Probably that statement from Trump.
So look, the race is insanely close
and I have no idea who's going to win.
You know, the the polls show that,
you know, if Harris is leading,
[00:13:18]
you know, she's within the margin of error
and vice versa.
Like I have no idea. So it's unsettling.
I mean, look, the election overall
to me is unsettling.
And I'm not crazy about either candidate.
I'm just going to keep it real with you.
But if you're, you know, really hoping
that Kamala Harris wins, I can't tell you.
[00:13:36]
And I can't predict that he's
she's definitely going to win.
I mean, the polls are way too close
and within the margin of error.
But we'll see. We'll see what happens.
I think it's an indictment
on the Democratic Party
that they can't increase the lead.
I just yeah.
[00:13:53]
Listen to listen to the voters.
Just listen to the voters, please.
Like, I get it, I get it. How much?
What's her haul now, John, you mentioned
it when we were on break over $1 billion.
Like they're going to spend a lot
of that money and that might help
in these last couple of weeks.
But, yeah, it's,
it's depressing how close it is.
[00:14:11]
And, look, we're a very partizan country,
and, you know, the support for Trump
is it's not super malleable.
Like there's a lot of people
who they've been.
Trump has been their entire political life
for ten years,
and they're going to stick with him until
he's finally moldering under the ground.
[00:14:26]
And and so you can you
can cut into that a bit.
And I think, I don't know,
it's tough, man.
It's tough.
I'm depressed too I do
I like that she has a lead.
And I think that it is slightly gone up
over the past couple of weeks,
but not nearly enough.
Hey, thanks for watching the video.
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[00:14:44]
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