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The Mercers, the billionaire donors who upended politics

Evan Vucci / AP

Huffington Post's Highline has a feature on Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the father-daughter billionaire part-owners of Breitbart and key funders of the Trump campaign, that focuses on their attempts to influence the 2016 race using their data firm, Cambridge Analytica. Some choice tidbits…

  • Summing up the Mercers' worldview: They want to destroy the GOP establishment — and have a particular distaste for John McCain, who once accused Robert's firm of avoiding billions in taxes. Robert on meeting Republican heavyweights: "I don't know any of your fancy friends, and I haven't got any interest in knowing them."
  • Trump's consequential move to drop Paul Manafort as his campaign manager and bring Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon on board was implemented four days after Rebekah Mercer pitched him the idea.
  • Rebekah's desired Trump administration: Bannon for chief of staff, Sessions for attorney general, Flynn as national security, and anybody but Mitt Romney as secretary of state.
  • But not everyone thinks highly of them. One of HuffPost's sources said about Robert, "None of us ever thought he would get his views out, because he only talked to his cats." And another on Rebekah: "She's just like a series of amoeba cells."

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Tech scrambles to derail inauguration threats

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Tech companies are sharing more information with law enforcement in a frantic effort to prevent violence around the inauguration, after the government was caught flat-footed by the Capitol siege.

Between the lines: Tech knows it will be held accountable for any further violence that turns out to have been planned online if it doesn't act to stop it.

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Dave Lawler, author of World
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Uganda's election: Museveni declared winner, Wine claims fraud

Wine rejected the official results of the election. Photo: Sumy Sadruni/AFP via Getty

Yoweri Museveni was declared the winner of a sixth presidential term on Saturday, with official results giving him 59% to 35% for Bobi Wine, the singer-turned-opposition leader.

Why it matters: This announcement was predictable, as the election was neither free nor fair and Museveni had no intention of surrendering power after 35 years. But Wine — who posed a strong challenged to Museveni, particularly in urban areas, and was beaten and arrested during the campaign — has said he will present evidence of fraud. The big question is whether he will mobilize mass resistance in the streets.

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Jonathan Swan, Zachary Basu
6 hours ago - Politics & Policy
Off the Rails

Episode 1: A premeditated lie lit the fire

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Beginning on election night 2020 and continuing through his final days in office, Donald Trump unraveled and dragged America with him, to the point that his followers sacked the U.S. Capitol with two weeks left in his term. Axios takes you inside the collapse of a president with a special series.

Episode 1: Trump’s refusal to believe the election results was premeditated. He had heard about the “red mirage” — the likelihood that early vote counts would tip more Republican than the final tallies — and he decided to exploit it.

"Jared, you call the Murdochs! Jason, you call Sammon and Hemmer!”

Go deeper (6 min. read)Arrow