'Hidden hand': Maggie Haberman reveals GOP billionaires behind controversial attack ads

Billionaire backers of former President Donald Trump are spending millions on anti-Vice President Kamala Harris attack ads containing bigoted messaging in a key swing state, a new report revealed Tuesday.

The political nonprofit Building America's Future has been linked to more than $100 million of spending and two super PACs, one targeting young men and Black voters and the other Muslim and Arab American voters in Michigan, sources told the New York Times.

"A group of Republican donors and operatives has been the hidden hand behind some of this campaign’s most controversial advertisements," reported the Times' Maggie Haberman. "The ads have been criticized by Democrats as featuring antisemitic dog whistles."

Building America’s Future will be revealed Tuesday in federal campaign finance filings as the lone funder behind super PACs Duty to America and Future Coalition, according to the report.

The latter has been targeting Michigan voters with narratives about Harris' pro-Israel positions and her husband Doug Emhoff's Jewish faith, the Times reported.

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The ads cast themselves as supportive of Harris' campaign but contain what CNN describes as an "antisemitic trope" that Jewish Americans have split loyalty to Israel.

According to the Times, the nonprofit's work "underscores how little public disclosure is required from certain tax-exempt groups that operate on the edges of politics."

Building America’s Future has a dozen individual and corporate backers, among them X CEO Elon Musk, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, and its current iteration was organized with advice from Republican lawyer Charlie Spies, the Times reported.

Trump adviser Stephen Miller maintained contact with Building America's Future when the group was focused on voter rolls, according to the Times.

"People briefed on the matter say the group has taken in tens of millions of dollars in 2023 and 2024," the report concludes. "They declined to be more specific, and the precise amount raised by the nonprofit will not be known until after the election, when its tax filings will be made public. The group is not required to reveal the names of its donors."