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We at Mom-at-Arms like to go through FEC records and other things (David Chipman knows that lol). Out of curiosity, we decided to see who the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre donated to at the federal level. He hasn’t donated much, and up until this past election, he hasn’t donated since 2002. We were a little surprised on who he donated to for President in 2020 though.....
Yep! Breaking his 18 year non-donor streak according to FEC records, he gave $2.70 to Bernie Sanders‘ presidential campaign. This is odd (it’s likely a troll attempt, as he needs 270 electoral votes, but Bernie still wins cuz he got $), because in 2017, he was telling NRA members about the dangers of Bernie Sanders:
National Rifle Association (NRA) Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre on Friday tore into Sen.Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), calling him a "political predator" who lied to young people.
"Bernie Sanders was not a movement, as a fawning media called his campaign," LaPierre said before a cheering crowd at the NRA's Leadership Forum in Atlanta. "Bernie is a political predator of young voters who were lied to by school teachers and college professors."
"Stood up for his message of big government socialism. Free, free, free for me. No one told the truth about how all that free stuff was going to be paid for. It was all one big fat lie. And the media, they were in on the lie from the start, because it fit their agenda."
It’s not exactly a secret that the NRA helped Bernie get into the senate, and LaPierre helped him achieve that (the Republican Sanders defeated was worse at the time):
And while Sanders is quick to bring up his 1988 defeat, he rarely mentions his 1990 win, which came with help from the NRA. Soon after Smith took office, the freshman Republican reversed himself and sponsored a bill banning assault weapons. Vermont gun groups were apoplectic and called for his resignation. Throughout the 1990 campaign, Sanders deftly exploited the rift. Though he, too, supported an assault weapons ban, he promised hunters he would always be straight with them. That fall, the NRA spent between $18,000 and $20,000 on anti-Smith ads. “Bernie Sanders is a more honorable choice for Vermont sportsmen than Peter Smith,” NRA executive Wayne LaPierre wrote his members.
Sanders won the race and kept his promise. He was an occasional ally to the NRA,repeatedly voting against the Brady Bill, which mandated waiting periods and background checks; opposing funding for gun violence research; and voting to protect gun manufacturers and retailers from lawsuits.
Sanders had a major shift though, especially in the 2020 race:
Very curious as to why LaPierre would out himself as a Bernie bro (who wants to destroy the NRA and that was part of his platform) all for a $2.70 donation. To be clear here, this isn’t how the NRA PAC operated in 2020. You can view that here:
The oddest thing about all this is publicly LaPierre threw his weight behind Trump, but that’s not how his pocket change acted, even if trolling Bernie Sanders.
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