Secretive Right-Wing Billionaire Makes Massive Donation to Trump

Elusive right-wing billionaire Timothy Mellon made a massive donation—$50 million—to a Trump super PAC the day after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, according to disclosure filings. The donation is one of the largest single disclosed contributions ever, according to The New York Times, and one of the worst ways to burn $50 million, according to anyone with a functioning brain.

Mellon earned his wealth the way all hard-working Americans do: He inherited it from his grandfather, banking magnate and former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. Timothy Mellon’s introduction into the world of being a political powerplayer started from humble, hateful beginnings in 2010 when he donated $1.5 million for legal fees to defend Arizona’s ultra-racist “show me your papers” law, Senate Bill 1070, in court. The reclusive 81-year-old went on to become a major player in conservative politics in 2018, when he spent big on conservatives in midterm elections that year.

Fast-forward to 2024, and Mellon has spent this year’s election blowing through cash on both Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaigns, previously donating equal amounts of $25 million to both. Because when your options are between a racist demagogue and a brain-wormed conspiracy theorist, why choose?

According to The Washington Post, Mellon has made a bunch of statements that would make your ultra-racist grandfather proud. His 2015 self-published autobiography included passages that said Black people became “even more belligerent” after the expansion of social programs in the 1960s and ’70s, called people receiving social services “slaves of a new Master, Uncle Sam,” and described programs that help people not making enough money because billionaires hoard everything for themselves and dump money into presidential candidates who continue to cut their tax rates as “slavery redux.” Charming.

Prior to this latest billionaire boondoggle, Mellon donated $5 million to RFK Jr.’s campaign in April, according to The New York Times. Maybe he meant to give that same amount to Trump, accidentally added an extra zero and, being too wealthy for numbers to have meaning, just let it ride. Who knows. What we do know is that days after his donation, Make America Great Again Inc.—the super PAC that received the funds—stated it had raised $70 million in May (most of it Mellon’s) and had reserved $100 million in advertising in states where Trump already leads Biden.

Following his conviction, Trump’s campaign coffers now report having more cash on hand than Biden’s for the first time this election cycle—a feat that is expected to not last, as Biden gears up to collect two billion smackeroos in direct donations and another billy from outside groups with less prolifically heinous politics. According to The New York Times, Mellon’s spending spree has made him “the first donor to give $100 million in disclosed federal contributions in this year’s election,” an impressive investment that will nevertheless not be remembered by the sands of time.

Donald Trump is a big fan of the new Louisiana law that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public classrooms.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee and convicted felon posted his approval early Friday morning on Truth Social in an all-caps post, noting “HOW CAN WE GO WRONG???”

The bill almost certainly will invite a lawsuit on First Amendment grounds, which would likely make its way to the Supreme Court, which, thanks to Trump, has a conservative majority. In past decades, however, the court has struck down similar bills.

But Trump knows what he’s doing. This is a calculated effort to appease the Christian right, along with his attacks on abortion rights, which he tries to disguise but very clearly states to Christian audiences. Somehow, despite his philandering, lying, business fraud, and numerous other violations of the Ten Commandments, he continues to be thought of as a person of faith by 64 percent of Republicans.

Trump depends on support from the Christian right, not just for himself but also to keep the Republican Party behind him. He will need their votes to have any chance of reelection in November, and they are already making plans for what to do if he returns to the White House.

Donald Trump’s media company stock has been steadily slipping in value following his conviction on 34 felony charges, and on Thursday, it dropped back down near its all-time low. 

Since the verdict in Trump’s hush-money case was decided last month, shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social, have dropped in value by nearly 40 percent, according to CNBC. 

The stock market closed Thursday with DJT (Trump Media’s stock symbol) another 15 percent down, valued at just $26.75—dipping dangerously near its all-time low of $22.84, which it hit in April. At the time, Trump stock was doing so badly that Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes wrote a letter to Congress asking them to investigate the anonymous trading of DJT stock. He was previously torched for reaching out to NASDAQ to complain about “naked short-selling.”

It’s been another particularly tumultuous trading week for DJT, beginning with Trump’s stock plummeting nearly 10 percent on Tuesday. After closing that day, the SEC declared that Trump Media’s registration statement had gone into effect, which caused the value to dip another 17 percent in post-market trading.  

The registration statement allowed some investors to exercise warrants, which permit them to swap and sell shares. Unfortunately for standard shareholders, who are not granted the benefit of warrants, this can dilute the value of their shares.

Less than a month ago, everything was different for DJT. Shares of Trump Media stock cost a whopping $49, and Trump’s 114,750,000 shares were worth more than $5.6 billion.

At today’s rate, the former president’s shares would be worth closer to $3.2 billion, and it’s hard to imagine what they will be worth by September, when Trump will actually be allowed to sell. 

DJT continues to prove itself to be a uniquely volatile stock, the value of which is tied to the fate of one convicted felon and his ability to appeal to voters. 

A secretly recorded conversation with Roger Stone suggests that the Donald Trump adviser and confidant is implying that the judge in Trump’s classified documents case, Aileen Cannon, could be in the convicted felon and former president’s pocket.

Liberal filmmaker Lauren Windsor secretly recorded the self-described “dirty trickster” at a Catholics Prayer for Trump event on March 19 at Mar-a-Lago, where he made several comments hinting that Cannon would dismiss the case. MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance said that these comments could suggest Cannon is compromised.

“To the extent Stone is insinuating something more sinister, that they have judges in their pocket, that’s entirely different, entirely wrong,” Vance wrote in her Substack newsletter.

“Perhaps he’s just making it up when he says Judge Cannon will soon dismiss the case against Donald Trump and that they have other judges available during the election. But given his background and history, it would be foolish not to be concerned,” Vance added.

Stone was caught on video saying, “We are beating them. I think the judge is on the verge of dismissing the charges against him in Florida,” referring to Cannon.

“They’re delayed in New York City, and they’re now delayed in Washington,” Stone continued, alluding to Trump’s election interference case regarding the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

Stone’s words, if he is hinting at Cannon working with Trump, would seemingly be corroborated by a Thursday New York Times report revealing that the Trump-appointed judge was urged by senior federal judges to hand off Trump’s classified documents case to other judges with more experience, who didn’t have previous involvement interfering in the case, as Cannon had. Cecilia Altonaga, the chief U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Florida and Cannon’s superior, even reached out to Cannon and told her taking the case would be “bad optics.” Cannon turned the judges down.

Cannon’s decisions in the case have been criticized for appearing to favor the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and convicted felon. She’s agreed to hear pretrial motions that have slowed down proceedings, thrown out parts of the case, and postponed the trial indefinitely. The judge has drawn criticism, even from one of Trump’s former lawyers, for seeming to be prone to exploitation,

George Latimer made a bizarre comment to denigrate incumbent Representative Jamaal Bowman, whose seat he’s working to oust, claiming Bowman has an “ethnic benefit” against him. The comment is just the latest in a string of race-baiting comments Latimer has made against Bowman in a desperate attempt to win his seat in the most expensive House primary in history.

Latimer’s comment came during an interview with Punchbowl News released Thursday where Latimer said, “Is [Bowman] going to get at least 40 percent of the vote? Yes. Does he have an obvious ethnic benefit? Yes. Will he get the people who are furthest to the left? Yes. But once you get beyond a couple of constituencies that he has strength in, he’s weak everywhere else.”

This isn’t Latimer’s first bigot-coded remark to swipe at Bowman. During a debate last week, Latimer claimed Bowman’s “constituents are in Dearborn,” a remark widely interpreted to be an anti-Arab and Islamophobic nod to Dearborn, Michigan’s Arab-majority population.

Bowman, who is Black, represents New York’s 16th congressional district, which is 20.4 percent Black and over 40 percent white. Four days before Latimer’s latest comment, Bowman slammed him, saying, “George Latimer’s rhetoric is filled with dogwhistles, but his results are even worse: a decades-long history of obstructing federal desegregation orders.”

Latimer’s comment drew fierce backlash, with critics pointing out Latimer’s history of slow-walking desegregation in Westchester County and his tendency to claim the only reason people support Bowman is because he’s Black.

During their debate on June 11, Latimer accused Bowman of only ever talking about Black constituents, saying, “You don’t mention people who are not Black or brown. There’s a whole district, Jamaal, that you’ve ignored, and the district knows you’ve ignored it.” Latimer’s comment came in response to Bowman accusing Latimer of ignoring Black and brown constituents in Westchester, keenly noting, “Just because you have a few Black friends doesn’t make you anti-racist.”