dollars. remember fees we were talking about all those people write a five dollar, checks ten dollar checks. where there was to advance bernie sanders, or donald trump. and they were getting to the real americans. those red americans don t total 17 billion dollars. what is election about? who is really controlling it? don t scratch the surface subtle. this election is showing that unlimited dark money spending is the structuring within our democracy. it gives the richness of the rich and invisible hand to decide elections and sidestep from the. when emphasizing visible because this money is so hard to track. it passes to organization after organization before it finally landed in the candid spot. that is a problem that can only be confronted, let s be real, campaign finance reforms. caps on spending. had limitations and regulations. and so much more. to ensure that the power
nearly 17 billion dollars. according to open secrets, that s going to be the total campaign spending for these midterms in 2021 and 2022. the new york times reports much of that cash is coming, surprise, surprise super pacs. only funded by republican mega donor s. consider this, you could ve paid for the entire 20 olympics with 15 and a half billion dollars. suit have just under two extra tap on the side. two of our favorite msnbc political analyst are back with us to discuss. juanita tolliver veteran political charges and host of crooked medias. what a day podcast. and matthew dowd, former georgia people strategist and founder of country over party. juanita, almost 17 billion dollars. remember fees we were talking about all those people write a five dollar, checks ten dollar checks. where there was to advance bernie sanders, or donald trump. and they were getting to the
real americans. those red americans don t total 17 billion dollars. what is election about? who is really controlling it? don t scratch the surface subtle. this election is showing that unlimited dark money spending is the structuring within our democracy. it gives the richness of the rich and invisible hand to decide elections and sidestep from the. when emphasizing visible because this money is so hard to track. it passes to organization after organization before it finally landed in the candid spot. that is a problem that can only be confronted, let s be real, campaign finance reforms. caps on spending. had limitations and regulations. and so much more. to ensure that the power actually expects the people. because grassroots fundraising. grassroot donors absolutely can t keep up in this environment. not with 17 billion dollars in
actually expects the people. because grassroots fundraising. grassroot donors absolutely can t keep up in this environment. not with 17 billion dollars in the ecosystem. matthew, nobody is writing checks this big unless you want something major. and you want a major influence in the direction this country is going in. what should we expect? what do you believe is behind all of this money? it is major. we already saw in the last few years what was behind the old money. that the large months have been spent the last few years. which the supreme court dominates. that ended up on the court threw campaign contributions and through and known sources of funding for organizations that were just invented. and then senators ended up in trump s pocket. and then ended up in certain supreme court nominees in the course of this. i completely agree with juanita. this is incredibly insidious
for americans to drive, but also for the potentially impact on the midterm election next week. as we ve noted on the show, there is this really strong correlation between gas prices voters view on whether the country is on the right track as you can see on this new york times chart, gas prices shot up this spring. confidence in the direction of the country plunged. so, democrats who are fighting have a political, economic interest in keeping those gas prices low. now, president biden clearly knows this, he is done a lot to try to lower the cost of gas, including releasing a total of 180 million barrels of oil from the special reserve this year. but a lot of this, most of it, is out of the government s hands. particularly as russia s invasion of ukraine sparked a energy crisis around the world. but it is important to keep in mind that oil companies aren t hurting, in fact the opposite, exxon just posted its highest profits ever. 19. 7 billion dollars for just one quarter. chevron reap r