{"id":67833,"date":"2017-03-07T08:27:59","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T12:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=67833"},"modified":"2017-03-07T08:32:26","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T12:32:26","slug":"67833","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=67833","title":{"rendered":"Just who are the Mercers? How they catapulted Trump to victory."},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"site\" class=\"\">\n<nav id=\"main-navigation\" class=\"c-nav c-nav--main u-border-box u-smooth-font\" data-omni-click=\"r'article',r'header',d,r' ',r' ',@href\">\n<div class=\"c-nav__container\"><\/div>\n<\/nav>\n<article id=\"article\" data-omni-click=\"r'article',r' ',d,r' ',r' ',r'514529'\">\n<div class=\"article-above fluid-container\">\n<div class=\"article-cover\">\n<div class=\"article-cover-content-wrapper\">\n<div id=\"main-content\" class=\"article-cover-content\">\n<h1 class=\"hed\">What Does the Billionaire Family Backing Donald Trump Really Want?<\/h1>\n<h3 class=\"dek\">The Mercers are enjoying more influence than ever with their candidate in the White House\u2014but no one seems to know how they intend to use it.<\/h3>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_67836\" style=\"width: 660px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/lead_960.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-67836\" class=\"wp-image-67836\" src=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/lead_960.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/lead_960.jpg 960w, https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/lead_960-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/lead_960-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-67836\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Trump arrives at the Mercers&#8217; annual costume party in December of last year. (Mark Kauzlarich \/ Reuters)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>by Rosie Gray<br \/>\nThe Atlantic<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"credit\">She owns a cookie store. He loves model trains. They both hate the Clintons. And beyond that, not much is clear about the motivations of the Mercer father-daughter duo of Republican megadonors who have become two of the most powerful people in the country over the last 18 months.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah were among the earliest and strongest backers of Donald Trump while other elite donors still disdained him. It turned out to be a good investment. But now, with their favored candidate freshly installed as president of the United States, it remains unclear what they believe, or what they hope their investment will yield.<\/p>\n<p>The Mercers have been a quiet but constant presence in the background of Republican politics since the beginning of the 2016 cycle. They started the campaign as backers of Ted Cruz, pouring millions into one of the main super PACs supporting his candidacy. Their data firm, Cambridge Analytica, was hired by the Cruz campaign. They switched to support Trump shortly after he clinched the nomination, and he eventually hired Cambridge Analytica, as well. Their top political guru is Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart News chairman and White House chief strategist. They\u2019re close, too, with Trump\u2019s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who also has a senior role in the White House. They never speak to the press and hardly ever even release a public statement. Like Trump himself, they\u2019ve flouted the standard playbook for how things are done in politics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\">\n<section id=\"article-section-2\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Clues to their policy preferences can be found in their family foundation\u2019s pattern of giving. For example, they have given more than once to groups questioning climate-change science. But their donations have flown to groups all over the conservative political map, ranging from libertarian organizations to movement conservative groups to the Koch brothers\u2019 Freedom Partners Action Fund to Breitbart. That scattershot approach suggests the family has some ideological flexibility.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">No one seems to know what motivates the Mercers or what policies they want to see enacted, even people who have worked closely with them or for projects funded by them. While they\u2019ve poured money into conservative causes, they\u2019ve also invested in projects explicitly aimed at overturning the modern conservative movement, like <em>Breitbart News<\/em>, in which they <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/politics\/articles\/2016-08-17\/trump-s-new-team-brings-deep-ties-to-major-donor\" data-omni-click=\"r'article',r'link',r'0',r'514529'\">reportedly<\/a> invested $10 million, and Trump himself. And the mystery of their ideological motivations is made all the more striking by their success in helping Trump reach the White House. A recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/meet-the-mercers-a-quiet-tycoon-and-his-daughter-become-power-brokers-in-trumps-washington-1483904047\" data-omni-click=\"r'article',r'link',r'1',r'514529'\"><em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> story<\/a> on the Mercers concluded: &#8220;It isn\u2019t clear what specific policies or positions, if any, the Mercers are seeking for their support of Mr. Trump.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cAll I can take away is that they just want to be power players,\u201d said a former <em>Breitbart News<\/em> staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a non-disclosure agreement. \u201cI don\u2019t know what their principles are. I don\u2019t know how you switch from Ted Cruz to Donald Trump so quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"article-section-3\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cMost of these people I think I understand,\u201d said a Republican operative who has been engaged on several Mercer-led efforts. (Like most people quoted in this story, the operative declined to be identified for fear of legal or professional consequences for speaking publicly about the Mercers.) \u201cI don\u2019t understand the Mercers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Rebekah Mercer \u201ctalks business. She talks data, she talks trends, she talks messaging,\u201d said another Republican operative who has worked with the Mercers. \u201cI have never really been in her presence where she\u2019s talked policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked to describe what\u2019s motivating them, Bannon himself was vague.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReally incredible folks,\u201d Bannon said in an email. \u201cNever ask for anything. Very middle class values as they came to their great wealth late in life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">* * *<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Robert Mercer got his start at IBM, working there for over 20 years. He went to Renaissance Technologies in 1993. It\u2019s there that Mercer, already well into middle age, became wealthy. Renaissance, based in East Setauket, Long Island, includes three hedge funds managing over $25 billion in assets, as well as the mysterious <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2016-11-21\/how-renaissance-s-medallion-fund-became-finance-s-blackest-box\" data-omni-click=\"r'article',r'link',r'2',r'514529'\">Medallion Fund<\/a>, an employees-only fund that has made its investors unimaginably rich. Mercer\u2019s co-CEO is Jim Simons, a major donor to Democrats; one Republican operative with connections to the Mercers who spoke on condition of anonymity joked that the pair were trying to \u201chedge the political system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Rebekah, known as Bekah, is one of Bob and Diana Mercer\u2019s three daughters. Along with her sisters Heather Sue and Jennifer (\u201cJenji\u201d), she owns Ruby et Violette, a cookie store in New York (the cookies are now sold exclusively online). Rebekah, 43, is married to a French Morgan Stanley executive, Sylvain Mirochnikoff, with whom she has four children. Mercer did not respond to requests for comment for this story.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"article-section-4\">Bob Mercer, 70, is an enigmatic figure who has a reputation for rarely speaking publicly. Nearly everyone spoken to for this story used some variation of the word \u201cbrilliant\u201d to describe him. There\u2019s a touch of eccentricity, too; \u201cI know a couple things you can bond with Bob Mercer over is he hates the Federal Reserve and loves model trains,\u201d said one Republican operative who has worked on Mercer-backed initiatives. (Mercer once <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/news\/hedge-fund-hotshot-robert-mercer-files-lawsuit-2m-model-train-accusing-builder-overcharge-article-1.368624\" data-omni-click=\"r'article',r'link',r'3',r'514529'\">sued<\/a> a model train manufacturer, alleging that he was overcharged for a model train set installed in Owl\u2019s Nest, his expansive Long Island estate).<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Whatever her actual beliefs, there\u2019s one thing upon which people who have worked with Rebekah Mercer agree: She has a keen understanding of politics and likes to be involved in the day-to-day running of projects she\u2019s involved in. Many donors like to play strategist, much to the annoyance of the actual strategists in their employ. But Mercer appears to be more successful at it than most.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cAlmost all donors want to pretend they\u2019re Karl Rove. They all want to play political mastermind,\u201d said one of the Republican operatives who has worked on Mercer-funded projects. But \u201cI would say that Rebekah is as smart at politics as you could be without ever having been at the grunt level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cHer political instincts were always on the money,\u201d said Hogan Gidley, a former Mike Huckabee aide who served as spokesman for the Make America Number One PAC which became the Mercers\u2019 pro-Trump vehicle during the general election. \u201cWe would be talking about how a certain ad should look or changes we should make to an ad, and she would just offer an idea that would just elicit instantaneous agreement. It wasn\u2019t because they were largely funding the PAC, it was because she was right.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"article-section-5\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Gidley said Mercer was on every conference call related to the super PAC\u2019s operations. Even so, he didn\u2019t get a clear sense of Mercer or her father\u2019s ideology.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThey\u2019re libertarians who understand that they might have to make compromises with social conservatives,\u201d said one person in the non-profit world who is a recipient of multiple Mercer grants. \u201cThey\u2019re just as at home at the Cato Institute as they would be at the Heritage Foundation on general issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Mercers, the non-profit activist said, appeared to have two goals this election cycle: \u201cThey\u2019ve been fighting the Clintons forever, and they wanted to back the winning horse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">That first goal has been clear for some time. The Mercers have for years had their hands in the cottage industry of anti-Clinton activity in and around the conservative movement. According to tax records from the Mercer Family Foundation, they gave nearly $3.6 million to Citizens United between 2012 and 2014, which sued for access to Clinton Foundation-related emails last year and whose president David Bossie also got a senior job on the Trump campaign. They\u2019ve also invested in the Government Accountability Institute, which publishes the conservative author Peter Schweizer. Schweizer\u2019s book Clinton Cash was an influential source of talking points for Trump allies during this election cycle, providing fodder for one of Trump\u2019s early salvos against Clinton in a speech in June and regularly populating the pages of <em>Breitbart<\/em>. Bannon co-founded GAI with Schweizer; Rebekah Mercer has sat on the board.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"article-section-6\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Mercers\u2019 activities during the election cycle are among the clearest public evidence of how their beliefs, whatever they might be, translate into action.<\/p>\n<p>At first, the Mercers went in for Cruz. They backed Keep the Promise 1, one of the main super PACs supporting Cruz, to the tune of $11 million. Like other campaigns with which the Mercers have been involved, including Trump\u2019s, the Cruz campaign engaged the Mercers\u2019s data firm Cambridge Analytica. Cruz campaign officials clashed with Cambridge over the particulars of the contract and lodged complaints about the product itself, according to multiple sources familiar with what happened; in one instance, the Cruz campaign was paying for a database system, RIPON, that had not been built yet, leading to a contentious argument. They also caught wind of work Cambridge had done for the Ben Carson campaign; working on more than one primary campaign is a no-no for vendors. Elsewhere in Mercer-world, there were other signs of trouble when it came to Cruz. In January, before the primaries had even begun, Breitbart News began attacking Cruz, insinuating that he was ineligible to be president because of his Canadian birth (a line also in heavy use by Trump at the time). Meanwhile, the Mercers were still publicly behind Cruz.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cCambridge Analytica&#8217;s data science team had an excellent relationship with the Cruz campaign: we were part of the campaign starting from day one and all the way through the primaries and caucuses until the final day, and we continue to work with many of the principals from the campaign,\u201d a spokesman for Cambridge Analytica said. On the work they had done for the Carson campaign, the spokesman said \u201cCambridge Analytica is large enough to work on more than one campaign at any given time, and we take FEC firewall regulations very seriously. We would not work with multiple clients if we did not have the scale to provide devoted resources to ensure full compliance with firewalling procedures.\u201d And on RIPON, the Cambridge Analytica spokesman said \u201cRipon was being used by many senatorial and gubernatorial candidates in the 2014 mid-terms. Some bespoke modifications were requested by the Cruz campaign and we were of course happy to make those for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"article-section-7\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Breitbart stories were troubling to Cruz staff, who had seen Breitbart as an ally and who didn\u2019t think they had any reason to doubt the Mercers\u2019 loyalty.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">What Cruz\u2019s staff may not have taken into account was the behind-the-scenes influence of Steve Bannon.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI don\u2019t think [the Mercers are] as nationalistic as Steve,\u201d said a Republican operative who has worked for the Mercers. \u201cSteve is an unapologetic nationalist. I don\u2019t think the Mercers are as much.\u201d But \u201cthey share a real disdain for elitism. That\u2019s what sort of binds them together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another of the Republican operatives described Bannon as the \u201cObi-Wan Kenobi\u201d to Rebekah Mercer, and a third was even more pointed: \u201cSvengali.\u201d Bannon is \u201creally, really, really influential\u201d with Mercer, said the former Breitbart employee. The Mercers, the former employee said, made their wishes known through Bannon, who would sometimes cite the company\u2019s financial backers as a reason for Breitbart not to do a story. Bannon didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment about this.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">That highlights a third apparent goal, which became clearer over the course of the campaign: dismantling the establishment.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Mercers made two public statements over the course of the campaign.. The first came after Ted Cruz\u2019s dramatic speech to the Republican convention in which, amid booing, he refused to endorse Trump and told people to \u201cvote your conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cLast summer and again this year, Senator Ted Cruz pledged to support the candidacy of the nominee of the Republican Party, whomever that nominee might be,\u201d the Mercers said in a statement to <em>The New York Times<\/em> afterward. \u201cWe are profoundly disappointed that on Wednesday night he chose to disregard this pledge. The Democratic Party will soon choose as their nominee a candidate who would repeal both the First and Second Amendments of the Bill of Rights, a nominee who would remake the Supreme Court in her own image. We need \u2018all hands on deck\u2019 to ensure that Mr. Trump prevails. Unfortunately, Senator Cruz has chosen to remain in his bunk below, a decision both regrettable and revealing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"article-section-8\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The second came after the release in October of the Access Hollywood tape that featured Trump boasting to Billy Bush about groping and kissing women without permission. The tape was too much for many of the Republicans who had begrudgingly come around to Trump; some rescinded their endorsements, and there was pressure on Trump to drop out of the race.<\/p>\n<p>But not from the Mercers, who dismissed the tape as \u201clocker room braggadocio\u201d in a statement to the <em>Washington Post<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cAmerica is finally fed up and disgusted with its political elite. Trump is channeling this disgust, and those among the political elite who quake before the boombox of media blather do not appreciate the apocalyptic choice that America faces on Nov. 8.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The rare statement provided an unusual glimpse into the Mercers\u2019s views, reflecting a disdain for an elite political class of which they themselves are members.<\/p>\n<p>This disdain could be one reason why the Mercers have not constructed their own donor network to rival \u00a0that of the Koch brothers, or Paul Singer. Most elite Republican donors tend to favor establishment candidates like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. The Mercers, tied as they are to the anti-establishment fervor sweeping the Republican Party in recent years, don\u2019t fit in. But their distance from their peers has only made them more relevant.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">While everyone respects Rebekah Mercer as serious and smart, several sources said she could be prickly, and one of the operatives who has worked with her described her as a \u201cdifficult person.\u201d That reputation may make it harder for her to build the relationships necessary for consolidating a network of other donors.<\/p>\n<p>Mercer exerted a considerable amount of behind-the-scenes influence during the transition, weighing in even on subplots like choosing a new chair of the Republican National Committee. She had an official spot on the transition executive committee. But her role going forward is less clear. She\u2019s expected to help lead an outside group pushing the president\u2019s agenda in the vein of Obama For America. It\u2019s not clear what other donors will be involved. Though already there are signs of trouble; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2017\/01\/trump-rebekah-mercer-robert-mercer-donors-234030\" data-omni-click=\"r'article',r'link',r'4',r'514529'\"><em>Politico <\/em>reported<\/a> that the Mercers were backing out of the group, which is to be led by Trump campaign digital director Brad Parscale and Mike Pence aide Nick Ayers. It\u2019s unclear how the situation will resolve itself.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWhether she tries to get other donors involved with her own thing remains to be seen,\u201d said one of the Republican operatives who has worked with the Mercers. \u201cShe always tries, she\u2019s just not very good at it. She\u2019s not a people person \u2026 But she seems serious and this is more than just a hobby for her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2017\/01\/no-one-knows-what-the-powerful-mercers-really-want\/514529\/\">http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2017\/01\/no-one-knows-what-the-powerful-mercers-really-want\/514529\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"fb-root\" class=\" fb_reset\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Does the Billionaire Family Backing Donald Trump Really Want? The Mercers are enjoying more influence than ever with their candidate in the White House\u2014but no one seems to know how they intend to use it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}