Is Foreign Money Influencing American Politics?

Okay, first, before we give you the facts of the day, Run Hyde Fight infadels is streaming now only on Daily Wire. It's an ode to the great action movies of the 80s and 90s, there is even a love story which nobody expected, and you can support Daily Wire's mission to continue making movies that people actually want to watch. Go check it out. Every election cycle, a large swath of political activist groups on both sides of the aisle spring into action for their causes, but with midterm elections approaching and given the power of these organizations, many Americans might be wondering where the money funding these groups comes from. In this episode, we sit down with Caitlyn Sutherland Executive Director of Americans for Public Trust to talk about what she calls the "Left's Addiction to Foreign Dark Money." I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a Weekend edition of Morning Wire. 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Well, our research has shown that foreign nationals, foreign charities, and foreign governments are exploiting way too many loopholes on the local, state, and federal level that allow their foreign money to flow into important political fights and electoral tools. And we made a tool to expose it. That's the whole purpose of this brand new project. Follow foreign money.org is to really expose the foreign money coming into the United States. And then what nonprofit groups based in the United States are filling their coffers with foreign money to implement an activist liberal agenda. So what does your database show when people go to it? Our database is categorized over five billion in foreign money coming into the tax exempt sector here into the United States. I mean, five billion in foreign money. That is a ton of money. And it's really important to note that the database is a first of its kind project. It is certainly the floor, not the ceiling of exposing the problem. We have a billion, billion dollar problem of foreign money coming into the United States. And it's especially important to talk about as we approach the midterms. We are seeing a lot of television advertisements. There's a lot of protests. There's a lot of yard signs. And I think a lot of your listeners and me included are wondering, how are these groups getting their money? Where is this money coming from in time and time again? We are seeing that well-known groups in either the Washington DC, see area or across the country are actually benefiting from billions of dollars in foreign funding. As many groups that we all know, it's the ACLU Foundation, it's the League of Conservation Voters. It's the 1630 Fund, the Airebell Advisors Network. These are well-known groups that you have already reported on. And what may not be known is the billions in foreign funding that is flowing through these activist networks. So you're saying this is the first such database. It's shocking to me that we haven't had databases like this before. This seems like a no-brainer. Absolutely. We certainly, as we talk about exposing foreign money, a lot of people want to know, well, who is the group and how much money are they receiving? We work with educating the public and we work with lawmakers on this issue. And we wanted to make a tool that was so easy and could really empower the average citizen to determine which groups operating in their state are receiving foreign money. So for instance, if you see a group, for instance, indivisible, they are the lead group behind these no-kings protests across the United States. You can go to the database, you can type in indivisible, and it will show that they have received almost 18 million in foreign funding. Now you've asserted that they are funding a lot of left-wing causes, are they also funding right-wing causes? Is there a lopsided division of where that money is going? Do you find there? There is certainly a lopsided division. It certainly shows that the left is addicted to foreign dark money. Our methodology was simple. We took a look at the foreign money coming into the US and we did not self-select which groups are liberal and which ones are conservative. All we cared about is following the foreign money and what we have shown through the database that 100% of the groups in the database are liberal groups. They are addicted to using foreign dark money to implement a liberal agenda here in the United States. That's 100%. I'm stunned by this. And we actually have a tool at the bottom that you can report known sources of foreign money. So certainly that methodology could change, but we have seen that these foreign charities and foreign nationals, many of which are based in Europe are only funding a left-wing agenda. And that certainly tells you what they're up to. So you're saying Europe is where a lot of this money is coming from. Which countries are contributing the most that you've seen? We are seeing a lot of money coming from the United Kingdom, a lot of money coming from Denmark, a lot of money coming from Switzerland. We are constantly in finding new sources of foreign money. And what's important that to know is that we have exposed a foreign-influenced loophole. We know some, but not all, of where the foreign money is coming. What we know is that these foreign nationals are taking advantage of our lax laws in the United States that can fund activism. It's important to know that there is absolutely nothing stopping our foreign adversaries from taking advantage of the same foreign-influenced loopholes. So while we might have money coming from more friendly, sounding European countries, there's absolutely nothing stopping individuals associated with the CCP or maybe from a foreign, known adversarial country from funding U.S.-based nonprofits and putting their thumb on the scale of what they want implemented. You mentioned our laws and the limitations there. I mean, how do they address foreign donations to political causes? That's a great question. Our laws are so weak when it comes to policing foreign money. About 40 years ago, Congress did say, "Hey, no foreign money in elections." That has come to evolve that candidates, super PACs and party committees take the RNC, the DNC cannot accept foreign money. Well, that is great. But here we are in a midterm cycle. We realize that the party infrastructure, the candidate and the super PACs don't really account for a lot of the outside spending that we're seeing. A lot of it is coming from these outside 501(c)(3)s and the 501(c)(4). They're the ones doing the GOTV campaigns, they're the ones doing the voter registration. They're the ones on the ground funding the state ballot initiative campaigns. And what we have found is that because all of those electoral-related activities aren't technically elections, so therefore don't fall under the federal ban of no foreign money in elections. So they're taking advantage of these loopholes on the books to use foreign money, and it is certainly impacting our politics and policy and really can impact the midterms as well. That sounds like a massive gaping loop hole right there, I mean, that's kind of crazy. So you mentioned the CCP, and I was surprised that China wasn't one of the larger contributors. But of those countries that you mentioned, we have the UK, Denmark, Switzerland, are they state actors sending money from those countries, or are they just bank accounts parked in those countries? Like when we hear Switzerland, my thought is a Swiss bank that could be anyone worldwide moving their money through Switzerland. So what is your understanding of who's actually the end contributor from that money? That is a great question. Yes, just because a foreign charity is based in Switzerland, as you pointed out, it doesn't necessarily mean that the money came from Switzerland. A lot of these foreign charities have decided to incorporate in Switzerland because of privacy laws. Similar as we see groups will purposely register in Delaware, they know that they will have greater privacy to operate in a country like Switzerland. But what we have determined that it is mostly foreign charities and foreign nationals, and some instances foreign governments like Norway, that is using the foreign money to put into the US non-profit sector. Last question, how effective have some of these investments that you guys have tracked been in affecting change here or influencing elections? Does it seem like this is really influential in terms of how this money has been used? Well, look, I think that money talks and foreign dark money definitely talks. Certainly, money doesn't get you all the way there. If you have a bad message, a bad candidate, a bad policy, all the money in the world isn't going to buy you success. But what we have is that these groups have an over five billion dollar foreign edge to really drown out their competition. This foreign money injected into the non-profit sector, I mean, it buys them access. It's buying everything from yard signs to television advertisements to volunteers. It really gives them a platform to be loud, to be aggressive, and to try to implement various policy positions. Money is very, very influential at all points of our society. And we certainly, particularly in 2026, must make sure that policy decisions are left to American citizens. It's incredibly simple, right? It is, it's an election here. It seems like it would be. It should be simple that American policies should be left to be influenced by American citizens. Foreign nationals, regardless of its one dollar or five billion dollars, have absolutely no business funding our advocacy here in the United States. So we're really excited to really showcase how big of a problem this is, and eager for a state and federal law makers to act to close off all these foreign influence loopholes. Because I think it's common sense, and the more people are aware, they can come to a common agreement that foreign money does not belong in our politics. Yeah, I think a lot of people would find this weak common sense. Caitlin, thanks so much for reporting. Well, thanks so much for having me on. That was Caitlin Sutherland, Executive Director of Americans for Public Trust, and this has been a weekend episode of Morning Wire.