So the total bill for all the ads bought in the 2024 election broke new records at almost

$11 billion.

That is billion with a B.

And that is not the total campaign expenses.

That was just the ads.

The amount of outside spending, which is spending by groups that are not the campaigns

themselves, groups like super PACs, That hit a record $4.5 billion

this year. Again, that's billion with a B. And more than half of that money comes from dark

money groups that do not fully disclose their sources behind their funding. Money that has been

polluting our nation's politics more and more every year since the Supreme Court a decade ago allowed

corporations and the wealthiest Americans to spend as much as they want on elections.

But this year, we experience something we never have before.

The literal wealthiest person in the entire world used his fortune to tilt the election toward his preferred

candidate. Elon Musk bought political power. And now we are already to see starting to see that

investment pay off. Today we learned that earlier this week, President-elect Donald Trump held

his first post-election call with Ukrainian President Vladimir

Zelensky. For weeks now, there has been rising concern about Trump's promise to quickly

end the war in Ukraine, concerns that were exacerbated by reporting in Bob Woodward's new book

that Trump had as many as seven private calls with Russian President Putin since Trump left

office. Concerns that Trump himself did nothing to quash.

Can you say yes or no whether you have talked to Vladimir Putin since you stopped being president?

Well, I don't comment on that, but I will tell you that. If I did, it's a smart thing.

...