Jane Mayer
Jane Mayer
Jane Meredith Mayer is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1995. In recent years, she has written for that publication on money in politics, government prosecution of whistleblowers, and the United States Predator drone program...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth24 November 1955
CountryUnited States of America
party people unhappy
This year [2016] we're seeing a really strange upending [of the party]. The money was coming from these super-wealthy donors who were really on the far, hard right, people like the Kochs. So the party and the candidates moved so far to the right that a lot of people who don't share their point of view were unhappy.
policy
There's not as much big money on the left, but you've got George Soros, who has the Open Society Institute. He's pushing liberal policies.
conservative trade
Donald Trump actually is a pretty big-government conservative. He doesn't see eye-to-eye with them [the Kochs] on trade.
presidential election natural
Barack Obama was elected President in 2008 and re-elected in 2012. The natural thing would be to suggest money on the right [wing] doesn't really matter that much. The first thing you have to know is that the presidential elections are the ones where it's most difficult for money to hold sway, in that they're the most public elections.
different trade free-trade
They [the Kochs] want free trade and cheap labour. They own the second-largest private company in America, which is a huge multinational corporation. So they are on a different wavelength.
party believe environmental
The Kochs have been activists since the 1970s. You can go back and look at the platform of the Libertarian Party in 1980 and see what they really believe in. They wanted to abolish huge swaths of the U.S. government, including the Internal Revenue Service. They want to get rid of Social Security. They'd like to get rid of Medicare. They'd like to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, which directly affects their business.
hopeful problem solutions
It's hard to look at [Donald] Trump as a hopeful sign because, in his own way, he is offering false solutions to many problems.
party arguing republican
I would argue that there's been a backlash this year [2016]. They [the Kochs] pushed the [Republican] party too far right. The other thing that the backlash is against is the sense that politicians have been bought and sold.
water news custody
But there have been many news reports that water-boarding has been used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is one of the major al Qaeda figures that we have in U.S. custody.
rights records administration
Well, they are critics of the Bush administration generally on the human rights record of the administration, and in particular, they are very, very critical of this use of science.