Financial Backers Of Biden's Democratic Challenger Demand Their Donations Back

Democratic representative Dean Phillips has only been an official Democratic candidate for President for a couple weeks, and already he's realizing that it isn't easy to challenge authority. While Phillips has enjoyed immense support for his House bids from his donors, he's now finding out that they don't want to cause any Party chaos, and they aren't willing to give him a dime for his new venture. Some have gone even further and are demanding their previous donations be returned. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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

Democratic representative Dean Phillips from Minnesota has only been an official candidate for president for a couple weeks now running in the Democratic primary against President Biden. And already things are off to a really horrible start for Mr. Phillips. You see, according to a new report from CNBC this week, Mr. Phillips, who had raised more than $10 million for his congressional runs since 2018. So three runs, $10 million for one seat in Minnesota. It's a lot of money. Dean Phillips is obviously pretty good at raising campaign funds. The problem he has is that some of those donors who gave him money throughout those congressional races are now saying, hold up. We didn't expect you to try to blow up the Democratic Party. So we want our money. Back here is actually a letter from the wife of the former chairman of the NAU Country Insurance Company, James Deal. They had given Phillips, uh, how much money was it?

$11,200 during the 2022 cycle. So Mr. Deal's wife writes an email to Mr. Phillips saying this, on behalf of myself and my husband Jim deal, we would like a refund of our contributions to your congressional campaign. We are very disappointed in Dean's decision to challenge our president, Joe Biden. So they want their $11,200 back, but they had also given an additional $13,200 in June, so $24,000. And they're like, dude, give it back. You're not who we thought you were. And for the record, according to CNBC, this is not the only group of people asking for their money back. Now, most donors are of course not asking for their money back. That would be a little over the top. But there's also plenty of donors, according to this report, who had given to Phillips in the past. Again, he had raised $10 million for three congressional runs. That's a lot of money.

But they're saying, yeah, we are, we're not gonna do that anymore. So rather than trying to help the Democratic party, right, that's what Dean Phillips thinks he's doing. I'm helping them because Biden, you know, he is not pulling well against Donald Trump. That's true. You know, things are looking rough. That's also true. But Mr. Phillips is like, Hey, I'm gonna go out there. I'm, I'm, I'm like him, but I'm not as bad. You know, I'm not as old. I'm all I can do this. And, uh, his donors are like, no, dude, you just burned every bridge you had built while running for Congress. And some of them are like, you know what? Gimme my money back too. I want that money back. Now, obviously, donating money to a political campaign is buyer beware. Dean Phillips has no obligation to return money to anyone that ever gave him money. That's purely up to him. If he wants

To do it, he doesn't have to. But this isn't a good position for you to be in when you're like two to three weeks into your presidential campaign. It's a clear sign that you overstepped your bounds. And I'm not saying I agree or disagree with it, I'm just telling you the facts, folks. But Dean Phillips, this was a misfire based on everything we see right now. And of course, the fact that you're polling at 4% and the Democrats, obviously they're not gonna have any debates. So what, what are you even doing? What are you doing? You're embarrassing yourself. You're embarrassing your donors. You're burning bridges. You could lose your seat because of it. Is it worth it? I don't know. To look at it on paper kind of seems like it's definitely not.