At least 45. 00 people have died after storm now gay hit the rage and it made landfall on the islands have cut a dryness on friday. Its now lashing the main island of liaison, strong winds and heavy rain caused flash floods and mud slides, trapping communities. Search parties are struggling to reach several people still unaccounted for. Barnaby low is in manila with more in the situation around the country. This starch storm is huge, it has a 900 kilometer radius, so it is affecting almost the entire country and it, it is bringing with it a lot of rain, a lot of water as we speak right now. Tropical storm belgy is still making its way across the mean island up is on just north of a metro manila right now and it will not exit the philippine land mass until sunday. And so we wont know the real extent of the damage until the tropical storm. Exits the philippine land mass, but we already know of the village that was buried under mud in the southern philippines, in the provinces, off looking the now where 40 people were killed and the 10 people are still missing. There, at least thats the official figure right now. And so weve seen heartbreaking pictures of that area where houses have been destroyed and there were dead bodies strewn all over and the bridges also that were disconnected. Rhodes said to have been damaged then its not only true there. There are also other areas, other villages in the philippines that have been completely submerged by flood water. And so there is a lot of damage to property. And theres also a lot of damage to agriculture because a lot of these places, our rural areas of the philippines to other world news and new crimes. President says 4000000 people have been left with our power as russia continues its attacks on energy facilities. Rolling blackouts are happening across ukraine. And the region around the capital has been warned of unprecedented power cuts lasting more than 4 hours. Russian missiles and drawing strikes have destroyed around a 3rd of ukraines power stations. South africa was holding an official state coronation for the zulu king missy zulu has well a teeny is the leader of the Largest Ethnic Group in the country. The government is formally acknowledging the zillow monarch who was 1st crowned in a traditional ceremony back in august, for me to mila, has more from job a recognition from president a some point in these proceedings with the national anthem, as well as a new thing. Those are the people that come out and theyre excited about the best of it is its the 1st time a bus one in more than a south africa, brazils to president ial candidates have held their final television debate. President j about tomorrow and challenger lewis in a c, a lula to silver, go into an election run off on sunday. Thousands of people in haiti are falling sick with color and the outbreak is spreading fast. At least 40 people have ties. Theres been violence in the colombian capital at a protest demanding the release of political prisoners. The rally was called after the announcement of 168 detainees from last. His Anti Government protests would remain in custody. Us house speaker, nancy Pelosi Husband has had surgery after being attacked inside their home in san francisco. The suspect is believed to have shouted, where is mancy before beijing . 83 year old paul, the policy with a hammer. All right, those are the headlines. Im emily angland. The news continues here on al jazeera after the bottom line. Ah hi, im Steve Clements and i have a question with special Interest Groups pouring more than a 1000000000. 00 into the mid term us elections next month. Has big money become a threat to american democracy . Lets get to the bottom line. Ah. The amount of money flowing in from billionaires and huge lobbying groups to fun candidates running in next months mid term elections busted all previous records. 1300000000. 00 in counting, thats a big number. On the one hand, its not under the table. Thats how Campaign Financing works in the u. S. Enshrined by a Supreme Court ruling called Citizens United in 2010. But it begs the question, is all this money pulling lawmakers away from the will of the majority and into the narrow interest of their donors and friends . Will billionaires have an outside ability to control the policy agenda . And does anyone see this is a threat to the future of representative democracy. Today were talking with Trevor Potter, the former chairman of the federal Election Commission, and current president of the Campaign Legal center here in washington, d. C. And Andrew Gumble, journalist and author of down for the count dirty elections and the rotten history of democracy in america. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me. Trevor. Let me just start with you. The bread and center in new york ran numbers for this election season. And found that there are just 12 mega dont hers and this is remarkable. But 12 mega donors, 8 of them are billionaires, have paid 1. 00 out of every 13. 00 spent in this election cycle. 12 people versus 170000000 people are so say, i just want to kind of understand the scale of something you live and breathe. You and Andrew Gumble both, but im not used to seeing these numbers. Its an extraordinary level of 1000000000 area and engagement. It is an extraordinary level. I was looking at some of the numbers open secrets has a good list of people who have spent and you know, the top 10 people spend 500000000 dollars just unbelievable some. And they are sort of like horse race owners. Theyre backing specific candidates. Theyre not. Theyre winning primaries by peter tales spent enormous sums of money to make sure j. D. Vance was the republican nominee and ohio. Its backing a prize fighter or Something Like that. And we just havent seen that before, steve. But 10 years ago, i was asked by a German Television producer of i would like to comment on the role of the oligarchy. And i said, well, you know, im really a specialist in american elections. I dont know much about russia. And he said, no, no, i mean the american ali galks and that was of just a shocking breeze at the time i, i hadnt thought of it that way. Weve always had people who have supported Party Committees, but we havent had up until the last couple of years. And really on show this year, people who sort of go off freelancing on their own decide which candidates they want to see in the senate or governorship, and then simply finance their their races. And that is a role that i think excludes ordinary citizens. We, we look at this money being spent and think, well, dont theyre picking the candidates and ultimately the Office Holders. And even though we know this money is being spent, because we see contributions to various groups, to important to remember that a lot of this is essentially secret. Because when you see a television ad, it doesnt say paid for by peter deal or paid for by george soros, or who mean because both parties are, are being supported. But candidates of both parties by these individuals. Instead it says Something Like paid for by americans for a better country. You have no idea who that is. Yes. Groups like the brendan, or the crit, can report on these overall totals, but it is hard to know exactly where the money is going because a lot of it is going to groups that dont disclose their donors. And then the advertising itself doesnt tell you who pays for it. So the American Public is really left in the dark. Except for shows like this and discussions like this about who is financing running, which candidates. Thank you for that way, andrew gamble. Youve been writing about americas oligarchy. Youve been writing about peter. Feel in a fascinating article called peter appeals mid term bet, the billionaire seeking to disrupt americas democracy. And im really interested in trying to get to understand is has it become a dynamic where one party says, hey, ive got, ill meet your billionaire and ill, and ill double with to, i mean, is this become so normalized as you write about that that, that we just beginning to accept the fact that large players, large financial players are legitimate in the american political system should have sway should be able. As Trevor Potter said, just simply to pick candidates and price spiders. Whats your take on this was the way you framed it. Is interesting because i think that the notion that the parties are in charge of who runs and wins elections and then what happens once they get his office is be challenged in and of itself. That i think that the big money is talking louder than the parties in many important respects. Its come back to another one of your premises from earlier. I think the basic point to make is the individuals a putting in this vast amount of money into the political system. They expect something for their money and what they get to their money is not only the candidates that choice prevailing in primaries having huge financial advantages going into the general election if thats the case. Because as you point out, that is fundraising on both sides. But its also about determining the policy agenda and that happens outside of the context of elections as well as within the context of elections. So just give one very brief example of what i need, you know, the, the huge amount of money that was put into Republican Party politics. Starting with the coat brothers after about 2008 at all, but eliminated the possibility for the republicans as a party to talk about Climate Change as a real and present threat that we need to confront. As a matter, paul, the urgency, if you look at a country like britain where there are certainly very conservative people in the conservative party, there is still an open debate about how to deal with Climate Change. The cross is both parties. Thats not a coincidence. Its about the money you see that in other ways as well, and its not just about what doesnt get discussed by one party can often be about what doesnt get discussed by anyone, especially in the context of an election. Because if you know that a mega donor can drop one or 5 or 10000000. 00 against you, if you talk about a certain subject, you know, maybe its Student Debt Relief and defending present bidens plan for that. Maybe its, you know, some other area of fiscal policy or Something Else that is a direct benefit or reverses, but threatens the interests of the narrow bands. A very rich people. Youre going to be very deterred from raising that on the campaign trail because you dont want 10000000. 00 dropping against you. So even with that, spending the money there is a deterrent effect on a healthy, normal political debate where the interest of ordinary versus a being held front and center. Not only by the voters themselves, they vote, but also by the candidates. Trevor, you have been working on this issue longer than any one i know, and im going to tell our audience, you were working closely with senator john mccain who himself was worried about these distortions in american politics. Youve got, youve got a long time of this and i havent seen progress, substantial progress. And you can correct me if im wrong in transparency or beginning to raise this issue of what its doing to corrode democracy. What does it say to a young person when you say to them, be engaged in politics, get engaged in the parties, try to make the world a better place, but youre so outgunned and outmanned depending on where the billionaires are stacking their chips. But im just interested in unit because you do know this area, well, you know what, what should give us concern. And do you see any hope in this work on looking at, you know, building a better campaign, legal infrastructure and financing infrastructure than what we have today . Well, unfortunately, and throughout my professional career, i started with the president ial campaign of the 1st president george h. W. Bush then was at the federal Election Commission. Its not my fault, i promise you. But throughout that career, things have gotten significantly worse. I think for the, the American Public in terms of how we finance elections. When i started, we had a public funding system for the presidency and candidates raised money and it was matched in the primaries, the general election. They had full public funding. They didnt take private contributions on terms of the house and senate and the Party Committees. There were strict limits on how much individuals could give to candidates and to the committees. And there werent the run around the work around that. Now dominate the system so that there was full disclosure. Ready people knew who was giving and they were giving in relatively small amounts the amount that a wealthy. Ready individual could give to a candidate was a 1000. 00 per election that has changed over time. Not really because the limits have gone up much. They have a little, but because the money is going around, those limits the ability of wealthy individuals to come in. Ready banquet candidate, do so either overtly or covertly sort of pick their horse and ride it and put them in office is totally different from what it was. And i think andrew is also right that the threat of that to Office Holders is a huge problem. Sen Sheldon White house has just written the book talking about what he sees as the corruption inherent and all of this. And the, the ability to shape legislation, which is after why people spend money on politics is they want particular outcomes or xander points out. They want to block particular outcomes. And so when you have literally tens of millions of dollars, all these top donors that were talking about have given 2550. 00 more 1000000. 00 in this race. When you have that kind of money its, its very difficult for the average citizen due to counteract. Its very difficult for the parties. They end up as to some extent the hostages of wealthy individuals. If the candidate doesnt do what they want, the individual cut their support. If the individual, if the wealthy individual, the special interests are bank rolling candidates around the parties outside of the party structure, the party really doesnt have much say in that. So the world has changed significantly. I, i think a lot of this goes back to the Supreme CourtCitizens United decision. I say that because the court really there gave a green light to spending unlimited amounts of money and elections. Now technically it was just corporate money, then labor money thats being spent. But i think the fact that the disclosure system has not worked the way it is supposed to is an enormous problem here when john mccain was working on the mccain, feingold law. Part of that was to limit the ability of wealthy special interest to spend money by requiring disclosure, so that citizens would know who was paying for those ads and in Citizens United itself. Justice kennedy said, yes, its true for the 1st time. Were going to allow unlimited corporate money in federal elections. But dont worry because it will be fully disclose. And shareholders will be able to hold their corporations accountable for how they spend their money. And citizens will know who is paying for the advertising and therefore can judge the advertising based on the source of the money. As andrew says, if its Energy Company spending money urging you to elect someone, you can make your own decisions about whether you agree with that Energy Company. But thats not what we have. We have a situation where the money is often routed through nonprofit organizations that dont disclose donors. And the result is that citizens are seeing all these ads. Theyre aware theres a lot of money being spent out there, but they dont really know who its coming from. So you have these independent actors who are essentially supplanting the Party Committees, particularly, and things like senate races where youre, you spend 30000000. 00, youre spending 10 times what a Party Committee would spend. Right, andrew, you know, id love to get your take as well on this, but wondering, you know, from a, maybe a devils advocate position saying, well, the american system in a way responded with something. I was surprised by, you know, particularly we saw the obama campaigns and the Bernie Sanders campaigns and, you know, the rise of the small donor, the 3. 00 donor, the 2. 00 donor, massive amounts of money. Which in a way kind of gave me hope that there were that many people out there giving in small donors that it could make a difference. But, but, you know, in, in the real world does that small level dont, or in which weve seen proliferate because Technology Allows us to do that, to get past posted stamps in mailers. Is that a counter effect that balances the abuses . Prayer perhaps of you know, the billionaire crowd essentially in politics . Well, 1st of all, id say that the rise of the small donor movement, if you want to call it that is a direct response to a universal. I would say, discussed at the level of unaccountable moneys flushing around the system. If you look around the country where they have been successful campaigns, usually through state level ballast initiative to kansas certain aspects of what you know, i would call the corruption of system, whether its gerrymandering seats, whether its Campaign Finance that allows unlimited donations to independent groups. You see that, you know, those boss initiative succeed and red states as well as blue states groups like represent off being very active in trying to make that happen. So i think what you see is that if you scratch the average american vote and get them to sort of stop the polarizing up versus then team sports view of how american politics works as a tremendous amount of agreement that the system is corrupt. And that it needs to be reformed. Now the question is, how do you do that . The small donor approach is one that can work, but it does generally require a candidate and erase that has tremendous media. Visibility is not something thats gonna work for the average school board rice, for example, Something Else you know, make it a water board, whether its a direct interest of an Energy Company to get involved. Then you have an argument. Weve seen many times, most notably with donald trump, but not just with people from the Business World saying, well i have lots of money of my own so i cant be corrupted. I think thats a very problematic argument. The fact is in politics, you know, you are beholden to people for reasons that have to do with money, but also have to do with many other things. And as we saw with donald trump, you know, he ended up pursuing an agenda that was very friendly to the people who he felt vital to his political interests. You know, whether its evangelical christians with the abortion issue, or the Federalist Society on the nomination of judges. And so on and social. So this argument that, well, ive got so much money that i cant be corrupted, i think is a for swan. And what were seeing now with people like pizza teal, jumping in, is a very explicit. Lets tear everything down kind of argument. So its taking, taking the previous arguments and pushing to another level thing. The system is so corrupt, we need to destroy everything. And the contradiction in what hes doing, of course, is this, the analysis, the most americans can get behind is the on the cannibal money. And corruption is the problem in our system. Then having somebody who is pouring tens of millions of dollars into races to back candidates, you dont believe in american democracy is not the answer. And i think its interesting that we now have impeded, hell a mega dona who explicitly has raised doubts about the democratic system working within the new limits or lack of limits of the system where money can trump ordinary people vote. The reason why all this money exists is because money can be more powerful than peoples vote, right . So it is inherently on democratic and i was seeing explicit calls to tear down the institutions while democrat system coming from the phone donors who are taking advantage of a system that come to load well, you know, this race and the important question. Trevor of you know what to do, i mean you and i both. I will say this publicly were friends with Madeline AlbrightMadeline Albright wrote a book on fascism and said, oftentimes, fascist, are elected and systems. And im, you know, as i listened to andrew saying the very clearly that we have a democratic system, electing people who are opposed to democracy. We have a system with Citizens United, creating the tropics of non transparency. As you said, i guess my question to you is, do you look at Campaign Finance . Is the greatest threat to american democracy now . And what is the strategy to, to get us onto a different track . I think there are a number of dangerous threats to democracy. Now, the money in politics is part of it that its really an in dish of whats going on. Its this overall attack was andrew was mentioning in, in the institution of democracy itself. The idea that we somehow cant govern ourselves, that individual americans cant be trusted. When i hear somebody like peter taylor talking about, you know, destroying the system, breaking it down, starting again. Not trusting what we have. I end up thinking well, hes protected by billions of dollars a personal wealth. So you know, however much chaos we have. And however, bad things are probably okay. But what about the rest of us when you hear the Republican Leadership in Congress Talking about defaulting on our debt and the potential global, calamitous Financial Results of that. Again, it may serve a partisan interest, but its not very good for the country. So i, i think the attacks on the integrity of election officials, the threats to election officials, everything ive seen says that their officials who are leaving their office by if theyre in office or theyre not volunteering because they fear violence and threats at the polls. Thats dangerous for a democracy. The whole thing weve heard for 2 years about how elections are fraudulent and rigged, and you cant trust one type of voting or another type of voting and the, the certified when areas and somehow really the winner. All of that is dangerous for democracy because it, it, it leaves voters feeling that somehow the, the system is not secure. And steve, remember that when we talk about voters putting people in power, you start with the fact that in most states you have primaries for each party with very small turn out. So if somebody wins a primary, 35 percent, 33 percent were talking about a couple 1000 votes, then ending up deciding who the Party Nominee is and in the house in the senate. Many of these are very safe seats. So the election is actually decided there. So, and then you have the big chunk of the country who dont even vote on election day. Right. So its, its a small piece that ended up deciding who were going to have an office. And if that small piece is bought for mot by really wealthy, special interest, right. And then theyre beholden to them when they get there and those interests dont like democracy. Thats a problem. Just in the last minute we have andrew, 2 of the acolytes of peter thiel are blake masters. Hes running for senate in arizona and j. D. Vance, who is running for senate in ohio. Should they, when is the practice that youve been sort of right, you know, putting a spotlight on going to get much worse in the future. I think its going to get worse regardless of whether they win or not. I think that is the real problem. The, to travis point, we now have a primary system where very small groups of those who can be more easily swayed by the big money interested society who get to run. And the fact that you now have massive advance before them. You have people who are already in the senate like ted cruz holy, who on the very far right of the party, who believe in being gadflies you believe and you know, pushing against everything that has been held sacred by the republican mind behind it itself. In the past, this creates an atmosphere in which these candidates with these views become the norm, right. And that we can expect a lot more of them in the listen. Thank you, passing conversation, important conversation on what you know, the solvency of american democracy is today. Trevor potter, former chairman of the federal Election Commission and current president , the Campaign Legal center, Andrew Gumble, journalist and author, thank you both for being with us today. Thank you, steve. So whats the bottom line . If your idea of american politics is based on the hollywood classic, mister smith goes to washington with jimmy stewart, youre seriously in need of a Software Update that sort of thinking. An upstanding american citizen decides that his voice or her voice is worth something and should be heard. So they watch a campaign with almost no money, but people love them and they vote for them. And then they wind up in congress and they stand up for the little guy. If that movie was adapted for today, at the end, mister smith would wake up realizing that his whole adventure was just a front for a billionaire pulling strings from behind with tens of millions of dollars spent in Political Action committees, with virtually no transparency, big money, and big power or the name of the game in todays america. There are a lot of david and goliath stand offs in american politics to day. But usually goliath winds, there are folks out there who still are brave enough to run for public office. And sincerely want to serve their constituencies, but its getting harder and harder to break through the money barrier. And thats the bottom line. Ah. From breaking down the headlines to exposing the power was attempting to silence reporting. The listening post doesnt just cover the news. It covers the way the news is covered on al jazeera. Ah ha ah ah ah. Hello, im emily angry now joe ha headboard is these the top stories on al jazeera. Theres been a huge explosion in somalia is capital