This is Brian Laird's Daily Politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Wednesday, November 20th.

I'm Amina Serna, a producer for the Brian Lair show, filling in for Brian today.

More than $20 billion flooded into the 2024 presidential election, signaling a trend

in American politics on both sides of the aisle. Both presidential candidates and their

political allies raise enormous sums of money from billionaires. According to Open Secrets, the nonpartisan watchdog organization that tracks the influence of money on politics,

a majority of these mega donors were Republicans, and their donations paid off, literally, with Trump's resounding victory.

So who are these high rollers, and what do they expect in return for fueling Trump and other GOP campaigns?

Joining us now to break it all down is Daniel Clydman,

investigative reporter for CBS News,

an author of several books, most recently,

Find Me the Votes, a hard-charging Georgia prosecutor, a rogue president, and the

plot to steal an American election. Welcome to WMYC, Daniel. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be

here. So before we get into the weeds, $20 billion was spent in this election season,

just how big of a deal or how unprecedented is that amount of money?

Well, it's a record.

You know, as you mentioned in the introduction, there is a trend of billionaires pouring

more and more money into campaigns.

And so the numbers are going up and up.

The $20 billion includes the presidential election, down ballot, federal

and state races. And it's important to point out that $5 billion or close to $5 billion of that

money is outside spending, that is, independent groups like super PACs. And there are no limits on the amount of money that

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