Trump Mega Donor Turns Back On Donald – Then Immediately Pulls Off Ultimate Betrayal

0
797

Although the president has managed to hang onto the support of his base through all of the twists and turns of his administration, it is not as though he is winning many converts with his aggressive ultra-nationalist Make America Great Again strategy.

One of those he has failed to win over is past Republican donor Seth Klarman, identified by The Boston Globe as a hedge fund billionaire who spent the Obama era funding Republicans. Klarman has now taken his opposition to the president to a new level, actively pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into Democratic campaigns.

Check out a graph detailing the shift in his giving below.

klarman Trump Mega Donor Turns Back On Donald - Then Immediately Pulls Off Ultimate Betrayal Corruption Donald Trump Election 2018 Politics Top Stories

He has so far gifted a total of about $222,000 to 78 Democrats running for Congress since the 2016 election, according to the publication. The recipients of his giving have included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and prominent Democratic member of the House Adam Schiff, from California. He has also given $2 million to nonprofits built around issues ranging from gun control to protecting the environment to protecting the rule of law.

The president has, of course, faced heavy criticism for coming up short in all three of those areas.

Commenting to The Globe, Klarman said:

‘The Republicans in Congress have failed to hold the president accountable and have abandoned their historic beliefs and values. For the good of the country, the Democrats must take back one or both houses of Congress.’

The national political winds are certainly on Klarman’s side. Democrats are heading into the midterm elections later this year fresh off victories like that of Democrat Conor Lamb in a special election recently held in a Pennsylvania Congressional district that Donald Trump won by about 20 percent.

As yet another bit of salt in the wound for the Republicans who have lost Klarman’s support, he commented that he is using his share of the tax cut enacted by the president late last year to finance his Democratic donations.

The billionaire commented:

‘I received a tax cut I neither need nor want. I’m choosing to invest it to fight the administration’s flawed policies and to elect Democrats to the Senate and House of Representatives.’

The tax reform package signed into law last year has certainly proven contentious outside of this situation. Most recently, it was revealed by the Congressional Budget Office that it is poised to balloon the federal deficit to the point of it hitting $1 trillion in 2020.

Such is deeply ironic considering the sheet volume of criticism that has been lobbed at Democrats by Republicans over the years for supposedly not being fiscally conservative enough.

As for Klarman’s take on all of these issues, his jump to supporting Democrats is not without warning. He has not only never been on board with Donald Trump, but he has also actively expressed his opposition in the past through such means as criticizing him in a letter to investors early last year.

He is hardly a nobody, having been lumped in the same class as Warren Buffett by The Economist, as The Globe notes. Going into the midterms, Republicans are going to have to grapple with losing him and no doubt others like him as a cost of their support of Donald Trump.

Featured Image via MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images