Video: Adelson?s donations motivated by desire to defeat Obama

>> and today's first read team speaking of chuck's team says one of the biggest stories this election season could be of course what we've talked about a lot that massive money from outside groups pouring into the races. in fact, this weekend the huffington post reporter sheldon adelson the casino mogul who has been helping with newt gingrich 's campaign had this to say on a check writing spree that will soon bring his total political contributions in this election cycle to at least $71 million. according to sources familiar with his spending. that money is spread across the spectrum of gop super pacs which are required to disclose donors and nonprofits which are not. joining me live mark murray , nbc senior political editor . i've heard 71 million. there is one report of a hundred million dollars. nevertheless, millions coming from sheldon adelson . we know he wants mitt romney to win the white house . we know he'd like to see, you know, congress controlled by republicans. what else do we know is fueling his ability to open up that wallet and give so much money?

>> the biggest motivator is him, just the fact of being able to defeat president obama . but on top of that, he is a very big hawk when it comes to israel, believes that the obama administration's policies have not worked, and he actually backed newt gingrich as you know very well, well before mitt romney . in fact, he put $15 million into that newt gingrich super pac that -- winning our future which allowed newt gingrich to keep on his presidential contest well after he finished in the fourth place finish in iowa. most recently we found out he gave a $10 million to the mitt romney pro super pac restore our future and then comes reporting that he is going to give money to all these other gop leaning super pacs and outside groups as well.

>> let me play what mike allen from the politico website said today. there's been a comparison, mark, between george soros the liberal donor of the democrats and they're comparing sheldon adelson to him.

>> conservatives had a lot of fun going after george soros the big democratic liberal donor and made him sort of the bogey man, someone they could rile up their supporters with. now the obama campaign is doing it with the casino owner and surprising because it is one of those names you don't normally hear. they want to make sheldon adelson as famous among liberals as george soros was among conservatives.

>> do you see that to be the strategy, mark?

>> well, you know, what i've seen actually from the obama campaign as well as democratic groups, they've actually made the koch brothers who had this group americans for prosperity and others higher profile than sheldon adelson .

>> right.

>> right now. but, you know, it is something where people want in this era, where the names can be transparent, people want folks to know who's giving money, who's writing big campaign checks, things like that. and so it is something that will come on. i will say on the george soros he so far from a lot of the numbers i've seen has pretty much stayed out of the presidential cycle so far and eight out of the nine biggest super pac donors right now, tamron, are republican conservative ones not on the democratic side. you really see the tilt on the outside money right now swaying on the republican side .

>> all right. mark murray , thank you for your time. i greatly appreciate it.

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