Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis kicks off his 2024 American Republic with an evening campaign rally at the evangelical Eternal Church in West Des Moines, U.S., May 30, 2023 Party presidential nomination campaign.
Scott Morgan | Reuters
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is heading to New York for a private presidential campaign fundraiser that will be hosted by at least four Wall Street executives, including one with liberal billionaire George Soros. (George Soros) backed companies with past ties, DeSantis and other Republicans.
The event is scheduled for June 29 at the swanky Yale Club, according to a copy of the invitation seen by CNBC. It will be one of DeSantis’ first fundraisers in New York since officially launching his presidential campaign last month.
It also comes shortly after Donald Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 Republican primary, was indicted on dozens of counts in a state case in Manhattan and a federal case in Miami.
New York is a lucrative fundraising hotspot for both parties. Donors in the New York metro area gave more than $680 million to their preferred political candidates during the 2022 election cycle, according to the nonpartisan OpenSecrets.
Moderators listed in DeSantis’ invitation include Paul Ardire, a partner at GoldenTree Asset Management, as well as Christian Michalik, Rob Michalik and Corwynne Carruthers, all leaders of Kinderhook Industries, a private equity firm with at least $5 billion in assets under management. assets in dollars, according to PitchBook data. GoldenTree manages at least $50 billion in assets, PitchBook said.
According to the invitation, in order to participate in the DeSantis fundraiser, co-hosts must raise $50,000, and luncheon attendees must contribute $6,600, the maximum amount a donor can give, which can then be split between the main campaign account and the general campaign account Equally distribute electoral accounts.
An ancient Soros relationship
One of the moderators, Michalik, is a partner at Soros Private Equity Partners, a leveraged buyout fund sponsored by George Soros, according to Michalik’s company biography on Kinderhook. website.
Before founding Kinderhook, Michalik was a partner in the firm from 1999 to 2003, according to his LinkedIn page.Soros Private Equity is an offshoot of Soros Fund Management, which used to be a hedge fund but now Organized as a family office. In 2001, Michalik was appointed to the board of directors of RLX Technologies, Texas, after the Soros Fund invested $40 million in the company, according to the houston chronicle.
Michalik made occasional donations to Republican officials, according to OpenSecrets. His largest donation was a $10,000 gift to the Florida Republican Party in 2006. During the 2022 election cycle, Michalik donated $5,800 to Jesse Reising, a Republican who lost the primary for a House seat in Illinois.
DeSantis took aim at candidates funded by Soros, a Democratic superdonor. “In Florida, we’ve recognized the threat posed by left-wing prosecutors, often elected on the back of large campaign contributions from people like George Soros,” he said on the campaign trail earlier this month.
Soros has also been a frequent target of attacks from other Republicans.
DeSantis press secretary Brian Griffin said in a statement to CNBC: “Governor DeSantis has broad support, including expatriates from Disney and even one who refuses to wake up and embrace the law. and order former Soros employees. We are happy to use any donations to oppose Soros’ agenda for the benefit of the American people.”
(DeSantis and disney It has been embroiled in the feud since last year, when the company opposed what critics called “don’t say gay” classroom legislation. )
A spokesman for the campaign pointed to DeSantis’ comments in a recent interview: “Someone made campaign contributions and you should pay for them? That’s not how I operate. People can support me or not. I call them like I see, if you support me and you’re wrong, I’ll do the right thing.”
Michalik had no immediate comment to CNBC.
Earlier this year, Soros explain In a speech at the Munich security conference, he hoped the Republican presidential primary would end up with Trump and DeSantis, which the billionaire said could force the former president to run as a third-party candidate run for election.
Light up support?
Another co-host, by invitation, is longtime DeSantis ally Robert Giuffla, co-chairman of legal giant Sullivan & Cromwell.
Giuffra, the event’s sole co-host, has made six-figure contributions to Republican causes since the 2016 election cycle, according to campaign finance records.
Other hosts have made relatively small contributions, suggesting a possible lack of interest from some of the larger Republican donors in the business world in helping DeSantis, according to a Republican strategist familiar with the event. The person declined to be named for fear of retribution from DeSantis and his team.
The strategist described the hosts’ squad as surprisingly lackluster, with Giuffra the only standout.
Steve Schwarzman, chief executive of private-equity giant Blackstone, and a large and experienced Republican donor have reportedly delayed a deal with DeSanti after a meeting with Florida’s governor. s support, according to to Bloomberg. Still, even without the help of Schwarzman and others, DeSantis raised more than $8 million in the first 24 hours of his campaign.
Giuffra and the other listed business co-hosts mentioned in this article did not respond to requests for comment.
DeSantis and the event’s co-hosts have ties to the fundraiser’s location because they are both Yale graduates. Membership in the Yale Club can only be those who have earned a degree from an Ivy League school or “full-time graduate students who have completed a degree-granting program at Yale, as well as full-time professors,” according to their website.
DeSantis graduated from Yale University in 2001.DeSantis said in a book published before he ran for president that he believed a degree from Yale was equivalent to exist The political “red letter” of the Republican primary.
“I was one of the very few people who went to Yale and Harvard Law School at the same time, and ended up being more conservative than I was when I got in,” DeSantis writes in his book. years of indoctrination, then I’ll be able to survive in Washington, D.C., rather than being born and bred.”
