CNN commentator Scott Jennings (L) and former Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes (R) on CNN on April 1, 2025 (Image: Screengrab via CNN / YouTube)
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper got to the bottom of what separates massive Republican fundraiser Elon Musk and Democrat financier George Soros on Anderson Cooper Live. To former Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, the contrast was clear.
“No Democrat has spent over a quarter million dollars in a presidential race and then inserted themselves in the daily affairs of governing,” Barnes told Cooper.
Conservative Strategist and go-to pundit Scott Jennings attempted to corral Soros and Musk under the same category, arguing both billionaires filled the same role.
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“Republicans now have all these voters who are in the party, low propensity voters, no real demonstrable history of turning out. And to them, all politics is national. And so to get them interested in a supreme court race in Wisconsin, or even a congressional race in Florida, or a local race somewhere else, you have to connect it to the bigger picture. And I think that's what (Musk) is trying to do.”
In Jennings’ argument, Musk’s millions in political donations connect “new voters” to the politics they need to understand.
“They're not terribly politically connected,” he said. “They don't follow the political news on a day to day basis, but they would understand very broad, sweeping themes to connect your vote here to larger outcomes there.”
Barnes dismissed that comparison outright, at Cooper’s prompt, arguing Musk’s endless donations herald a frightening, new era of government purchase at the highest bid.
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“We're looking at the $20 million that Elon Musk has dumped into this (Wisconsin judicial) campaign, which dwarfs spending by even other rich Republicans, let alone the $2 million or $3 million combined from (Illinois Gov.) JB Pritzker and Soros. This is not comparing apples to oranges, anyway. This is a grape and a watermelon.”
“So, how much is acceptable,” Jennings countered. “What’s the limit?”
Barnes answered that he wanted “big money out of politics” altogether.
“People that donate at that level have an agenda,” Barnes said. “It has never been as evident as it is right now with Elon Musk purging the federal government workforce in an attempt to privatize and give contracts to his own companies. That is the big difference here.”
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Musk famously handed out$1 million payments in Wisconsin to targeted voters to encourage them to participate and swing the Wisconsin court conservative tonight. Such a swing would give state Republicans pivotal legal decisions regarding party-friendly district lines and other goals sitting in Wisconsin courtrooms.
Musk’s hefty investment, one of which wound upin the hands of the the state’s College Republicans, did not deliver the same oomph it did for Trump in the November national election. The Hillcalled the election for liberal judicial candidate Susan Crawford soon after polls closed.
Watch the video of the segment below, or by clicking this link.