Biden fund receives large donation from son of Republican megadonor Larry Ellison

Hi, welcome back to the exchange. The Biden campaign has a new and perhaps surprising mega donor. New piece on cnbc.com examines the $930,000 donation from Skydance CEO David Ellison. Don’t know the name? Well? You might know This one’s the son of Oracle Co founder and Republican mega donor Larry Ellison. Joining us now is cnbc.com’s political finance reporter Brian Schwartz. This is a curious move. As I think you point out in one of your dispatches, Brian, this would be like one of George Soros’s sons contributing to Donald Trump. Yeah, it’s a big deal. It to put the Biden campaign because really there’s was an effort to get David Ellison support that. It was coming from people like Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was actively working to get David to come support Biden’s team and that led to this over $900,000 donation to the Biden Victory fund. Why did he flip? Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he wasn’t a Republican donor before. So I shouldn’t say flip. Well, that’s right. We’re not exactly sure whether he flipped or the reason why he definitely came over from a policy perspective. But again, this was really a push that came from the Biden side to get David Ellison to come over and support Joe Biden. You know that we have a scene in the story where David Ellison actually came to an event, a private event featuring the president himself in December. And that move to get him just to come to that event started with a little bit from Katzenberg and other political donors just to get Ellison come support Joe Biden. At the end of the day, let me just ask the question. I am not implying anything. I just do it out of my typical skepticism. His company, Skydance, is apparently making a bid for Paramount and National Amusements. Am I right on that? Yeah, that’s right. Would there be any connection to this donation and that move which might might require some governmental approvals? Well, it’s unclear, but it is interesting that the donation arrived as these reports that are coming out about that deal talking about the deal volume, Sky Dance, Paramount and National Amusements. So the donation came in the early part of the first quarter, quarter of this year. And so you know it is interesting that it’s kind of coincides in a way with timing of how all these reports are coming out about that deal. But it’s unclear if it’s exactly tied to any potential regulatory scrutiny onto the Biden inspiration or maybe even a Trump administration down the road. All right, time time will tell. On that is the is the notion that the big rainmakers like Katz, Jeff Katzenberg would be involved in trying to recruit a donor like Mr. Ellison. Does that suggest that Katzenberg and other rainmakers in the Biden camp will be doing the same with other donors who might be on the fence or who might be disenchanted former Trump backers? Yeah, that’s right. We’ve done reporting on this and other stories about how Katzenberg and people in that orbit have been actively working to bring over people who used to support Nikki Haley. Remember, she was in the primary taking on Donald Trump. And so they’ve been working the phones on this for, I would say, over a month. And it’s, it’s panned out for them in some ways. But I think there’s still time to see how many of these people come over and give to Biden or even endorse him because that does put them into sort of a kind of a political bind. If these are folks that lean toward the Republican side of the of the political spectrum, You know, there are questions as to whether these folks are going to come and give a lot of money, endorse Biden or do nothing and move just to help Republicans in Congress. Instead, I have to leave it there. Brian, thanks very much. Good reporting. Appreciate your time today. brianschwartzcnbc.com. You can see the full story there on cnbc.com.