Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman has announced his biggest primary challenge to President Biden, less than a day after calling on incumbent President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race. They are throwing financial support behind it.
The founder of Pershing Square Capital Management announced: long x post On Saturday, he announced he would donate $1 million to a political action committee supporting Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who launched a largely symbolic primary campaign against the 81-year-old incumbent in October.
“This is by far the biggest investment I have ever made in someone running for office, and I am making this investment at high risk,” Ackman wrote in a roughly 2,200-word post. “This is a very important moment for his campaign.”
The announcement came on the same day that Ackman appeared on CNBC's “Squawk Box” to talk about his ongoing feud with his alma mater, Harvard, and said that Biden was too old for reelection. Ta.
“I think beyond his biggest issue, just in terms of age, a big reason for what's going on in the world geopolitically is that he's perceived as a weak president. And he's even weaker.” “It will be,” Ackman told CNBC.
In a post to .
I ignored Ackman too. vote That means the three-term congressman's primary candidates are trailing Biden by 67 percentage points, giving Phillips “a strong shot at winning the nomination regardless of what the oddsmakers think.” There is a reliable path.”
“The poll results for Biden are bad.” [former President Donald Trump]And his numbers only get worse as he gets older, and he doesn't look good as it is,” Ackman wrote.
“There is a good chance that Mr. Biden will be forced to withdraw for health reasons,” he speculated.
The billionaire touted Phillips' rise in the New Hampshire primary, saying he went from “zero to 26%” in a matter of weeks. This vote of confidence came despite the fact that no one attended an embarrassing outdoor campaign event that Phillips held in Manchester, New Hampshire, on January 9th.
Ackman has become increasingly politically vocal in the days following the ouster of former Harvard University president Claudine Gay. He resigned on January 2 amid growing criticism of his handling of rising anti-Semitism on Ivy League campuses and a spate of plagiarism accusations.
He has been a vocal supporter of efforts to exclude gays from their posts and has called for further steps to protect Jewish students following Hamas's brutal terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. He continues to harshly criticize universities that did not.
In another CNBC interview on Friday, the 57-year-old, who calls himself a former “Bill Clinton Democrat,” criticized the “racist” Democratic Party for supporting diversity and said he no longer wants anything to do with the Democratic Party. said. , equality and inclusion initiatives.
He also announced plans to create a think tank with a CEO and board of directors to examine higher education institutions' compliance with DEI initiatives that he says stifle meritocracy.
