Ask Dr. Drew
Bankrolling Chaos: Meet The Tech Millionaire Paying For ICE Protests From China w/ Mark Mitchell & Joel Finkelstein – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 578
19 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: Who is the tech millionaire funding ICE protests?
Mark Mitchell is Vice President of Operations at Rasmussen Reports. He'll be my first guest here, overseeing polling operations, survey analysis, looking at sentiment, election integrity, political trends. And he says things have moved in a certain direction, and we're going to get a little report from him on that.
Joel Finkelstein is Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at the Network Contagion Research Institute. directs the network contagion lab at Rutgers University. He has got a big story to tell us about this billionaire who has already replaced Soros, but how deep this guy already has gone. He retreated to China and from there continues to influence this country.
And then of course, Robert Barnes from Viva Barnes Law. And that's his podcast and streaming show with Viva Barnes, David Freiheit. He's a constitutional and criminal lawyer, civil rights attorney. And we're going to talk a little bit about the, amongst other things, the supremacy clause after this. Our laws, as it pertains to substances, are draconian and bizarre. The psychopath started this.
He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction, fentanyl and heroin. Ridiculous.
Chapter 2: What connections does the billionaire have with the Chinese Communist Party?
I'm a doctor for f***'s sake. Where the hell do you think I learned that?
I'm just saying, you go to treatment before you kill people. I am a clinician. I observe things about these chemicals. Let's just deal with what's real. We used to get these calls on Loveline all the time. Educate adolescents and to prevent and to treat. If you have trouble, you can't stop and you want help stopping, I can help. I got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say.
All right, we're going to start with Mark Mitchell, Vice President of Operations at Rasmussen Reports. Mark, thank you for being here. Welcome to the program. Yeah, really great to be back.
Chapter 3: How does foreign funding influence U.S. activist organizations?
Love your show. We love hearing from Rasmussen and all the insights you guys have. And as usual, you're just the facts, ma'am. You're just reporting the facts. And what are you seeing these days that would surprise people?
You're definitely going to hear some numbers for sure. And I would say first is Donald Trump got elected on a very popular set of policies. In fact, almost every one of his major policies was more popular than he was. And he was elected because people trusted Trump more than the federal government.
And so there's this mandate this time, I think that's existential, that Trump really needs to come through and The economy has gone to a place where it just doesn't work for many Americans now. And we have lost complete trust in our federal government, and we need that restored. And the window is closing.
Because historically, what happens after a party gets into power in the following midterms, they'll lose Congress. And right now, the polling says that that's going to happen.
Chapter 4: What role does polling play in understanding voter sentiment?
Democrats are up four points. Now, it could be worse. They could be up higher. But what it means if they regain control of Congress is they're probably going to do some ridiculous stuff. It will probably be the death of Trump's legislative agenda. And I think they're going to come after people in his administration very aggressively from an anti-corruption standpoint.
There's probably going to be impeachment. And I don't want to be a doomer. I've been offering advice because I think the bar is very low to be able to buck that trend. And plan A would be for the Republicans to govern. And unfortunately, I don't know how much of that we're getting. The polling has been sort of tepid on their performance so far.
And we're going to get some stuff out of reconciliation. I don't know if it's going to be enough because the messaging isn't there. They aren't showing America that we have a path forward.
Chapter 5: How are protests organized and funded in the U.S.?
to restoring the middle class, the American dream. They're getting better. I think there has been a lot of movement in the last week and a half. But then this whole aspect of government corruption and really like cracking down on the deep state. That has always been promise number one. We just haven't seen it.
The polling says 83% of Trump voters think that major agencies like the FBI and the CIA still need reform. And so the work hasn't been done. Now, the crazy thing is, though, for Trump's numbers, he's, I think, negative 9% net approval today, which isn't horrifying. It's been about the same thing for the last month, which is wild because he literally just went and took foreign dignity.
He literally just took the head of state of another country. And America didn't care. In fact, when we asked about that, taking Maduro was very popular, in fact, more popular than Trump. And so the message that we've been looking at that I think is important for everybody to understand is that almost everything that the mainstream media has been freaking out about
Chapter 6: What are the implications of the anti-ICE movement?
like blowing up narco boats, like taking Maduro, like seizing tankers, way more popular than Trump is. Mass deportations, way more popular than Trump is. Arrests, super, super more popular than Trump is. And we even asked, is Trump doing too much or not enough of what he promised? And people said, not enough, 38% to 21%. The under 30 voters, half of them said not enough.
So people want Trump to do more The question is what when you have a party that is not, in my opinion, fulfilling the mandate they were given? Well, something just dropped in his lap that I think is the best opportunity that they could have asked for, which is once again, in March, it was very clearly validated in Americans' opinions that the government is full of waste, fraud, and abuse.
72% of Americans were at angry at the level of waste, fraud, and abuse. All of the Doge stuff was really popular. Republicans kind of got away from Doge, I think intentionally. Well, here we are again, validating to Americans that yes, hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year are stolen by this completely corrupt system that has failed people.
And between now and November, if Donald Trump wants the aggressive action that Americans are demanding,
Chapter 7: How is the Supremacy Clause relevant to current political issues?
This is the low-hanging fruit. Just raid the states, Insurrection Act, martial law, roll the Marine Corps in there. Let's just get it done. Let's just show America brutal, aggressive accountability for the people who have been stealing the future for mine and your kids.
So I'm a little confused why the party that is seemingly protecting and accountable for that fraud would then be the one that the public would vote for. Forget the party that didn't adequately tear the fraud out by the roots. It seems like they're trying to do that. Why does the public then go for a group that is literally protecting the fraud?
Well, I think one of the main problems here is that people don't change their opinions as much as you would think. We have a very big sort of like Yankees versus Mets syndrome going on with the Democrat and Republican Party. People have sort of made it their identities.
And what happened in 24 is that Trump convinced a whole lot of new people to come out and vote, you know, who were a little bit more... ephemeral in their political beliefs, low propensity voters. And they turned out big in our polling, 42% of Trump's support in 2024 came from crossover Democrats and independents. And those people were voting for a reason for
Chapter 8: What steps can be taken to address political corruption?
first time, and it was because Trump was speaking to them in a way that Republicans hadn't in a while.
And if those people aren't getting what they want, if they feel like the party doesn't stand for them anymore, if they feel like they've been let down by the Republican Party, and I think many people do, only 38% of Trump 2024 voters have a strongly approve of the job that Republicans in Congress are doing. You'd like to see a higher number there.
And those people who they're up against is the couch. Those people will sit on the couch. They won't turn out. And the Democrats, for all of their faults, their national leadership picture looks absolutely horrifying. For all their faults, they raise money. They turn out votes. Those people come. to the ballot box like it's their religion. And they'll continue to do that.
And the Republicans, in my opinion, are losing an asymmetrical sort of warfare situation where they don't have the same level of turnout. They don't have the same level of centralized national strategy. They don't communicate as well. And people can say, oh, look, the RNC has got a bigger war chest than the DNC. Well, ActBlue is going to raise like $1.8 billion just this year alone.
They're going to raise a ton more money next year. We haven't really seen that much election or integrity reform yet. And some of this is, there's a lot of exogenous shocks that can happen between now and November to like, don't get me wrong. And who knows like how much of an impact these voter roll cleanups are going to have.
Maybe we will see Donald Trump come out with an executive order for election integrity. A lot of stuff that could happen. Uh, even the, uh, redistricting fight, but that looks like it's going to be a stalemate now. So this, I mean, this could be the one that bucks the historical trend.
Again, I think the bar is very, very low, but we're not seeing, and this comes back to if like you hire an artist, a sculptor, right?
Yeah.
That person has to ask you what you want. But at the end of the day, they have to deliver what you want and not what you ask for, right? They have to be wise enough to know, as an artist, what they're supposed to deliver. And it might not be what you said with words. And what America needs is to be able to trust their federal government again.
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