Why Super PACs have more power than ever in elections

This message comes from NPR sponsor FX's Love Story, John F Kennedy Junior and Carolyn Bissett. It explores the iconic couple whose fairy tale romance would become a national obsession. Watch now on FX, Hulu, and Hulu on Disney plus for bundle subscribers. You already know the person who spent the most money supporting president Trump's campaign in 2024. His name is Elon Musk. You might remember him showing up at Trump rallies Come on up here, Elon. Jumping awkwardly around on stage Take over, Elias. Take over. But behind the scenes, he'd spend more than $291,000,000 to support president Trump's win. And we we we had one president who couldn't climb a flight of stairs and another who was fist pumping after getting shot. Fight. Fight. Fight. Blood coming down the face. Shortly after the election, Musk was tapped by Trump to lead Doge, which would slash government spending and jobs, which he represented once by pretending to fire up a chainsaw at the conservative CPAC convention. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. Chainsaw. Musk was the biggest spender by far, but he wasn't the only billionaire trying to influence the elections. About $15,000,000,000 was spent in 2024. And what raised eyebrows was the relatively short lists of the ultra rich people who spent it. Some major donors and billionaires have made public pushes for candidates this election cycle. So when it comes to following the money, there is a whole lot of it to keep track of in this race. Several high profile billionaires are dumping massive amounts of money into the presidential race. Fast forward to today. The twenty twenty six midterm elections are already shaping up to be the most costly in American history, part of a trend over the last several decades where the amount of money spent on elections has mostly been going up. So we wanted to look at one moment, a big moment, that seemed to open the financial floodgates. I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. And we In the lead up to the two thousand eight presidential election, it looked like at the time that Hillary was the front runner for the Democratic nomination. This is Michael Kang. He's a law professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Citizens United wanted to run a documentary that told all kinds of stories that they felt were important to tell about Hillary Clinton. You might have heard of Citizens United, the plaintiff, ever since its 2010 Supreme Court case. But Citizens United had, for years, been a conservative nonprofit that made media supporting Republicans and critical of Democrats. And their film, Hillary the Movie, had a strong narrative. Generally, that she was kind of an awful person. She's driven by the power. She'd be a terrible candidate. If she does not answer questions. Disaster in all kinds of ways. She is the expert of not saying …