Republican Donor Revealed As Funder Of South Dakota's National Guard Border Deployment Stunt

A Republican mega-donor has been revealed as the funder of the political stunt by South Dakota governor Kristi Noem to send national guard troops to "protect" the southern border. The donor, Willis Johnson, gave the donation to the state, and Noem claims that she welcomes this kind of donation in order to alleviate the tax burden on her constituents. The governor is letting wealthy individuals treat the national guard as their personal security force just to make Republicans look tough, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

This week, South Dakota, governor Kristi Noem announced that she was sending 50 of south Dakota's national guard, uh, troops to help guard the Southern border of the United States. 50 of her troops going down there taxpayers be damned because we got somebody's foot in our bills for us. And that somebody happens to be a Republican mega donor by the name of Willis

Johnson Willis, and his wife Reba through their foundation, uh, made a large donation to the state of South Dakota. And that is what they're using primarily. I don't know if it covers the full expense or only partial expenses, but it's thanks to that money that taxpayers don't have to foot the entire bill of sending their national guard troops down to Texas

To, uh, secure our Southern border. Now, the Trump loving governor over here in Florida, Ron DeSantis also sent 50 of our law enforcement officers over to Texas to help shore things up at the border. And what do no men DeSantis have in common? The other, both two names being floated as potential 2024 Republican nominees for president. This is one big political stunt by politicians who can't actually talk about issues. So they're buying into these little fake controversies, fake crises saying, well, we're going to send our people down to the border, but what happened in South Dakota is even more disgusting than what happened over here in Florida. Because again, you have a Republican mega donor who funded this, and here's what Mr. Johnson had to say, just because she's up in South Dakota doesn't mean it doesn't affect the whole United States. We are one people and we should protect our country, protect them from what Mr. Republican mega donor are you actually in danger, anything, anybody, part of your livelihood in danger, you wealthy sob. I want to know an answer to that, by the way, I genuinely want an answer to that, or is it just that you want to flex your muscle and be like, look what I just bought. I just bought the South Dakota governor off, and now she's sending 50 troops down to the Southern border to help bolster her chances of winning the Republican nomination in 2024. That's what this is folks. That's the payoff. That's the reward, Kristi Noem.

Now here's the thing. We also have large section of this country over this past week that were stuck in what scientists called a heat gnome, triple digit temperatures in areas of the country that don't ever see. Triple digit temperatures. We do have a very real crisis here in the United States this year, but it was a climate crisis, Not a border crisis.

The Republican party for months, basically ever since Joe Biden got sworn in, has been trying to make the Southern border, the focal point for Republicans. That's their big talking point that, and of course critical race theory. And, uh, they want you to sink that we've got these migrant hordes pouring across the border every day. Your life is not safe. Your job is not safe. These people are coming over. It's horrible, but it's actually not really materializing. We're not seeing any difference in the total numbers than we had over the last few years. It's all political theater. It's all political stunts and every single Republican who's doing this Ted Cruz, Kristi Noem, and Rondi Santas, all three of them.