InfluenceWatch Podcast

I'm Michael Watson joined by Parker Thayer and Sarah Lee and this is the InfluenceWatch Podcast. We're recording a special episode from the SPN Annual Meeting because there's big news from the world of Arabella Advisors: The New York Times is reporting that Bill Gates and his Gates Foundation are cutting off grantmaking to the Arabella network. We discuss the report, how the Arabella name has become deservedly synonymous with liberal politics and left-wing ideology, and what might come next for the left-wing "dark money" enterprise.Bill Gates cuts ties with Arabella

The Smithsonian Institution, the federal government-created and funded entity that manages the national museums in D.C., is under a very political review courtesy of the Trump administration. Progressives decry the move as improper interference in what is supposed to be an independent entity, but perhaps such a move is necessary? Joining us today to present the case for some political supervision for the nation’s curators of cultural heritage is Mike Gonzalez, the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.Trump’s Smithsonian review is long overdueSmithsonian’s American History Museum Is Wall-To-Wall Anti-American PropagandaThe Smithsonian’s Latino Exhibit Is a Disgrace

At the beginning of August, Trump took to social media and informed the world he had instructed the Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on “a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024.” Most notably, he wrote, “People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS.” If Trump has his way, it will have significant repercussions on how Congressional districts could be drawn, even as Texas leads the pack and has already approved a new congressional map – leading to a very public walkout by Texas Senate Democrats and CA Gov Gavin Newsom’s retaliatory threat to redraw California’s congressional map. There’s also a SCOTUS angle here, as the Supreme Court squashed the citizenship question pertaining to the 2020 census when it came up in 2019. Now, CRC has learned that some hefty lefty funding is going into an effort to push a narrative on the census that runs counter to the Trump administration’s and is designed to last for the next 10 years to cover the 2030 census. And one prominent name in the mix is our old friend The Funders Committee for Civic Participation. Here to discuss are my colleagues, Mike Watson, and the President of CRC, Scott Walter. Funder’s Committee 10-year plan to influence the 2030 CensusMike Gonzalez explains why the Census should include the citizenship questionSome thoughts on the gerrymandering warsCensus Bureau Errors Distort Congressional Representation for the StatesFunder's Committee members listFunders Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP)

Almost everyone can look at the education landscape in America today and see that something has gone very, very wrong. Spending per student has increased, and there is no evidence that this increased spending has improved student performance outcomes. But what if there are factors eating up the budget and keeping the student performance outcomes stagnant? Factors such as the rise of teachers unions in non-right-to-work states, for example?Joining us today is Corey DeAngelis, a school choice evangelist who is a senior fellow at the American Culture Project, to discuss a recently released report he helped author that looks at just that, the administrative bloat in the public school system and how it correlates to increased teacher union influence. Also joining is CRC colleague Mike Watson, our regular host and resident labor union expert. Corey A. DeAngelis is a senior fellow at the American Culture Project. He has been labeled the “school choice evangelist” and called “the most effective school choice advocate since Milton Friedman.” He is a regular on Fox News and frequently appears in The Wall Street Journal. DeAngelis is also the executive director at Educational Freedom Institute, a senior fellow at Reason Foundation, an adjunct scholar at Cato Institute, a board member at Liberty Justice Center, and a senior advisor at Accuracy in Media. He holds a Ph.D. in education policy from the University of Arkansas. He is the national bestselling author of The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools (Center Street, 2024).Links: Educational Bloat and the Role of UnionsCorey DeAngelis - XEducation FirstWhere Is, Repeat Where Is, America’s Political Leadership? The World Wonders.American Culture Project

The Biden administration pursued a number of “whole of government” initiatives to advance the Everything Leftism that its staff brought with them into government. Some, like the initiative to promote union organizing, were highly publicized and formal. But others, like the online censorship regime the administration’s operatives sought to build, were more quietly constructed. With a new administration in town, how goes the deconstruction of that online censorship regime? Joining me today to discuss the Biden administration’s censorship regime, the Trump administration’s response to it, and the closure of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center is Dan Schneider of Media Research Center’s Free Speech America project.The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship InitiativesSecretary Rubio's live conversation with Mike Benz on dismantling the censorship bureaucracyHow Biden’s DHS Is Weaponizing an Anti-Terror Program Against Christians, Conservatives & the GOPBiden’s Out of Office, But Many of His Censorship Initiatives Are Still in Effect. The MRC Is Pushing for Leaders in Washington to End Them.The Left’s Censorship Industry: Brazen Advocacy for CensorshipAd Fontes MediaNewsGuard

Back in the 1960s, the teachers’ unions, especially the United Federation of Teachers in New York, had a reputation for being strongly Jewish. But today, the teachers unions—especially the National Education Association—are deeply entrenched in an Everything Leftist movement that has made Palestinian nationalism that often strays into antisemitism a core value. Joining us today to discuss the teachers’ unions swing to the anti-Israel and even outright antisemitic hard left is Rhyen Staley, a researcher at Defending Education (formerly Parents Defending Education).Largest Teachers' Union in United States Erases Jews From the HolocaustA History of Everything Leftist Unionism: Labor and the New LeftThe Ideological Fuel of a New Left: Three Axes, Two Buckets, and One ApproachHolocaust Miseducation and the Nakba Narrative

The Southern Poverty Law Center, trading on a reputation it earned suing the remnants of the organized Ku Klux Klan in the 1980s, claims to be an honest watchdog of extremism on the political right. But our guest Tyler O’Neill, a senior editor at the Daily Signal, has written a book on how the organization went from an indigent legal-defense organization (a poverty law center, as it were) to the well-funded public bullying arm of the organized left, and my colleague Robert Stilson has taken a look at just how big the SPLC has gotten compared to other, less politically activist charities. They join me today to discuss the SPLC and its role in present-day politics and the charitable sector.SPLC InfluenceWatch ProfileSPLC’s “charitable” wealthSPLC Smears Another Christian NonprofitThe Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal GovernmentMaking Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law CenterEXCLUSIVE: Anti-Christian Group Advised DOJ Prosecutors on ‘Hate Crimes,’ Docs ShowWhat Went Wrong with the Southern Poverty Law Center?

Ranked Choice Voting, or RCV, the process by which voters rank candidates by preference, has been in and out of the news for the last several years, as advocates and critics on both sides of the political aisle debate the merits and pitfalls of a system that many on the left – and increasingly some on the right – seem to think is the way elections should be handled. Most recently, NY City candidate for mayor Zohran Mamdani espoused RCV’s benefits prior to his defeat of former Gov Andrew Cuomo in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary. Some believe his win was helped by the RCV ranking system which had far left progressives calling for Mamdani supporters not to rank Cuomo before the election, while others think Cuomo could have done better in the primary had he just embraced the RCV system and used it to his advantage. To discuss the controversial voting system and what happened in NY is Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project. New York Progressives Pin Hopes on ‘Don’t Rank Cuomo’The Left-Wing Megadonors Pushing for Ranked Choice VotingRanked-Choice Voting: How RCV WorksHonest Elections

Over the past several years, the public has become familiar with the concept of “lawfare,” the process of using the legal system to gain political ends regardless of the validity of the underlying case. Environmentalist groups have long been practitioners of aggressive lawfare, but who exactly is funding litigation challenging the ability of energy companies to make energy? The U.S. Senate suspects that the People’s Republic of China may be among them, and so CRC president Scott Walter was invited to testify on the funding of lawfare at a Judiciary Subcommittee hearing titled “Enter the Dragon—China and the Left’s Lawfare Against American Energy Dominance.” Scott joins us to discuss his testimony.Scott Walter’s Written Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee

As Second Amendment policy returns to the national spotlight under a second Trump administration, one provision buried in a massive reconciliation bill could spell the beginning of the end for suppressor regulations under the National Firearms Act. The House version removes them from the tax scheme entirely, while the Senate version goes even further—potentially gutting the $200 tax on other NFA-regulated items. Joining us is Knox Williams, president and executive director of the American Suppressor Association, to unpack what’s in the bill, what could derail it, and how his organization is fighting to end suppressor bans and taxes across the country. Also discussed: the Biden-era legacy of regulatory overreach, Trump’s executive order to review federal actions against 2A rights, and what gun control nonprofits like Giffords are doing to push back. American Suppressor AssociationThe National Firearms ActThe Big Beautiful BillHouse-Passed One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act Includes Removal of $200 Tax Stamp on SuppressorsBig Beautiful Bill Now Includes SHORT Act, Hearing Protection