MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle unsuccessfully pushed Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman to criticize the so-called oligarchy under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Trump selected at least 13 billionaires to join his administration, the wealthiest in modern history, ABC News reported in December. During the full interview, which aired in part on “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle” on Tuesday and was fully posted to YouTube on Wednesday, Ruhle raised concerns about the unprecedented wealth in Trump’s administration, but Fetterman downplayed the significance of their affluence and focused instead on ideological differences and political contributions.
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“President Trump is surrounded by the wealthiest cabinet, the wealthiest administration in modern U.S. history. Does this concern you?” Ruhle asked.
“I don’t think it’s so much about their wealth. It’s just because they might have some kind of the views or some things that I don’t agree, and they would push a lot of decisions and changes in our government that I wouldn’t support or would like to see happen in there too,” Fetterman responded. “So it doesn’t really follow their wealth for me. It just follows some of these kinds of core beliefs and the things that they’re willing to push and to do.”
Ruhle followed up by asking Fetterman to opine on “this idea that we’re sort of creating American oligarchs.”
The Pennsylvania senator responded by suggesting Democrats should not use the word “oligarch” because the majority of Americans are not well-versed in the meaning of the term. He also called out Democrats for appreciating billionaires who are aligned with them.
“There’s also another — a little secret too. Democrats, you know, we like billionaires if they’re giving to our causes or to our party as well too,” he said.
Ruhle interrupted Fetterman to suggest there is “a difference between a very wealthy donor” and having billionaires within a presidential administration.
“It’s unlimited money — that’s the poison of American democracy. Get rid of unlimited money and then that would render billionaires on either side to those kinds of a thing,” Fetterman retorted. “And so remember, a lot of these billionaires that were in tech, they used to be more friendly to the Democratic interests in our party as well too. But unlimited money — get rid of that — and that would transform America more than any single other decision.”
Big Tech companies were previously anti-Trump, but have aligned with the president since his 2024 victory.
Ruhle agreed with Fetterman and referenced the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. However, she doubled down on making a distinction between wealthy Americans making political contributions and working within government.
“There’s a difference between very wealthy political donors and very wealthy people inside the government making decisions that could potentially enrich themselves and their businesses. Look at Elon Musk,” the MSNBC host said. “He hasn’t divested himself from his businesses and he’s a guy with $38 billion worth of government contracts. That’s different from being a Democratic donor who has the president’s ear or, at the very least, his phone number.”
“Well, what I would say is, is that sometimes it’s, you know — I’m not sure if they necessarily are motivated just, you know, based on money, when, you know, most of those folks, whether it’s [Jeff] Bezos or Musk, they have far more than you can spend in a hundred lifetimes,” Fetterman responded. “So for that, you know, I think scarcity defines the luxury. So that’s why a lot of them want to be engaged on that, because they have unlimited money. So I think they want to just be part of the conversation.”
Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders echoed similar concerns to Ruhle during a Tuesday interview on “Pod Save America,” claiming that Trump, Musk and Bezos had ushered in “the scariest times in [his] lifetime.”
“You know, it is not just they want to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut programs to working people. Frankly, that’s happened before,” Sanders said. “But you combine that with the power of the oligarchy in general. You combine that with Mr. Musk owning Twitter and able to send out his messages to hundreds of millions of people.”
“You combine that with the fact that people like Bezos, the second wealthiest person in the country, fired or got rid of most of his editorial staff and is going to convert ’em into a right-wing thing,” he continued. “Combine that with the fact that Trump is suing major media outlets and is threatening to investigate PBS and NPR.”
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