Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is throwing his financial support behind an unlikely primary challenge to President Biden, less than a day after calling for the incumbent to drop out of the 2024 race.
The founder of Pershing Square Capital Management announced in a X long post Saturday that he will donate $1 million to a political action committee supporting Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who in October launched a largely symbolic primary bid against the 81-year-old incumbent.
“This is by far the largest investment I have made in someone running for office, and I am making this investment at a high-risk but critically important time for his campaign,” Ackman wrote in his post. almost 2200 words.
The announcement comes the same day Ackman said Biden was too old to run for re-election during an appearance he made on CNBC’s “Squawkbox” to discuss his ongoing dispute with Harvard University, his alma mater.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman announced he will donate $1 million to the PAC supporting Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips’ long-shot primary bid against President Biden. REUTERS
“Just in terms of age, beyond his main issue, I think a good part of the reason we have what is happening in the world geopolitically is that he is perceived as a weak president. And he will be even weaker,” Ackman told CNBC.
In his post
Ackman also ignored polls showing the three-term congressman’s primary candidacy trailing Biden by 67%, insisting that Phillips has “a credible path to winning the nomination despite what voters may think.” gamblers.
“Biden is doing poorly in the polls [former President Donald Trump]and his numbers will only get worse as he gets older, and he doesn’t look good anymore,” Ackman wrote.
“There is also a reasonable possibility that Biden will be forced to withdraw for health reasons,” he surmised.
The billionaire touted Phillips’ rise in the New Hampshire primary polls, saying he went “from zero to 26%” in a matter of weeks. This vote of confidence comes despite an embarrassing outdoor campaign event Phillips held on January 9 in Manchester, NH, which no one attended.
Ackman has stepped up his political advocacy in the days since the ouster of former Harvard President Claudine Gay, who resigned on Jan. 2 amid growing criticism over her handling of growing incidents of anti-Semitism on the Ivy League campus and an avalanche of accusations of plagiarism.
Dean Phillips, a three-term congressman from Minnesota, announced his candidacy in late October. AP
He had been a vocal supporter of efforts to remove Gay from office, and remains a fierce critic of the university for not doing more to protect Jewish students following the brutal Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7.
In a separate CNBC interview on Friday, the 57-year-old, a former “Bill Clinton Democrat,” said he no longer wanted to be associated with the Democratic Party, which he condemned for its “racist” support for diversity. , equality and inclusion efforts.
He also announced plans to form a think tank, with a CEO and board of directors, to investigate higher education’s adherence to DEI initiatives, which he says stifle meritocracy.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn