The Reid Hoffman debate
Byron York
THE REID HOFFMAN DEBATE. Tonight, four Republican candidates — Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Chris Christie — will gather for the fourth GOP presidential debate. Here’s a weird fact. Two of those candidates, Haley and Christie, have received substantial donations from a Democratic tech billionaire named Reid Hoffman, who made the contributions in hopes of defeating former President Donald Trump in the primaries and reelecting President Joe Biden in the general election.
Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn and has been involved in several successful tech ventures. In recent months, he was in the news for bankrolling writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation and sexual abuse lawsuit against Trump. His anti-Trump efforts go back before that; three years ago, the liberal publication Vox reported that Hoffman had “built a big-money machine to oust Trump.”
Fast forward to 2023. In April, Hoffman gave $700,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, a super PAC supporting the president’s reelection. In January and June of this year, he gave a total of $4,000,000 to a NeverTrump group called the Republican Accountability PAC. Hoffman’s contribution was the majority of the money the PAC has received this year. The group, and another anti-Trump organization called Defending Democracy Together, are under the leadership of the Democratic activist and fundraiser Bill Kristol.
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Recently, Hoffman gave $250,000 to Stand for America Fund, a super PAC supporting Haley. And in June, Defending Democracy Together gave $500,000 to Tell It Like It Is PAC, a super PAC supporting Christie.
What does it mean? Some observers have likened what Hoffman is doing to the late Rush Limbaugh’s famous Operation Chaos, in which he urged Republicans to encourage infighting among Democrats during the 2008 Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton primary race. But Hoffman’s effort is more focused than that. His overriding goal is to bring down Trump. He has funded direct attacks on Trump and is now supporting Republican candidates running against Trump. Does he want one of those Republican candidates to win and become president of the United States? Of course not. The idea is to support anything that might weaken Trump.
The problem for Haley is that it might weaken her, too. Just a week before news of the Hoffman donation came out, Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, urged Democrats to contribute to Haley in order to get Trump. “Even if you’re a very liberal Democrat, I urge you, help Nikki Haley, too,” Dimon said at a New York Times event. “Get a choice on the Republican side that might be better than Trump.”
Such open Democratic support for a Republican candidate does not sit well with many GOP primary voters. Why are Reid Hoffman and others so anxious to give big money to Nikki Haley? In a LinkedIn post, Hoffman wrote, “I agree with Jamie Dimon’s recent comments that Democrats should support Haley in the primary and Biden in the general election.” From a Republican primary perspective, that’s a clear sign that rich Democrats are just trying to mess with the GOP primary process, with the ultimate goal being the defeat of Republicans.
A spokeswoman for Haley would not comment on the Hoffman donation but sent a clip of a recent interview on Fox News in which Haley responded to Dimon’s remarks. Here is what she said:
“I just got the endorsement of the largest conservative grassroots group in the country that’s focused on expanding freedom and limiting government [the Koch network group Americans for Prosperity]. They liked my economic plan. They liked my plan as governor. They liked my policies on how I want to go and get the country back on track. And that’s something that every candidate wanted, and we were blessed to get it. … So, we’ve got conservatives on the ground.
“When it comes to people like Jamie Dimon and others, I’m thrilled that they want to support us. We’ll take all the support we can. But let’s remember — Republicans have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president. That’s nothing to be proud of. We should want to win the majority of Americans. Anybody that wants to come support the cause, whether they’re Republican, independent, or Democrat, we’re going to take them. And that’s the way the Republican Party should look at it. This is a story about addition, not about getting people and pushing people away. We’ve got to think about America.”
Haley’s words might apply to Democrats, wealthy or not, who have tired of Joe Biden and would like to see a Republican, but not Trump, in the White House. That is precisely the kind of support a Republican challenger would need to win a general election. But does that description apply to Reid Hoffman? Of course it doesn’t.
The Hoffman donation has put Haley in a bind. Anyone can see it was designed to influence the Republican primary so that the ultimate winner of that process, be it Trump or Haley, will lose to Biden.
A spokesman for Ron DeSantis said he has not received any money from Reid Hoffman. (A spokeswoman for Ramaswamy said he, too, has not received any money from Hoffman.) The DeSantis aide pointed to a campaign statement that said, “It makes perfect sense that liberal Democrat billionaires would support Nikki Haley’s bid for the White House, because she is a liberal. She would let corporations set immigration policy, roll out the red carpet for China, hike taxes on hardworking Americans, and require social media users to register with the government.”
Actually, that’s not the point. Reid Hoffman gave money to Nikki Haley not because he wants her and her policies in the White House but because he wants her to lose — after defeating Trump in the primaries. That’s what is going on when big-money Democrats start pouring money into the Republican primaries.
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