jors soros is one of the leftists who have put their money behind the democrats. i am joined by darrell west, vice president and director of brookings institution. crust. good to have you with us. you quote forbes that american billionaires who controlled a trillion dollars in assets 10 years ago have seen fortunate more than double since then. they feel a lot to spend on the candidates and the issues that they care about. but there has always been wealthy people interested in influencing politics. past? >> today is different from the past in the sense that there are more rich people. the people who are wealthy have more resources and these individuals are pioneer can much more actistist models of politics. for example, the koch brothers spent an estimated $290 million just on the 2014 election and helped to get the senate back for the republican party. >> but as you said, there are more of them than there used to be. do these billionaires have interests in common? you have a list of the 20 billionaires you consider most influential. looking through it, there seem