John Delaney understands investing. Before entering politics, he made a fortune by founding finance companies that raised $20 billion in capital for businesses.

Which lends extra credibility to one proposal in Delaney’s long-shot 2020 presidential campaign. He wants to raise the 20 percent top tax rate on long-term capital gains, saying investors no longer need the enticement of a lower rate on profits than on ordinary income.

“It’s hard to make an argument that we have a shortage of investment capital,” said Delaney, a Democratic former House member from Maryland. “The notion that we need a lower capital gains rate in general to get people to invest is not accurate.”

His idea sends Wall Street a bracing signal of what 2021 might bring. Not only do Democrats want to raise taxes on the wealthy, but an increasing number find taxes on investment profits the most appealing target.

Higher capital gains and estate taxes “are more consistent with a story about work versus wealth, so therefore more attractive from a thematic point of view,” reasoned Jake Sullivan, who coordinated policy for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

“Things like the millionaires surtax we proposed in 2016 now feel kind of boring,” Sullivan added. “It’s not that raising income taxes on millionaires isn’t politically salable, it’s just not as compelling as taxing returns to wealth.”

The growing blue-collar tilt of the Trump-era GOP base makes the target even more tempting. Though business-friendly GOP congressional leaders resist all tax hikes, rank-and-file Republicans back capital gains increases more than other kinds, said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin.

The top rate on capital gains last matched the top rate on labor income after the bipartisan 1986 tax reform signed by President Ronald Reagan. It set both at 28 percent.

Subsequently, the rate on capital gains edged down, while the rate on income edged up. Estate taxes have fluctuated in rates and the size of estates subject to tax.

The 2017 tax cut signed by President Donald Trump reduced the top rate on income to 37 percent from 39.6 percent but left the top capital gains rate unchanged; for both, the highest earners face the additional 3.8 percent tax enacted to help finance Obamacare. The estate tax remained at 40 percent, but the law reduced the number of taxable estates by doubling exempted amounts to $11 million for individuals and $22 million for married couples.

Yale University has rescinded the admission of a student linked to the national college admissions scandal that implicated 50 people, including celebrities, coaches and administrators, in paying and accepting bribes to get students into elite colleges.

Thomas Conroy, Yale University spokesman, told CNBC the university “has rescinded the admission of one student as a result of this matter,” but did not identify the student’s exact association with the school.

It’s the latest university response to the scheme in which students — most of whom did not know about their parents’ actions, prosecutors say — begin to face a reckoning. Federal prosecutors have said the schools are victims in the scam.

The former Yale women’s soccer coach, Rudy Meredith, was charged with taking a $400,000 bribe to accept an applicant who did not play soccer, according to the indictment. Meredith resigned and will plead guilty to fraud-related charges.

Last week, the University of Southern California blocked students linked to the scandal from registering for classes and getting their transcripts, and said it had identified six current applicants associated with the indictment and would reject them.

Other universities implicated include Georgetown, UCLA, the University of San Diego, the University of Texas and Wake Forest.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed by several college students against 8 universities in connection with the scheme. The suit claims more than $5 million in damages and accuses each school of being “negligent in failing to maintain adequate protocols and security measures in place to guarantee the sanctity of the college admissions process.”

Have tech companies gotten so big that it’s bad for the economy?

Senator Elizabeth Warren says so. She’s proposing to break up not one, but several tech giants, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. She says they shouldn’t be allowed to both run distributor platforms and compete on them. It’s like being an umpire and a team owner at the same time.

Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek is not calling for a breakup, but he is calling for an overhaul – specifically when it comes to Apple. He’s pointing to the same issue Warren is: Apple is charging Spotify to operate on its App Store, but then also competing with Spotify in the same store.

So. Is there a problem here? Should big tech be broken up? If not, should regulators step in to change the rules?

This week Jon Fortt sits down with Wired senior writer Lauren Goode, New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose and former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, author of new book: “From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future”

Later on the podcast: Dominique Morisseau is a playwright, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, and her musical “Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of the Temptations” opens on Broadway this Thursday. A unique innovator shares her journey and you don’t want to miss it.

Paul Archuleta | FilmMagic | Getty Images

Actress Lori Loughlin (C) and her daughters Isabella Rose (L) and Olivia Jade Giannulli (R) attend the Hallmark Channel And Hallmark Movies And Mysteries 2017 Summer TCA Tour at on July 27, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California.

“USC has placed holds on the accounts of students who may be associated with the alleged admissions scheme; this prevents the students from registering for classes or acquiring transcripts while their cases are under review,” the school announced on Twitter on Monday.

“Following the review, we will take the proper action related to their status, up to revoking admission or expulsion,” the school added.

TWEET

According to the indictment, Loughlin allegedly told a cooperating witness that she would have her daughter pose for a photograph on a rowing machine in order to boost her daughter’s college application, which falsely claimed she was on a crew team.

Loughlin’s daughter Olivia Jade, a social media personality with 1.4 million Instagram followers, was reportedly on a yacht owned by a top USC official when the indictment was released last Tuesday. Two days later, two of her advertising partners — Sephora and TRESemme — announced they were no longer working with her.

Loughlin was released on $1 million bond on Wednesday. A day later, Hallmark Channel announced it had fired her from the show “When Calls the Heart.”

An attorney for Loughlin, Perry Viscounty, did not immediately reply to a CNBC request for comment.

College students on Thursday filed a $5 million class-action lawsuit against the eight universities named in the scheme: USC, Stanford, UCLA, the University of San Diego, the University of Texas, Wake Forest, Georgetown and Yale.

Federal prosecutors have said the schools were victims of the scam.

USC said it has fired two employees associated with the allegations and has placed on leave a faculty member who was named as a parent in the indictment.

“We are in the process of identifying donations that may have been received in connection with the alleged scheme and will determine how best to redirect those funds to a non-USC organization that will benefit underserved students,” the university said in a statement.

The far-left policy proposals from freshman firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and some of the candidates seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination are wrong for America, former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told CNBC on Friday.

“I worry as an American about the direction of one of our two major parties going toward socialist,” said Cantor, who served as a GOP congressman from Virginia from 2001 to 2015.

New York’s Ocasio-Cortez — a self-described democratic socialist, often referred to by her initials AOC — has become a leading voice in the liberal movement that shook up Congress.

In excoriating AOC’s platform, which includes the proposed Green New Deal and a push get the rich to pay more taxes, Cantor quipped, “I’ve heard a new acronym, a new meaning for that acronym, ‘absolutely out of control,’ if you think about what she’s putting out there.”

While criticizing the Democratic Party for moving too far left, Cantor, ironically, saw his re-election hopes dashed four years ago because he didn’t move far enough to the right. He left Congress after losing the 2014 Republican primary to David Brat, a tea party-affiliated economics professor. In turn, Brat, an ally of President Donald Trump, lost his bid for a third, two-year term in the 2018 November midterm election, which flipped the House majority from the GOP to the Democrats.

Cantor also levied criticism at some of the Democrats running for president against Trump, singling out Sen. Elizabeth Warren‘s push to nationalize corporate governance and Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ proposal aimed at discouraging companies from buying back their stocks.

Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas congressman who announced his 2020 run Thursday, will find out how hard it is to get broad Democratic support in a crowded field, said Cantor, now vice chairman and managing director at investment bank Moelis & Co.

O’Rourke had “unanimity in the Democratic base when he ran against Cruz because it was somebody Democrats reviled holistically,” Cantor argued, referring to how O’Rourke nearly unseated Sen. Ted Cruz in the midterms, two years after the senator ran unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination.

There’s one potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who Cantor has good things to say about: Joe Biden. While the former Obama vice president is widely expected to to run, Cantor said, “I don’t think the Democratic Party is going to be smart enough to nominate Joe Biden.” He added, Biden is “way too reasonable for the Democratic activist base.”

On the Republican side, Cantor said Trump will not and should not face any real primary competition. “The president is not going to be legitimately ‘primaried,’” pointing to Trump’s widespread support among the GOP base. Cantor said that support comes from the president’s policies designed to boost the economy, such as passing tax reform and cutting business regulations.

Huffman “made a purported charitable contribution of $15,000 … to participate in the college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of her eldest daughter. The actress later made arrangements for her younger daughter “before deciding not to do so,” according to court documents. She was also accused of paying someone to proctor her daughter’s SAT and correct wrong answers.

Loughlin and her husband allegedly agreed to “pay bribes totaling $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters designated as recruits to the USC crew team — despite the fact that they did not participate in crew,” the complaint said.

Hodge, the ex-Pimco head, “agreed to use bribery to facilitate the admission of two of his children to USC as purported athletic recruits,” according to the criminal complaint.

The following people were charged, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston:

The following defendants were charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud:

Gregory Abbott, 68, of New York, and his wife, Marcia Abbott 59. He is founder and chairman of International Dispensing Corp., a food and beverage packaging company.

Gamal “Aziz” Abdelaziz, 62, of Las Vegas, former president and executive director of Wynn Macau resort.

Diane Blake, 55, of San Francisco, an executive at retail merchandising firm.

Todd Blake, 53, of San Francisco, an entrepreneur and investor.

Jane Buckingham, 50, of Beverly Hills, Calif., CEO of a boutique marketing company Trendera, which has offices in New York and Los Angeles.

Gordon Caplan, 52, of Greenwich, Conn., co-chairman of Willkie Farr, which says it has 700 lawyers in 10 offices in six countries.

I-Hin “Joey” Chen, 64, of Newport Beach, Calif., operates a provider of warehousing and related services for the shipping industry.

Amy Colburn, 59, of Palo Alto, Calif.

Gregory Colburn, 61, of Palo Alto, Calif.

Robert Flaxman, 62, of Laguna Beach, Calif., founder and CEO of real estate development firm Crown Realty & Development.

Mossimo Giannulli, 55, of Los Angeles, fashion designer.

Elizabeth Henriquez, 56, of Atherton, Calif.

Manuel Henriquez, 55, of Atherton, Calif., founder, chairman and CEO of Hercules Technology Growth Capital.

Douglas Hodge, 61, of Laguna Beach, Calif., former CEO of Pimco investment management company.

Felicity Huffman, 56, of Los Angeles, actress.

Agustin Huneeus Jr., 53, of San Francisco, owner of a family wine vineyard in Napa Valley.

Bruce Isackson, 61, of Hillsborough, Calif., president of a real estate development firm.

Davina Isackson, 55, of Hillsborough, Calif.

Michelle Janavs, 48, of Newport Coast, Calif., former executive of a large food manufacturer.

Elisabeth Kimmel, 54, of Las Vegas, owner and president of a media company.

Marjorie Klapper, 50, of Menlo Park, Calif., co-owner of jewelry business.

Lori Loughlin, 54, of Los Angeles, actress.

Toby MacFarlane, 56, of Del Mar, Calif., former senior executive at a title insurance company.

William McGlashan Jr., 55, of Mill Valley, Calif., senior executive at TPG private equity firm.

Marci Palatella, 63, of Healdsburg, Calif., CEO of a liquor distribution company.

Peter Jan Sartorio, 53, of Menlo Park, Calif., packaged food entrepreneur.

Stephen Semprevivo, 53, of Los Angeles, executive at privately held provider of outsourced sales teams.

Devin Sloane, 53, of Los Angeles, founder and CEO of provider of drinking and wastewater systems.

John Wilson, 59, of Hyannis Port, Mass., founder and CEO of private equity and real estate development firm.

Homayoun Zadeh, 57, of Calabasas, Calif., an associate professor of dentistry.

Robert Zangrillo, 52, of Miami, founder and CEO of Dragon Global.

In addition:

William Rick Singer, 58, of Newport Beach, Calif., owner of the Edge College & Career Network and CEO of the Key Worldwide Foundation, was charged in an information with racketeering conspiracy and money laundering.

Mark Riddell, 36, of Palmetto, Fla., was charged in an information with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud as well as conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Rudolph “Rudy” Meredith, 51, of Madison, Conn., former head women’s soccer coach at Yale University, was charged in an information with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud.

John Vandemoer, 41, of Stanford, Calif., the former sailing coach at Stanford University, was charged in an information with racketeering conspiracy.

David Sidoo, 59, of Vancouver, Canada, was charged in an indictment with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Sidoo was arrested on Friday in San Jose, California, and appeared in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Monday. A date for his initial appearance in federal court in Boston has not been scheduled.

The following people were charged with racketeering conspiracy:

Igor Dvorskiy, 52, of Sherman Oaks, Calif., director of a private elementary and high school in Los Angeles and a test administrator for the College Board and ACT.

Gordon Ernst, 52, of Chevy Chase, Md., former head coach of men and women’s tennis at Georgetown University.

William Ferguson, 48, of Winston-Salem, N.C., former women’s volleyball coach at Wake Forest University.

Martin Fox, 62, of Houston, president of a private tennis academy in Houston.

Donna Heinel, 57, of Long Beach, Calif., senior associate athletic director at the University of Southern California.

Laura Janke, 36, of North Hollywood, Calif., former assistant coach of women’s soccer at the University of Southern California.

Ali Khoroshahin, 49, of Fountain Valley, Calif., former head coach of women’s soccer at the University of Southern California.

Steven Masera, 69, of Folsom, Calif., accountant and financial officer for the Edge College & Career Network and the Key Worldwide Foundation.

Jorge Salcedo, 46, of Los Angeles, former head coach of men’s soccer at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Mikaela Sanford, 32, of Folsom, Calif., employee of the Edge College & Career Network and the Key Worldwide Foundation.

Jovan Vavic, 57, of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., former water polo coach at the University of Southern California.

Niki Williams, 44, of Houston, assistant teacher at a Houston high school and test administrator for the College Board and ACT.

The following defendant was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and mail fraud:

Michael Center, 54, of Austin, Texas, head coach of men’s tennis at the University of Texas at Austin.

Manuel Henriquez has resigned as CEO of Hercules Capital and TPG executive William McGlashan has been placed on indefinite leave at the private equity firm after they were accused in a scam to help their children get into top colleges.

The two were among 50 people charged in what investigators said was a $25 million bribery scam.

Henriquez, 55, resigned as chairman and CEO of his California-based venture capital firm, according to a company statement, which did not mention the admissions scheme. He was arrested in New York on Tuesday and released on $500,000 bail. Hercules‘ shares lost 8.9 percent after the arrest announcement, but were slightly higher on Wednesday.

McGlashan, 55, was placed on indefinite leave, TPG said. He managed TPG Growth, which has invested in companies including Airbnb, Spotify and Uber, and led TPG’s Rise Fund, which is committed to investing for social and environmental good, according to the website.

“As a result of the charges of personal misconduct against Bill McGlashan, we have placed Mr. McGlashan on indefinite administrative leave effective immediately,” TPG said in a statement. It said Jim Coulter, co-CEO of TPG, will be interim managing partner of TPG Growth and The Rise Fund.

Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people on Tuesday in a giant college entrance scandal in which wealthy parents, including some high-profile actresses and a slew of business executives, paid bribes and worked with cooperating witnesses to get their children into top colleges across the U.S.

The sprawling investigation made airwaves across the country, as people reacted with shock to the news of some of the countries wealthiest citizens were allegedly buying positions for their kids and consequently cheating other qualified students out of the running.

Justice Department officials said at a news conference in Boston on Tuesday that it’s the biggest college entrance scandal it has ever prosecuted.

Among those charged with fraud are actresses Felicity Huffman, who starred in ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” and Lori Loughlin, who appeared in ABC’s “Full House,” as well as business executives like Douglas Hodge, a former CEO of Pimco investment management company, and Manuel Henriquez, chairman and CEO of Hercules Technology Growth Capital, whose stock price fell more than 9 percent Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment said that in most instances, students and children were unaware of the bribes and fraudulent activity of their parents, such as doctoring exam scores and creating fake resumes and profiles to up their chances of getting into school. Prosecutors did not charge any students or colleges.

Here’s some key points to how it all went down.

Funneling bribe money into a ‘charitable’ account

The so-called ringleader of the scandal was William Singer, founder of a college preparatory business called the Edge College & Career Network, who was arrested for running the scheme using a fraudulent charity.

His business, also known as The Key, based in California, allegedly helped students cheat on SAT and ACT exams and helped parents bribe coaches at colleges and universities to take their kids without any athletic background.

Singer pleaded guilty Tuesday to four charges: racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and obstruction of justice.

According to court documents, those charged used the “facade of the charitable organization” to hide the nature and source of bribe payments. Since Singer’s business The Key is a nonprofit, parents could allegedly wire money into a charitable account while avoiding federal taxes.

Between approximately 2011 and 2018, parents averaged $25 million in bribes to college administrators and coaches, the documents note, to designate their children as pretend recruited athletes or as members of other favored admissions categories, thus “facilitating the children’s admission to those universities.”

Photoshop to make nonathletic kids look athletic

Singer also helped parents submit false and manipulated information about their kids’ athletic abilities, going so far as to Photoshop students’ faces onto athletes’ bodies found on the internet.

One parent submitted both her daughter’s fake SAT score and a profile that falsely said she was a “3-year Varsity Letter winner” in water polo, along with an altered picture, according to the indictment. In another instance, parents paid Singer over $1 million to get their child into Yale with a lie that she was a captain of a soccer team.

In an email recorded in the court documents, Singer wrote: “This girl will be a midfielder and attending Yale so she has to be very good,” requesting he get “a soccer pic probably Asian girl.”

Parents also bribed athletic recruits. Loughlin allegedly “agreed to pay bribes totaling $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters designated as recruits” to the University of Southern California’s crew team.

Cheating on the SATs

Also part of the widespread scandal was indicted parents who helped their children do better on SAT and ACT standardized exams through several means.

These parents paid between $15,000 and $75,000 per test to exam administrators who gave students answers, corrected their work or let others pose for them, according to the indictment.

Huffman used the phrase “Ruh Ro!” after finding out that her daughter’s school would be proctoring the SAT exam. Another parent, William McGlashan Jr., was instructed by Singer to claim his child had a learning disability in order to win him more time to take the exam alone.

According to the indictment, Singer told Gordon Caplan, a co-chairman of international law firm Willkie Farr, on the phone that he’s essentially created a “side door” for wealthy families to get their kids into college, often without the kids ever knowing.

“There is a front door which means you get in on your own,” Singer said. “The back door is through institutional advancement, which is 10 times as much money. And I’ve created this side door in.”

“Nobody knows what happens,” Singer said. “She feels great about herself. She got a test a score, and now you’re actually capable for help getting into a school. Because the test score’s no longer an issue. Does that make sense?”

The founder and CEO at tech venture capital firm Dragon Global is one of 40 people charged in a $25 million college entrance cheating scheme.

The criminal complaint includes a bunch of business executives and two high-profile actresses that allegedly used their wealth and influence to get their children admitted into top colleges, law enforcement officials say.

Robert Zangrillo’s private investment firm, headquartered in Miami, focuses on venture capital and real estate investments. Dragon Global’s website says its funds have managed investments of more than $1 billion in companies that now have over $500 billion market value, including Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Jet.com and Ulta.

After Zangrillo’s daughter was initially rejected from the University of Southern California in 2017, Zangrillo allegedly conspired to bribe athletic department officials of the USC crew team to label his daughter an athletic recruit, despite his daughter never rowing competitively, according to the criminal complaint.

“In contrast to her earlier application, which made no reference to rowing, the second application falsely stated that she rowed crew at a club for an average of 44 hours per week for 15 weeks per year,” the court documents stated.

In a wiretapped call, a cooperating witness told Zangrillo that the USC crew coach agreed to back Zangrillo’s daughter as a recruit of the crew team and help get her admitted as a transfer student.

“Crew coach got on the phone with me, said, ‘Okay, I will take her. You guys help us, we’ll help you. I’ll take
her, I just need her to finish all these credits and all the– all of her classes’,” the cooperating witness said in a phone call with Zangrillo.

The crew coach later told the cooperating witness in an email that she didn’t end up including Zangrillo’s daughter as a recruit but instead “advocated for her” and placed her “on our VIP list for transfers.”

USC accepted Zangrillo’s daughter with the parameter that she maintain a 3.3 GPA or higher in at least 12 class units with no grade lower than a C.

Zangrillo had the cooperating witness’s employee, Mikaela Sanford, secretly take classes for his daughter that she had originally failed.

Following this, Zangrillo wired $200,000 to one of the Key Worldwide Foundation charitable accounts, the foundation of William Singer who was identified by authorities as the ringleader of the scheme.

Around the same time, Zangrillo mailed a check in the amount of $50,000 to “USC Women’s Athletics.”

Other business executives charged are the CEO of Hercules Technology Growth Capital, the former CEO of PIMCO, and CEO of real-estate development firm Crown Realty & Development.

Actresses Felicity Huffman, who starred in ABC’s “Desperate Houswives,” and Lori Loughlin, who appeared in ABC’s “Full House,” were also charged.

Dragon Global could not be reached for comment.

You’ve probably heard of Fortnite. It’s a game and more than a game – a cultural moment that’s swept in with all the force of Pokemon Go, and arguably more of the staying power. There’s the game itself, but there are the dances and the addictions.

Now, here’s a twist: Fortnite has competition. Electronic Arts a month ago dropped Apex Legends, its own free-to-play multiplayer team combat game, and it might be hotter than Fortnite. It has grown as much in a month as Fortnite did in four. Fortnite’s developer is already copying features.

So what makes this style of game so different from what came before? How big is the money involved? And how does it fit into the future of eSports? CNBC’s Jon Fortt discusses in his latest episode of “Fortt Knox.”

Plus:

Gary Smith grew up in Birmingham, then the industrial heart of the United Kingdom. Both of his parents worked in factories. For career day, the high school took the kids to a coal mine and a steelworks. Smith wasn’t inspired.

Smith is now the CEO of Ciena, a networking company with a market value over $6 billion. But at the time, he didn’t reject a future in mining because of high-tech dreams. In a recent conversation, Smith said that after high school, he moved to London to pursue a dream of becoming a photographer. He took commercial photos of buildings, and also shot weddings and other events.

Only by wading into the job market and trying to make it did he discover technology, and figure out what skills he would need.