Billionaire financier and liberal philanthropist George Soros did not mince in his speech Friday at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Soros’s most blistering attack was directed at President Trump. Soros, a major Democratic donor, warned that Trump is a “danger to the world” and said that Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung Un could lead the world into a nuclear war in order to preserve their own power. “Not only the survival of open society, but the survival of our entire civilization is at stake,” Soros said. (Soros’s main charity is called the Open Society Foundations)
If the world is not destroyed, however, Soros sees a bright future for Democrats in the 2018 mid-term elections. “I give President Trump credit for motivating his core supporters brilliantly,” Soros said. “But for every core supporter, he has created a greater number of core opponents who are equally strongly motivated. That’s why I expect a Democratic landslide in 2018.”
The Hungarian-born Jewish octogenarian then turned to social media giants Facebook and Twitter, describing them as a “menace” and warning against the monopolistic power they hold.
“The power to shape people’s attention is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few companies,”
Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com or on Twitter @nathanguttman