Nicolle: 'Bezos making CAPITULATION look like an ART FORM' explains Met Gala sponsorship backlash

0:02 right now.

0:03 Some of the world's biggest names

0:05 in entertainment and culture attend the Met Gala.

0:07 But this year's event has been overshadowed

0:10 by the presence of Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez-Bezos.

0:15 They are serving as the honorary chairs of the event,

0:18 and it is not going over very well.

0:20 The New York Times reports this, quote,

0:22 opposition to the Bezoses started almost immediately after

0:25 they were announced as financial sponsors in February.

0:29 It comes amid a surging anti-rich sentiment nationwide and in New York City.

0:34 In the weeks leading up to the event,

0:36 the streets of New York City have been peppered with protests of Bezos

0:39 and their presence at the gala calling for a boycott of the Bezos Met Gala.

0:44 And it might have to do with Bezos making capitulation look

0:47 like an art form during Donald Trump's second term in office.

0:51 Jeff Bezos donated $1 million to Donald Trump's inauguration,

0:55 which earned him a prominent seat on the stage during the inauguration ceremony.

1:00 And his company, Amazon,

1:01 spent $40 million making Melania Trump's self-titled documentary,

1:06 with The Wall Street Journal reporting the company paid three times

1:10 more than the next highest bitter in what was essentially a gift.

1:15 The backlash to Bezos and his wife at tonight's gala

1:19 is just another reminder of how Donald Trump's deeply unpopular

1:23 presidency is now starting to stain the brands of those who

1:27 have cowered and capitulated to him since he took office.

1:30 I want to bring in domestic correspondent for the style

1:33 section of The New York Times, Jesse McKinley,

1:35 his byline on that Times reporting we read from, and with me at the table,

1:39 political analyst, Molly Jong-Fast.

1:41 She's the host of Fast Politics

1:43 and a New York Times contributing opinion writer.

1:46 I guess I want to understand, Jesse, how this came to be.

1:51 So how does, how do, is it all about money?

1:54 Is the Met Gala for sale?

1:57 Well, that's probably, that's probably a little too simplistic.

2:00 But the short answer is sort of yes.

2:03 I mean, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos

2:05 probably contributed somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million,

2:08 low weight figures in order to become

2:10 the hosts and sponsors of this event tonight.

2:12 And that event, the Met Gala, is at its heart a fundraiser.

2:17 You know, the money goes to the costume of the Met itself, devoted to fashion.

2:23 And for many, many decades, I mean, this dates back to the 1940s,

2:27 this is kind of a clubby, upper east side kind of event.

2:30 You know, you'd have patrons of the arts people like Mark Zuckerberg,

2:47 who's going to be there tonight,

2:48 apparently, you know, buying their way into these events,

2:52 not by dint of, you know, a special, you know, interest in fashion necessarily,

2:57 but by dint of being, you know, an exceptional person in the world

3:00 that seems to kind of value financial success.

3:04 Jesse, The New York Times reports this.

3:07 On Friday, in a nod to complaints by Amazon workers

3:10 of having to skip bathroom breaks and urinate in bottles instead,

3:14 the group placed close to 300 bottles

3:17 of fake urine inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

3:20 And on Sunday, the eve of the gala,

3:22 the anti-billionaire group projected video interviews

3:25 with Amazon workers onto the Empire State Building,

3:27 the Chrysler building, and the Bezos' penthouse near Madison Square Park.

3:31 I mean, you and your colleagues have sort of reported on the front-end backlash.

3:37 What is the lasting brand damage to this embrace

3:40 of Bezos and his wife, Laurence Sanchez?

3:45 WILLIAM BRANGHAM, President of the United that's going

3:46 to be an interesting thing to delve into.

3:47 I mean, one of the things we'll be looking at tonight

3:50 is if not only who shows up but who DOESN'T SHOW UP.

3:52 THERE HAVE BEEN REPORTS THAT SOME CELEBRITIES

3:55 LIKE ZANDAIA ET CETERA ARE NOT GOING

3:56 TO THESE ARE PEOPLE THAT KIND OF ADD A CERTAIN LUSTER AND BRAND TO THIS EVENT.

4:05 I MEAN, THAT BEING SAID YOU STILL HAVE NICOLE KIDMAN, YOU HAVE VENUS WILLIAMS,

4:09 YOU HAVE YOU HAVE ANNA WINTOUR HERSELF ALREADY ON THE CARPET.

4:12 YOU HAVE LAWRENCE SANCHEZ ON THE CARPET.

4:14 BUT THERE WILL BE QUESTIONS EITHER AT THE EVENT TONIGHT

4:16 OR IN THE AFTERPARTIES OR IN THE DAYS TO COME WHETHER OR NOT PEOPLE,

4:21 PEOPLE, YOU KNOW, BASICALLY GOT THE ICH FACTOR

4:22 OF BEING THERE WITH JEFF BEZOS WHO, YOU KNOW, HAS REALLY DRIFTED TO THE GIVEN

4:28 THE RIGHT POLITICALLY WITH THE INAUGURAL THAT YOU

4:32 MENTIONED IN THE INTRO AS WELL AS SOME OF THE CUTBACKS OF THE WASHINGTON POST,

4:35 SOME OF THE EDITORIAL DECISIONS HE'S made at the Washington Post, which he owns.

4:39 I think all of that has given it,

4:41 given some liberals pause, most primarily Governor, I mean rather Mayor Mandami,

4:48 who said a month ago that he would not go to this EVENT,

4:50 YOU KNOW, AS A DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST, THAT'S NOT A BIG SURPRISE,

4:54 BUT I THINK THAT WAS A REAL SIGNAL TO PEOPLE

4:56 THAT THIS WAS NOT A PLACE THAT GOOD LIBERALS SHOULD GO.

4:59 I THINK THE RISK IS BROADER THAN AMONG LIBERALS.

5:03 I MEAN, I THINK BEZOS HAS STAKED OUT A POSITION THAT IS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC.

5:07 AND I DON'T KNOW HOW QUICKLY AN ORBON-LIKE FALL OF TRUMPISM IS GOING TO COME,

5:11 BUT IT'S COMING AND BEZOS IS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THAT.

5:13 OH, YEAH.

5:15 I MEAN, THERE WILL BE A time sooner rather than later

5:17 that Jeff Bezos pretends he was never for any of this.

5:19 But he is pretty much a case study in obeying in advance.

5:23 And I'm just going to tick off some of the things that my man did here.

5:27 We had the Melania GENERAL MOVIE, REMEMBER THAT?

5:30 WE HAD, HE'S TOYING WITH AN APPRENTISCH SHOW WITH DON JUNIOR.

5:35 FRONT ROW AT the inauguration with the wife, this guy has,

5:41 he's a case study in obeying in advance and he's also been,

5:45 I mean there are many reasons,

5:47 look, I come from a world, I grew up in the city, you know,

5:50 there was a nobly, there was a noble, Nobel, I'm sorry, the noble obler.

5:56 Yeah.

5:57 You know, where people, right.

5:59 And also people who had means use those means to take care of the community.

6:03 That was part of the deal.

6:05 And you had, you know, even in the Gilded Ages,

6:07 you had people building museums and, you know, that was kind of the job.

6:11 This crew of these tech bros, they are not so interested in that.

6:15 They're not building anything.

6:15 Right.

6:16 And you see that they have foundations that, you know,

6:18 don't give enough money away to get the tax statuses they're supposed to have.

6:22 And look, this is an administration filled with that.

6:25 Remember, it started with the richest man in the world

6:27 saying that he was going to cut socials, you know,

6:30 cut all sorts of NIH grants and stuff like

6:33 that so that he could end waste fraud and abuse.

6:36 And, of course, that was never really true.

6:39 And he's, you know, no longer in the government.

6:41 But it was It's just, you know,

6:43 to look at this and to see this as anything but really anti-democratic

6:47 and also just morally bankrupt in a moment

6:50 when the American people are really hurting,

6:53 when affordability is like number one for you know,

6:56 Republicans, Democrats, gas prices are high.

6:59 And we're looking, you know,

7:01 and we're watching this just grotesque show of wealth.

7:05 And it's just I think it's morally really dicey.

7:08 It is not a good look.

7:08 No one's going anywhere.