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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning everyone. We'll begin the week with our usual Monday morning politics segment this week with Rebecca Davis O'Brien, who covers campaign finance for the New York Times. As they said in the Watergate era, follow the money trail. There are several newsworthy money trails to follow right now. One is the money trail from the United States to the two wars it's involved with at the moment.

As the Times and others report, House speaker Mike Johnson actually does believe in funding Ukraine to help them defend against the Russian invasion, even though so many of his house Republican colleagues led by Donald Trump are more on Putin's side. Look for details in the coming days of how much Johnson is willing to risk being ousted as speaker to pass this funding with Democratic support and only a minority of his own caucus.

Then there's the war in Gaza. For all the critical things President Biden has been saying about Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu lately, and Biden's stated opposition to an assault on the city of Rafah, the Washington Post reports that Biden has now quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars and additional bombs and fighter jets to Israel. The post says that includes more than 1800, 2000 pound bombs, the kind of bombs that the Post describes as being linked to previous mass casualty events in that war.

The Post notes that even some allies of Biden in Congress are now becoming critical of the disparity between Biden's words and his deeds when it comes to protecting Palestinian civilians. For example, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, very close to Biden, told the Post, "We need to back up what we say with what we do." We have the Ukraine and Israel US money trails and the contrast between which war we're funding and which one we're not.

Then there's one of the strangest money in politics stories of all time with Donald Trump's social media, Truth Social site going public on the Nasdaq last week, probably heard about that and attracting so many investors that it reportedly boosted Trump's personal wealth by several billion dollars, at least on paper. This may be the only instance in history of people buying stock as a donation to a political candidate, as the Trump business brand now mingles with Trump legal bills and Trump's campaign finance shortages.

These stock purchases could wind up being donations, as many experts are warning that Truth Social is ridiculously overvalued now compared to its potential to make actual money, so who knows if these supporters' investments may be headed for a crash. The Trump campaign certainly could use the money. The official campaign finance filings show the Trump campaign has less than half the cash on hand of the Biden campaign, roughly $33 million to Biden's, 71 million, and that was before Biden's reported $26 million Hall at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday night.

About that big ticket show with presidents Obama and Clinton and some big entertainment names on stage, Fox News asked the Biden campaign to disclose the names of the donors giving that much money, and the Biden campaign refused according to Fox. That was a question from the right. A question from the left, rising as an issue for the Democratic Party right now is whether Biden will continue to take money from AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which donates to candidates from both parties and remains a staunch supporter of the way the war in Gaza is being fought.

Reuters reports that progressive groups like Justice Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America are asking Biden and the Democratic Party as a whole to reject AIPAC donations at this time. As of the March 12th reporting of that Reuters article, the Biden campaign had no response and none has been reported since. That came up in a Google search this morning. There are many contentious political money trails to follow right at the moment, domestic, international, and even on the Nasdaq.

With us now is Rebecca Davis O'Brien, who covers campaign finance for the New York Times. She's also been reporting a lot lately on the third-party presidential campaigns, especially the RFK Jr. Campaign, which you might have seen in her article this weekend, got a big slap on the wrist from the family of Cesar Chavez over the weekend for associating the name of the late labor and civil rights leader with the RFK campaign, which the Chavez family made very clear they do not support. We'll talk about that too. Rebecca, thanks for coming on with us. Welcome to WNYC.

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: Thank you so much for having me. I apologize for the background noise. I have been stymied by the C Train this morning, so I'm on my way to the studios right now.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, the Sea Train.

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Well, let's start in the conventional campaign finance lane. You reported on March 20th that the Biden campaign had widened its financial lead over the Trump campaign according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Can you give us some of the basic numbers?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: Sure thing. The Biden campaign, and we use the campaigns, the committees themselves as our top-line numbers, for various reasons that are complicated and I can can go into later. The Biden campaign brought in 15 million more dollars or more than that. They've extended their lead by tens of millions of dollars over the Trump campaign between January and February. They had about $71 million in their campaign coffers compared to $33 million that Donald Trump's campaign had on hand. About double.

Brian Lehrer: That's a lot. Double is a lot. When we're talking about that double meaning $38 million difference, that's a lot. You reported that the campaign fundraising gap has become one of the most pressing issues facing Trump. That was before the Truth Social public stock offering. Maybe that changes it, but can you translate those big numbers as of February into how they get used? Like in a modern presidential campaign, what does a $38 million difference represent or get spent on?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: Yes, well, I think it represents a few things in this case. We use the campaigns as a proxy or our ideal way to compare two different candidates. Because from the campaign, you can use that money to get the lower rates of advertising for television and radio, you also pay the bulk of your staff. It also speaks to a organizational advantage that Biden and the Democrats have over Trump and the Republicans. Again, Biden's the incumbents and he has not been fighting off, say nothing of legal battles, but has not been fighting off primary challengers like Donald Trump has over the past few months.

Biden has this army of the Democratic Party at his back that's been helping him as fundraising juggernaut and loading money into those campaign coffers. The campaign is really the primary vehicle for which these-- of course, there are super PACs and joint fundraising committees that also raise a lot of money. In fact, we won't have a full picture of the fundraising and how much money these two candidates have on hand until later this month. April 15th is a quarterly filing deadline where we're going to get a lot more detail on small donors, but also how these two candidates are using their joint fundraising committees. They're separate from the campaigns or Super PACs to raise money.

Brian Lehrer: I want to come back in a few minutes to the joint fundraising campaigns and the PACs and super PACs because I think a lot of listeners don't understand what they are and why there are different organizations that are not the campaign itself and what they're for. Are they allowed to not report the names of their donors? Are they essentially hedges against transparency as to who's dumping money into the campaign, things like that.

I want to ask you about small donors first and where they come in because I think Rebecca, that many people listening now, some who even ride the C Train, who support either party, may see their inboxes flooded with small donation requests constantly. Especially now as the campaign season is heating up. I actually want to read for our listeners and for you, an example of that that I saw went out on Saturday. This is an email to people that the Democratic Party hopes will be Democratic party donors that purports to come from Brooklyn, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, of course.

The email actually appears in people's inboxes as from Hakeem Jeffries. The subject line is, "Please" followed by the recipient's name. It starts like this. "I asked you on Wednesday, I asked you on Thursday, I'm asking you again today. That's how critical tomorrow's end of quarter deadline is to winning the house. I'll be honest, as of 11:00 AM I'm still $22,096 short of my goal with only 24 hours left," and it goes on from there with buttons to click on as low as donate $15.

That's for congressional campaigns. I realize Rebecca not the presidential but that's one that I saw and that person's inbox contains six more similar ones over this past weekend alone from Hakeem Jeffries or the House Democratic Campaign Committee for the House. Is it possible to say in general who are the target audiences are for those kinds of emails from either party?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: That's a very good question. One thing that I've been really interested in looking into on this beat is burnout, which is that phenomenon that's been described to me on both sides of the aisle fundraising consultants who work in this area. There's a fear that these kinds of emails are just going out way too much and wringing dry the well of, I'm just mixing my metaphors here, if too many people get those emails and they really stop responding to them or they get irritated by them. They don't want to engage.

What they're hoping to do is get small, small donors are like, "Oh, now there's a truck." Small donors are vital to campaigns for a number of reasons. First of all, they can give repeatedly. When you're talking about a campaign committee, there's a cap on contributions, there's $3,300 for the primary and 3,300 additional for the general election. When you get $200, you can continue to give that amount every month, every two months for a while and that provides a steady stream of cash to a campaign.

It also serves as a proxy for how engaged voters are. One thing that my colleagues and I looked at the New York Times is last year in 2023 Donald Trump had more I think by about 10,000 voters or by 10,000 donors, had more small donors than Joe Biden did and that makes sense for a number of reasons. Joe Biden didn't declare he was running again for a few months there and Donald Trump had been running the entire year and Donald Trump has historically been buoyed by a huge number of stalwart small donors.

He's never had a problem with small donors, but I think when people receive those emails the idea is to engage them and make them feel they're part of an effort and that is what the Biden campaign and what Democrats in general are really hoping to ramp up over the course of this year, right? They might sense that they're on their back feet in terms of polling for President Biden but the hope is that small donors will get engaged as they sense fear about Donald Trump's re-election or if they sense the stakes at hand with the Senate for example that those small donors will feel they're part of a team and a group effort.

Brian Lehrer: That's really interesting and I want to invite our listeners in on that exact question. By the way, I don't think we are really able to hear the street noise behind you. That's good you said a truck was going by, I didn't hear it. I think our listeners couldn't hear it. I'm glad you're off the C train and no, your job is Street Reporter, right? Now you're actually on the street somewhere in New York City, somewhere along the C train line which could be in at least two boroughs.

Listeners, if you make small campaign donations, tell us why, 212-433-WNYC. When these campaigns are spending hundreds of millions of dollars between the campaigns themselves and the packs and super packs that we'll talk about. What do you think your $15 adds? Is it more that you want to be on the side of right as you see it or why make drop-in-the-bucket political donations when mega corporations and very wealthy individuals dwarf whatever your political spending is at 212-433-WNYC,212-433-9692.

Tell us your own story in this respect or any questions for New York Times campaign finance reporter Rebecca Davis O'Brien. We will also get to her latest reporting on third-party presidential candidates especially some of her recent reporting on RFK Jr. You can call and comment or ask about any of those as well, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. I guess it might be for somebody else other than you, but I wonder if you've ever looked at the air of desperation that is sometimes expressed in these campaign fundraising emails.

I've seen a lot of them and sometimes they'll literally use the word, "we're desperate" when they're not really desperate for somebody's $15 but they want to frame it that way. It strikes me. Does desperation really sell to people who support one political party or another? Maybe it does. Have you ever looked at that?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: I actually have written one story specifically about this back when Rhonda Santos was still seeking a Republican nomination, his team had a commitment that they weren't going to lie or exaggerate or nudge people in campaign finance requests by email. I think precisely for this reason, they didn't want to do that and when I did interviews for that story, a number of donors said that they really appreciated it because they were so sick of getting needling grasping emails that sounded desperate.

I think both parties really are guilty of this. Maybe the Democrats started it. Truly, there is a sense that you can galvanize donor support by amplifying the panic and fear. There are a few candidates in particular and Nancy Pelosi actually did a lot of this. Sending a half dozen emails a day in increasing tones of desperation. I think it's a fascinating tactic and I would love to hear if listeners respond well to that.

Brian Lehrer: Well, guess what? We have a board full of listeners who I guess get these emails and according to Celia in Washington Heights which you can also take the C train to if you go to the end of the line. Text messages in addition to emails. Hi, Celia on WNYC. Did I get that right about the texts?

Celia: Yes, you are right Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I just counted them when you said that and in spite of having winnowed them earlier yesterday afternoon, I still have six text messages from various people, so-called from various people, and most of them are not Hakeem Jeffries, most of them are people from various congressional districts well outside New York State. It's not just New York City who I don't know, I've never heard of before and they write me and they say, "Hi, it's Josh. Hi, it's Makira."

It's not endearing anymore. Also, it's just the way in which what she was talking about the needling, the way in which they're trying to make you feel guilty and trying to make you feel as if you've missed something and the constant asking me, "Are you going to vote for Joe Biden or not? We just have to get this straight here." When of course, this is all from Act Blue so I put part of this on their shoulders. It's somebody in their marketing department has decided that this is the best way to handle it, it's driving me away.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have a history of contributing to the Democratic Party if you're willing to say or even specifically contributing to out-of-town candidates to help the Democrats attain a house majority?

Celia: I do have a history of contributing to the Democratic Party. I'm not a big donor. I don't have it. I guess by this time, I probably have a history of contributing to out-of-town candidates because every once in a while they get me.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, so then they come back to you, but in a way that you're starting to find alienating. Celia, thank you very much for telling your story. Here's another one, Roger in Englewood. You're on WNYC. Hi, Roger.

Roger: Hi. How are you, Brian?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got?

Roger: Good. I'm a small donor, I would say, to the Democratic Party, mostly presidential races, occasionally a senate race or others. What I find irritating. I'm definitely one who feels just the burnout and exhaustion of repeated messages over and over with the desperation lines, but there are other things as well. Not to be petty, but they've got my name wrong. They use my last name as my first name so every one of those messages that people are talking about it starts off with them using my wrong name.

It would be like them calling you David and saying," David, please David, please David." You write back and you don't get anybody. You can't really answer those things. The other thing is that I got one and I can't remember if it was [inaudible 00:19:59] Blue or DCC or whatever, that, "Your membership is expiring. Give now before your membership expires." There's no membership. I didn't sign up for anything. My membership's not expiring. I find that sort of thing insulting and it makes you feel hesitant to reward bad behavior. I find the exhaustive repetitive desperation messages along the lines of bad behavior.

Brian Lehrer: Do you find that you get this now using your name in the subject line from commercial marketers as well because I'm certainly seeing that in my-- I don't get it in my WNYC inbox, but I get it in my personal inbox where it's-- I'm trying to think of an exact example and I can't?

Roger: Yes. You know what--

Brian Lehrer: It's as if it's coming from me to me. Like, it's from Brian, then whatever the business is or the subject line might have my name in it, and sometimes it has my wrong name in it. Like you said, it uses your last name as your first name. For some reason--

Roger: It uses my last name as my first name, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Sometimes I get ones, this might be somebody's algorithm, just doing the best it can and taking a guess. I get ones calling me Brenda and calling me Brandon. Like, somehow they know that I have a-

Roger: I get Richard instead of Roger.

Brian Lehrer: -B-R name but they don't really know for sure. Yes. You get Richard instead of Roger.

Roger: Yes, I get that from marketers. Somewhere I must have shown up as Richard on something and everyone must have bought it and then are recycling it but I don't know. Again, it starts to insult your intelligence at a certain point with the desperation messages. The tactics are annoying.

Brian Lehrer: Richie, thank you for your call. I mean, Roger. We appreciate it a lot. To go back to you, Rebecca, we lingered on that and we have a board full of similar calls and I'm not going to keep taking them because I think we made the point. It's also not just the Democratic party, it's the Republican party too. I'm going to give the misimpression because our couple of callers there who were first up were getting these from the Democrats but we have a sense there, a little sampling, of how this can be alienating to people. Maybe the math, Rebecca is if you alienate 98% of the people you send to, but you get a 2% hit rate, you're going to be dollars plus and it's a calculation, something like that. Like it is in business.

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: I guess so. I haven't thought about it in those terms. I should just quickly note that the flip side of this is that Donald Trump has does stuff like this. He sends upward of 10 emails of his campaign, 10 messages a day to his supporters and it's been very successful for him. His two biggest fundraising days in 2023 came in part because he was able to leverage his indictments in New York and Georgia using the platform of email and social media. Those kinds of hits seem to work.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Let's see. I'm just trying to decide if we should take a break here and come back. I definitely want to get into your third-party reporting before we run out of time. Oh, but I know. Let's first talk about these PACS and Super PACs. What's a PAC? What's a super PAC? What's a joint fundraising committee for people who don't know?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: I was hoping you would go to a break. A Super PAC-- now in the post-Citizens United World are familiar I think broadly with Super PACs. They are vessels that allow unlimited contributions and spending to some degree. They still have to disclose where the money comes from and where it's going although there are all sorts of ways to obfuscate that. We're not going to get into that but they're not allowed to coordinate with campaigns. Again, there are ways to circumvent those rules but the Super PACs are the big money, big vessels.

Then they're the campaigns and the campaign committees have much tighter rules about what they can raise. Again, that's the $3,300 for the primary and the general. Their spending is a little bit-- you want to have the money in the campaigns because they get lower rates of advertising and they are usually used to pay the salaries of the main campaign staff. Joint fundraising committees, it's really more of an agreement. Let's use Trump as an example, which I'm wary of doing, but he has a joint fundraising committee through which he raises most of his money.

Then from there, in the small print, you can see that it's diverted in two directions. It goes to his campaign and it has been going until recently into a Super PAC, on to a leadership PAC that has been used to pay his legal bills. Think of it as conduits really and into the leadership PAC you can raise more money. You can raise, I think it was like $15,000 per-- or into the joint fundraising PAC. Sorry. It is so complicated. Basically, a joint fundraising agreement is where you can raise money into this one entity and it will move money into other organizations.

Another helpful way to think about this is that now that Biden is working alongside the DNC, he's raising money in a joint fundraising agreement with the DNC that enables them as a collective to, and the reasoning why this is again too deep in the weeds to get into what he can raise more than $900,000 from each donor that will be used for his campaign but also throughout the Democratic Party's national organizing structure.

Brian Lehrer: Why is it like this? Why isn't there just the political campaign and you either donate to it, or you don't? Why are there PACs, Super PACs, and joint fundraising committees? Are they essentially ways to hide who's giving money or are they something else?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: I don't think it's about hiding who's giving money. It's about creative ways to raise more money and avoid the limits and contributions and to use that money in creative ways because unlike C4 organizations or nonprofits, they do have to disclose where the money comes from. Again, of course, you can put it behind an LLC or something but the money does come out eventually, where this comes from. The spending is a little bit more easily hidden for various reasons but it's not really about hiding the donors. I think it's more about finding creative ways to get more and more money from donors.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take one more call. I said we were done with the calls on the small donation requests that people are getting in their inboxes and on their phones but Andrew in Sea Girt, New Jersey is calling in because he worked in political advertising and wants to try to explain some of this I think. Andrew, you're on WNYC. We really appreciate you calling in.

Andrew: Thank you for having me. Can you hear me okay?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Hear you just fine.

Andrew: Great. Okay. I worked in political advertising for many years, and I think the primary issue here and the reason behind all of this is because political ad agencies, consultants, and all of the people that actually absorb the money and place the money are paid on a commission basis or on a turnstile type of revenue basis, or they have to raise and then spend the money for them to make their commissions or their fees, their staffing salaries, et cetera. There's no incentive to not spend the money.

By the way, if you think of a political candidate as a product, that product ceases to exist on election day. While they can save some money based on some of these PAC rules and things that I'm not fully aware of, I do know that the vast majority of the spending, the texts, the emails, the TV commercials, of course, the radio commercials are there because the ad agencies and consultants make money on the money they spend, and there's the underlying propellant for all of this.

Brian Lehrer: Andrew, thank you very much. Interesting explanation. Now, when Biden raised $26 million connected to the Radio City event last week, Rebecca, is that money donated only to the campaign or also to some of these PACS and super PACs and joint fundraising committees?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: I believe that was done through the joint fundraising apparatus that he has with the Democratic National Committee. That would be spread out throughout this whole setup which really exists to run a national campaign. He is tied in. The campaign itself is now tied into this vast national infrastructure.

Brian Lehrer: Fox News had that story that I cited in the intro about the Biden campaign refusing to disclose who the donors were to the Radio City Hall, but they did also note that the event was open to the press, meaning reporters could see who bought tickets. Actually, were you at that event as a campaign reporter?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: I was not at that event. I was in California covering Kennedy.

Brian Lehrer: Who we'll talk about in a minute. What percentage of the money they took in at Radio City would have been specifically from people in the live audience, if you have any way to know?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: I actually don't know the answer to that question. It's a good one, we can try to figure that out.

Brian Lehrer: Who is giving all this money to each of the campaigns? Is it possible to say who the biggest donors are or what the biggest issue interest groups are sinking money into the Biden campaign or the Trump campaign directly or indirectly?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: Well, let's start with Biden. If we're talking not just about the Biden campaign and the DNC apparatus, if you look more broadly at the PACs that are backing him, there's a huge amount of union support. We expected to see more of that. My colleague Reid Epstein, last week, I think had a story about some of these unions will be spending tens of millions of dollars on this election. He has a lot of union support.

As has been reported, I think Steven Spielberg and his partner, were among the bigger individual donors. A lot of the Hollywood traditional Democratic donors have given heavily on the campaign side. We're going to find out more about the individual donors again in April, or later this month, when the big quarterly filings are due.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Now, when we continue in a minute, we'll touch on the other thing. Rebecca Davis O'Brien from The New York Times political coverage team has been on recently, as she just mentioned, the third party campaigns and how the Biden and Trump campaigns are trying to minimize their impact, especially regarding RFK Jr. from both sides, by the way. Stay with us for that.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with our usual first segment of the week, Monday morning politics. We've been talking about Biden and Trump campaign finances with New York Times campaign finance reporter Rebecca Davis O'Brien, who by the way, finally got off the C train, got past all the trucks, and actually made it to our studio. Can you hear the quiet?

Now we'll touch on the other thing she's been covering recently, the third-party campaigns and how the Biden and Trump campaigns are trying to minimize their potential impact.

Rebecca, to look at various of your recent stories, it looks like the Trump and Biden campaigns are both trying to discredit RFK Jr. Does your reporting give you clues as to who he's likely to take more votes from in swing states?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: It's very hard to measure exactly where those votes are going to come from, but I can speak to the people I meet at his events, and to the concerns within certainly the DNC intel, maybe I'll slightly lesser degree, the Trump campaign. First of all, polling on third-party candidates is really tricky. If you don't poll for them, of course, their popularity goes unnoticed entirely, but if you do include them in polls, whether it's national or local, data show that their numbers are inflated, more people will say they support them, than actually will go vote for them. It's really hard to gauge their actual popularity or how much of a risk they show.

One poll that we've been looking at or citing recently, suggests that RFK would pull about equally from Joe Biden and from Donald Trump. I think it makes sense if you think about his background, and also where he's focusing his attention. He is, of course, coming from a family of Democrats. He has traditionally held democratic views. He's very in favor of environmental protection. He's pro-choice or says he is, but he's also been a vocal critic of Joe Biden, and of the Democratic party's pandemic response. He sees both parties as being equally corrupt. He is reserved to have a particular IRA for Anthony Fauci and for the Public Health Establishment.

I think that he's really picked up on a post-pandemic frustration that I think transcends party divisions and class divisions to some degree. He has a lot of pockets of support around the country. As you've discussed these smarter political pundits and I have observed that this election is likely to come down to a few 1,000 votes in a couple of swing states. If he's able to convince people to vote for him in those swing states, if he gets on the ballots there, or even if his presence just keeps people from voting for anybody, that could really have an effect on the election outcome.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. It's not just vaccine mandates with respect to COVID that RFK is talking about. I mentioned last week, I saw on a Reuters story, he gave a quote to Reuters, casting doubt on the efficacy of the measles vaccine. We currently have unusual measles outbreak in this country, maybe it's related to the fact that people are becoming more vaccine-skeptical in general, even with respect to, which considered their kids' basic vaccines. That's an RFK Jr. thing, but there's also and I wonder if you think this is breaking out, as an issue in either party.

There's also his staunch support for the way Israel is fighting in Gaza, which may surprise some disaffected Democrats, for example, this quote of Kennedy was in the Jerusalem Post two weeks ago. He said, "Hamas is to blame for Gaza war, any country would act like Israel." Now, that's one line, but he's been saying things like that consistently. I wonder if you've reported on that. That, of course, is much more Republican-sounding than Democrat-sounding right now. How is the Trump campaign-- Well, first, anything you know about RFK Jr.'s positioning on Israel Gaza? Then how is the Trump campaign in particular attacking him?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: His position on Israel and Gaza is particularly interesting to me because he left the Democratic Party and decided he was going to run as an independent that week after the October 7th attacks. I think it created this strange world for him where he was going to have to chart his own course on this very specific and contentious obviously international issue. It's unusual. His approach to Israel is a little bit and I think it's not atypical for Kennedy. He's not entirely on message here yet.

I think he's trying to figure out what he wants to say. He obviously wants to appeal to the far left. In some capacities, he'll talk about the plight of the Palestinians, but he also seems to not want to alienate Jewish voters or people who support Israel. It has been a little bit all over the place. It's in contrast to his position on Ukraine where he clearly wants US not to get involved, and he has pledged one of his--

Brian Lehrer: Oh, not to get involved.

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: On Ukraine. Sorry, no. On the Ukraine side, one of his big go-to lines is no more forever wars, we're going to stop spending this money and getting involved in overseas conflicts.

Brian Lehrer: That's yet another example of ways that you would think he would draw more from Trump voters than from Biden voters.

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: Yes, absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: Time will tell. On the left, your latest article was about the family of the late labor and civil rights leader, Cesar Chavez, whose work was based in the California farm worker community, denouncing RFK Jr. for using their family's historic ties, the Kennedy family and Cesar Chavez, in a campaign event, what's the backstory there?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: Sure. The immediate backstory is that obviously Sunday, March 31st is Cesar Chavez Day, it's his birthday, was his birthday.

Brian Lehrer: That's a state holiday in California, by the way, isn't it?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: Yes, and I think in several others. Having grown up in New York, I had to admit yesterday that-- I knew who Cesar Chavez was, I did not realize the mass import that he had, especially in California, which obviously makes sense, and I guess that's also a generational thing. The Kennedy campaign has for weeks been promoting this event, they were going to host in Los Angeles for Cesar Chavez Day, and it goes back. Part of the Kennedy shtick, or his campaign is really rooted in nostalgia for his own family. He really embraces his own historical legacy.

Sometimes that legacy does not want to be embraced by him, which is a fascinating dynamic to watch play as I've been covering this campaign. On Friday, the Chavez family, Cesar Chavez's eldest son Fernando wrote a letter on behalf of the family to the campaign that was released widely in the media, saying, "Please stop using our father's likeness. Please stop using images, please stop talking about him. We don't think he would support what you're doing. You're making it sound like your campaign would be in lockstep with his efforts, and we don't think that's true."

There's a backstory here. I think it's a sad family story in some ways. Robert F. Kennedy, RFK Junior's father was infamously or notoriously the first major public figure to embrace national figure, to embrace Cesar Chavez and his efforts in the mid-60s and late-60s to unionize and secure better conditions for farm laborers in California. He broke a fast with Cesar Chavez in '68, I believe, shortly before he was assassinated, and the families have been very close ever since.

Both Fernando Chavez and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. yesterday told me a story about how they worked together on Ted Kennedy's 1980 presidential run, and their families have been very close for a long time. It sounds like the Chavez family was already stepping back from Kennedy, for a number of reasons, and that this event they felt like they had no choice except to say something.

Brian Lehrer: It is a sad story. Two families historically close, historically on the same side of progressive politics as they have seen it, and now the Chavez family besides the microwave issue or the immediate issue of citing them in an event without their permission, they I guess, think that RFK Jr. has gone wacko so they're not supporting his candidacy, right?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: It's more than that. I think that's maybe the undertones here, but there are two reasons that were cited to me. One is that they feel like it is imperative that people vote for Joe Biden, and that Donald Trump not win the election. That is the number one fear that was cited to me by the family members. The secondarily, I think there's a COVID-related issue here.

Fernando Chavez said to me on the phone that migrant workers, farm workers were hit very hard early on by the COVID pandemic. Eventually, when the vaccine came out, Joe Biden was very good at getting-- He actually, I think, helped convince people to get the vaccine in that community. It saved a lot of lives. There's a concern that especially in the older generation of Latinos and people who work in that world, that the Kennedy name might have had an impact in convincing people not to get vaccinated and-

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk].

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: -the Chavez family is very upset. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing, Nicole Shanahan, the Silicon Valley lawyer, who RFK named as his running mate. This is going to combine your two beats because this seems to be very much about campaign finance, as well as about third parties. By way of prelude to this, I'm going to play a clip from our show on Friday because some of the media are reporting on Shanahan to some degree as a player in Silicon Valley. I asked tech reporter Kara Swisher on Friday show with Kerry's new book about Silicon Valley being out and she was on for a book interview is, does Shanahan appear in her book? The answer was an emphatic no, and here's why.

[start of audio playback]

Kara Swisher: I'm sorry. She's not a technology person. She could say she is, but I'm more of a technology person than she is or more qualified to talk about that. No, no, she married Sergey Brin and she has a lot of money. I'm sorry to say this, but that's why she was picked. She has a lot of money from a marriage to the Google founder.

[end of audio playback]

Brian Lehrer: Kara Swisher on Friday show. Who is this person?

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: Nicole Shanahan is 38 years old. She is the daughter of immigrants. She grew up in Oakland, California, and she is very rich and she's wealthy and involved in the tech world because she married Sergey Brin. One reason your listeners might be aware of her name is that she was the primary funder of the Super Bowl ad that ran back in February in favor of the one that co-opted or borrowed, I don't know which term you want to use, repurposed the 1960 JFK presidential ad. She provided a lot of the creative guidance and also funding for that.

In my understanding from speaking with people close to Kennedy is that this was a fluid selection process. We reported that Aaron Rodgers was at one point at the top of his pick, I'm sure your Jets listeners were relieved that that did not happen, but he was looking. He has been successful at raising money, but he needs more money to make it through as an independent candidate. It's very expensive and time-consuming to get on all these ballots. In Nicole Shanahan, he has a source of funding because she has many millions of dollars that she can contribute to this campaign.

I also think, maybe to give her some credit, she is young, and she's a lawyer. She cares a lot about the same issues that he does. She's very engaged on vaccine issues and public health and environment. It's possible that she provides a nice-- I don't think she's a foil to him, necessarily, but she's a nice counterpart to him and will draw a big contrast with the older people who are running for president and vice president.

Brian Lehrer: Rebecca Davis O'Brien covers campaign finance and third parties for The New York Times. Thank you for giving us so much time today. We really appreciate it.

Rebecca Davis O'Brien: Thank you.

 

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