Eric Lipton
Appearances
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
The thing that is most striking to me is just the number of places that he, through either contracts or regulatory investigations, that they are looking at him at the same time as he now has the power over them. It's the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Interior.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, the Employment, you know, EEOC, NLRB, the FEC, the SEC. I mean, there are so many acronyms, so many places that either regulating him or paying him at the same time as he has this immense power to help decide what their regulatory powers and budgets are.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
It's just how does one single person do all those things without having a massive conflict of interest?
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
The Congress is controlled by Republicans, so therefore the Democrats who might be more critical of him don't have subpoena power, and they don't really therefore have significant investigative powers. And the Department of Justice is controlled by someone who's completely loyal to Trump.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
If you look at the first Trump administration and then went into Biden, it's really striking the extent of the pendulum swing. I mean, so many of the regulatory rollbacks that Trump implemented were then rolled back by Biden. The thing that really is going to make determine the course of history is what the courts decide now.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
Because if the courts side with Trump and realign the constitutional powers in a way that Russell Vaught and others in the Trump administration believe, then that really is going to create, it's not going to be a pendulum swing anymore. It's going to be a fundamental change in the distribution of power in the United States.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And all of these lawsuits, while they're annoying to the Trump administration and to Elon Musk, that's where the test is really going to come. And who knows how the court is going to decide. You know, it's really sort of hard to predict. But what I can say is that that's the thing that really is going to determine how consequential all of this is.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
Because many of these things can be rolled back in whatever the next Democratic administration is. But if the courts decide that the executive branch really has these broad powers to decide the finances and the operations of federal agencies are, that's huge. And it will be tested at some point in the next four years.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
So there really is not much of an investigative capacity or an investigative desire beyond reporters that are attempting to drill into this without subpoena power.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
That's right. I mean, really, there's never been anything quite like Elon Musk. This is a guy whose companies just last year in 2024 received $3.8 billion worth of federal government contracts from And in the last five years, $13 billion worth of contracts. He has investigations pending of his various corporate entities in the dozens.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And it's just sort of an acronym soup of federal agencies that either have pending investigations, lawsuits. subpoenaing him, all kinds of things that are active and that are in play and therefore vulnerable to being shut down.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
Not only therefore does he have billions of dollars at stake financially, but he has dozens of investigations targeting him at the same time as he has this immense power reaching across really the whole breadth of the federal government. There really has never been a conflict so broad in probably in American history.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
Well, I mean, again, President Trump just neutered all 17 of the inspectors general who really had the greatest capacity to investigate potential waste, fraud, and abuse in his contracts.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And we know that multiple IGs had pending investigations, including the Department of Defense, which was examining whether or not he had violated the terms of having a top secret security clearance because he wasn't properly reporting engagements he had with foreign government figures previously. As far as we understand, there are still questions being asked relative to that inquiry.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
But the individual who oversees that office has been replaced. And therefore, it could be a dead end, even if staff is still working on it. So the short answer is, it's unlikely that he will be the subject of very close scrutiny, just like it's unlike President Trump will be the subject of close scrutiny, because there really is no one left outside of journalists to be asking hard questions.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
Well, for example, during the takeover of Twitter and its transformation into X, there were employees who felt that they were being improperly treated. They were dismissed. They were being subject to internal investigations. And they felt as if they had been unfairly treated. And they filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
But what Trump then did in the last few weeks was to eliminate the quorum at the National Labor Relations Board by firing several of the commissioners. And so therefore, the commission can no longer act on recommendations from the staff to file a lawsuit against the target of any investigation or to agree to a settlement if there were to be a settlement proposed.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
So he's effectively frozen the National Labor Relations Board by removing the majority of its board.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
Yeah, and Musk is taking a very similar approach to that which he took at Twitter and applying it to the federal government, which is to slash it radically and rapidly without much consideration for the consequences, both for the services that it provides and for the people that work there.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
You know, the Democrats in Congress can write letters asking for reviews, and they can have protests and press conferences, but that's about the limit of their power as well. They don't have subpoena power. And they cannot have bipartisan investigations into really anything at this point.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
I mean, the courts, as we've seen, are really the one place. And the state attorneys general, the Democrats, have filed litigation. And there are various nonprofit groups and employee groups and labor unions that have filed litigation. And that has actually made a significant difference so far.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
I think to some extent the strategy on the part of the Trump administration is just to blow through those district court rulings.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
to continue to operate the way that they are, to sometimes even potentially ignore the court orders and just wait for it to get the Court of Appeals and then the Supreme Court to try to prove their argument, which is that the executive power is supreme and that they can largely do what they want. You know, Trump and Musk both have a history of basically doing what they want.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And despite inquiries or at times even, you know, court orders.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
I mean, they're mostly small bore things that people who bought cars were having disputes with the company over loans or the terms of financing or the cars were being repossessed because of potentially unpaid debts. That's not that unusual for a big company to have complaints like that. You can just go do a query on the CFPB's website. If it still is up when you do the query.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
He called for, he said the CFPB, you know, RIP. Now, whether or not he actually shut it down, he clearly supported it. He was mocking it and, you know, said RIP, rest in peace for the agency. Now, I can't tell you that he's the one that decided or that he's the one that executed on that shutdown, but he clearly supported it and played a role.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
In the fall of 2023, there was a launch of a 10-ton satellite into geosynchronous orbit, which is like 22,000 miles out there. And it's the largest satellite ever launched in terms of its mass to that orbit. And it's a pretty big deal. It was there for a satellite communications company. And that launch went off without really much public notice.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are launching so frequently now, we don't even almost pay attention to them. But what was happening behind the scenes was that even before that, as the countdown was underway, the FAA concluded that SpaceX did not have proper authorization for a new fueling system that they had built there at the Space Launch Facility in Florida.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And they were challenging the continuation of the launch, but the launch went ahead anyway. And so after it was over, the FAA said that was a safety violation and we're going to fine you hundreds of thousands of dollars. And Elon Musk was very angry at that. He was like, what do you think you're doing? You're interfering in our operations. There was no safety threat.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And the FAA is getting in our way. And he called for the firing of the FAA administrator, and he said, I'm going to sue the FAA. And then he went so far as to say, you know, they're preventing our efforts to get humans to Mars and, you know, our grand ambitions.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
Yeah, it's trivial. I think the biggest thing that really frustrates him about the FAA is the amount of time it takes to get clearances to do new launches, particularly for the Starship, which is his newest rocket, the largest rocket that humans have ever built. And he is extremely frustrated at how long it takes to get clearance to do additional test flights of the Starship.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And he wants the FAA to get out of the way. He thinks that the FAA is slowing his effort to get humans to Mars.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And I mean, I think that that fine is really trivial and that that's just a kind of a small, you know, piddling thing that is a symptom of his bigger annoyance with the agency and also with the Department of Interior, which is looking at the environmental harm that the launches are causing in South Texas and the destruction of the habitat of threatened bird species, for example, which I've witnessed myself personally.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
I was out there for a launch and then walked the grounds with a wildlife biologist from the Fish and Wildlife, and we saw the destroyed nest eggs from the blast of the Starship, which basically threw gravel across a state park towards Federal Wildlife Refuge. So that damage is occurring, and the fact that people are even looking at that and questioning it really frustrates Elon Musk.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether or not Musk failed to honor a requirement to disclose at the moment that he obtained 5% of Twitter, he needed to make a public filing. And the reason you do that is that you need to share with other investors if you are a significant owner of any particular corporation. And that's relevant material information about the company.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
But instead of notifying the SEC and making that public disclosure, he continued to buy thousands and thousands of additional shares. And so effectively, he was able to buy those shares at a significantly discounted price, saving approximately $150 million as he accumulated shares of Twitter before he ultimately took over the whole company.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
So they filed a lawsuit saying you failed to honor the federal law that requires you to disclose once you exceed 5%. And Musk and his lawyers were like, this is a technicality. You're just being annoying. This is being done for political purposes to try to punish us when this is a minor violation that you shouldn't even be going after us about.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And now the two of the members of the SEC that voted to go ahead with that litigation are now gone. Now, in this case, it was not an action by Trump. This was Gary Gensler, the chairman, who was a Democrat who resigned and a second Democrat who, for personal reasons, left the agency. But the net result is that the Republicans now have a majority on the SEC.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And so the likely outcome is that this will be settled at a very modest penalty or maybe even withdrawn as litigation.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
Other investors would have likely bought Twitter stock at that point. That would have been a sign that Musk had the intention of potentially buying the company out. If you're going to accumulate that much stock, then that would have led other people to buy in thinking, oh, well, I better buy it now because Musk is going to be willing to pay a higher price to take the whole thing over.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And so he saved $150 million by getting the stock at a cheaper price during the period between when he should have filed a disclosure and when he actually did.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
In the fall, we spent a month looking at all of Musk's operations with the federal government, all of his contracts, all the investigations. We had a database that was built and that allowed us to quickly know what the pending lawsuits, investigations, and contracts were.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
So it was actually didn't take nearly as much time now that we knew where all the matters were to go back and look and see, okay, several members of the National Labor Relations Board have been fired and no longer has a quorum or two members of the SEC have left or the chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission has just been fired or the head of the Office of Government Ethics has been removed.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And we were able to cross-reference all of these actions that Trump has taken and look at the investigations that we knew about and see that these have been disrupted. We did not find evidence so far that Musk reached in himself and determined these outcomes. But what we were able to establish is that he has clearly benefited from all of the disruption that has occurred.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
That's the somewhat startling thing to me as a reporter at this moment is that there's really no one else beyond us, the team that's working on it from the New York Times and other journalists. Because just in the last few days, Trump fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics. He's removed the inspectors general across the government, at least 17 of them.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
I mean, I think that this is going to be significant depending on whether or not it's not completely overturned by federal courts. But I think that this is going to be one of the bigger realignments in modern decades of the scale and reach of the federal government if they are able to play this out as they hope.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And I don't, you know, do I really believe that Musk is doing this to try to influence how his companies are treated? No, I don't. I think that he does think that the government has, you know, there's too much federal regulatory overreach, that there's inefficiencies.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
I mean, this is a guy who has the reason that he is so massively successful in building SpaceX is he built the most efficient spacecraft. commercial space company in the history of the space industry. And the cost of getting to orbit has radically reduced because of his efficiencies. He's a master at reducing the cost of assembly line operations and building rockets that get into orbit.
Fresh Air
How Did Elon Musk Become So Powerful In The Trump Administration?
And he's bringing that same approach to the federal government, and he's really disrupting it. But in the process of that, the disruption is benefiting his own companies, and that is a conflict of interest.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
But Dar Global, along with Eric Trump, the president of Dar Global, was in Qatar on Wednesday of last week. And there they signed a deal that was financed by the government of Qatar and its sovereign wealth fund.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And so that effectively means that the government of Qatar and the wealth that it gets from merely the natural gas and the energy business is backed up the Trump family in a real estate deal that they're going to do there. Now, I spoke with Eric Trump about this, and he says, well, Qatar is helping Dar Global with the property that it's getting access to, and our deal is with Dar Global.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
But the bottom line is that they are a part of this deal and that they were there. An official from the government of Qatar was there during the signing, standing right in front of Eric Trump. And to have the family of the president –
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
in a business deal with a foreign government at the same time as President Trump is about to fly over there and do foreign policy matters with various states in the Middle East, including Qatar, is, you know, what are his imperatives there?
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
When he makes a foreign policy decision, is he doing it because it's in the interest of the United States or is he doing it because it helps his business interest in that same country? It's an open question.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
It's a very small nation. It's a peninsula that sticks out into the Gulf there, but it's a hugely important one. Very wealthy nation. There's a large military base. The United States has more military assets there than just any place else in the Middle East, also in Bahrain nearby. But That's a very important place to the United States military.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
They also play a critical role as an intermediary between a number of the nations and the tensions that exist in the Middle East between Israel and Iran and Saudi Arabia and other nations. So there's a huge foreign policy agenda that involves that country. And so how are the United States foreign policy interests being influenced by the Trump family's financial interests?
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
In this case, as World Liberty is launching at Stablecoin, they overnight become one of the biggest Stablecoin issuers in the world. And Stablecoins are one of the most profitable chunks of the whole cryptocurrency atmosphere. because they can take this yield and keep it for themselves. And the 3% yield that they get off of investing that stable coin.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So what happened here is that the government of Abu Dhabi, which decided from the United Arab Emirates that they were going to put money into another company called Binance, they decided they were going to do it through World Liberty. So they were going to deposit $2 billion into World Liberty. And that was going to come from this United Arab Emirate sovereign wealth fund, effectively.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So, I mean, again, here you now have a Middle Eastern government that's going to put $2 billion of its capital into a company that financially benefits President Trump and his sons. At the same time that the United States has enormous foreign policy matters before the United Arab Emirates relative to China.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
you know, maybe military sales of weapons, maybe whether or not they get access to certain advanced American computer chips that they need to develop their artificial intelligence industry. Enormous choices that President Trump has to make.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
How are they influenced by the fact that this same government has now put $2 billion into a company that his family runs and that is going to bring him and his family tens of millions of dollars in revenues as a result? It's a kind of a conflict of interest we really just we have never seen before in probably all of American history, if not at a minimum, modern American history.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
That, again, he's both the regulator and the commander in chief, and he is the financial beneficiary of, you know, trades that are happening that he effectively oversees.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Yeah, Don Jr. is in... Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania. And in Serbia, for example, at a site that the United States bombed along with NATO during the Balkan War when Clinton was president, the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense has been sitting there as a sort of semi-destroyed structure for decades now.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And the president of Serbia and his administration have decided that Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law, should be allowed to build a luxury hotel and apartment complex on that site, which has sat vacant for decades. And that site would then have a Trump International Hotel in Serbia, the first in Europe.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And so at the same time that Eric Trump is in Dubai talking about new hotel and crypto projects, Don Jr. is in Eastern Europe in the Balkans. And he actually has dinner with the president of Serbia. And the president of Serbia boasts on a Facebook posting that he's grilling a pig for Don Jr. for dinner.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And it's that president who has granted this concession to Jared Kushner and the Trump family to build a Trump International Hotel in Serbia on property that's owned by the government. Serbia also has a lot of interest with the United States. It wants to get into the European Union.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And it wants the United States to aggressively push Europe to allow it into the European Union because it has not yet been allowed and that would improve its economy. And the president in Serbia also has been facing intense protests in Serbia over issues relating to his management of the government there. And Donald Trump Jr.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
's presence in Serbia is a sign that he is supported by, you know, the president of the United States and the family of the president. And so... The president of Serbia is giving an incredibly valuable concession to the Trump family, and the Trump family is effectively helping boost his standing in Serbia as he seeks to maintain control of the country.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Again, that alone would be a kind of a headline-grabbing conflict of interest that would demand newspaper coverage for weeks. But here we have all of these things simultaneously happening. It's actually quite difficult to keep up with them all and to try to explain them all to the public because each one is so complicated but also represents such a historic level conflict of interest.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
I do. I think that it's hard to write about them all. It's hard to read about them. It takes a fair amount of energy simply to keep up. And they kind of all blur together. And they're happening simultaneously. Yeah. So I think, I mean, is it by design? I don't know.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
What I think is happening is that they are unleashed and they sense a moment of opportunity to pursue businesses that will generate profit for themselves and their family, and they are aggressively doing that. And there's no restraint on that pursuit. And so that's what's playing out right now.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Nexo was targeted by the Securities and Exchange Commission during the Biden administration for violating federal securities laws. And it paid a large fine and it then withdrew from the American marketplace. So then in the last couple of weeks, Don Jr. was invited to be the headline speaker at a conference. an event that Nexto was sponsoring there in Bulgaria. And there on stage was Don Trump Jr.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
with a huge portrait of him, you know, as he was speaking and talking about, you know, the Trump administration and U.S. issues and the crypto business. And then the co-founder of the company announces while Donald Trump Jr. is there that they're going to reenter the United States marketplace soon.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
that they've already been having meetings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and that America has re-embraced crypto and that we're coming back to America and we're here with Don Jr. to celebrate our return to the United States. And Don Jr. is being paid to be present as they relaunch their crypto business in the United States and they push out press releases and photos of that event.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So there's the mixing of a financial interest and a regulatory matter. And there's so much happening simultaneously. How do we possibly keep up with it and explain this all to readers?
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So the club was announced a couple weekends ago. Donald Jr. was actually in the Balkans in Eastern Europe at the time giving his paid speeches and visiting with the Serbian president where they're going to build a hotel. But while that was underway, back in Washington, he's the part owner of what's called the executive branch, which is going to be a new private club that's opening in Georgetown.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
It's an expansive space there at a club that recently shut down. And in order to be a member of the club, there's a $500,000 membership fee. And news reporters will not be allowed in there. The public will not be allowed in there. But effectively, it's going to become a modern-day Mar-a-Lago like the Trump family have in California. You know, in Florida or like the Trump Hotel in D.C.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
used to be before they sold that after Trump left his first term, where, you know, there will be a gathering of Trump family members, of their friends, including among the other partners are Don Jr. 's venture capital partners from a company called 1789. And another founding member is Jeff Miller, who's a lobbyist that got more than 35 new clients since the start of the Trump administration.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
He represents an incredible array of regulated industries. And David Sachs, who is the White House AI and crypto advisor, is also a founding member. So already you've got a White House advisor, a lobbyist, the Trump family, and Don Jr. 's venture capital business partners that are helping either found it or own it. And this is going to be a place of confidential meetings.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And now when I spoke with the representatives for executive branch and I spoke with a lawyer and several other folks that are associated with it about this, they say that this is a social place for people to gather, that they will not be disrupted because the Trump people are often not welcome in a liberal city like D.C., And that all this is is about a safe place for people to gather and relax.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
But it also is certainly going to be a place where there will be influential people who have unusual access to Trump affiliates. And I have to imagine it's going to be a lot like the Trump Hotel or Mar-a-Lago is right now. And Don Jr. owns a chunk of that. Now, Donald Trump, the president, does not actually, as far as I know, own a stake in in the executive branch, but his son does.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And it's going to be fascinating to watch this play, so that we're going to have to watch from the outside because we aren't going to be let in.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of venture capitalists, Silicon Valley types, that put large amounts of money into President Trump's reelection campaign. And many of them associated with the crypto industry that are so anxious to see him adopt this cryptocurrency regulatory environment that embraces crypto. They're going to be a lot of members from that environment.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And David Sachs is sort of the leader of that whole crew. He himself came from the crypto industry. He was an investor. So, I mean, I suspect it will be a pretty crypto heavy hangout place. And those folks are quite wealthy. And, you know, Jeff Miller, one of the lobbyists, represents a company called Tether. He was recently hired by Tether.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Tether is the largest stablecoin issuer in the world, and it's trying to become a bigger player in the United States marketplace. So, I mean, all of the things we've been talking about are going to be playing out inside this clubhouse behind closed doors. And, you know, and then Donald Trump Jr. is essentially going to be making money off of it.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
They are kind of serial entrepreneurs, you might call them. They have been trying to pursue a bunch of different business interests over quite a number of years. And they've had a number of unsuccessful efforts. They tried to start two different crypto companies that... One of them was subject to an inappropriate release of some of its funds. Another one went out of business.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Stablecoins are extremely popular in the crypto world, and they're a way of having a type of a token that has a steady value. It's worth a dollar no matter what is happening in the Bitcoin market up or down because there's so much volatility in crypto.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
They also were selling everything from a colon cleanser to a way to meet hot girls, a website to give advice for how to meet, quote, hot girls. And so they were not your usual business partners that you would expect to see the Trump family aligned themselves with.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And they got introduced to the Trump family through Steve Witkoff, who is President Trump's Mideast advisor, who's helping attempt to negotiate peace in the Middle East. And Steve Witkoff is also trying to work in Russia relative to the war in Ukraine. His son, Alex Witkoff, is one of the investors in World Liberty.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And they brought in Zach Folkman and Chase Hero, who are these two individuals who'd had a series of business efforts that have interesting providence.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
As we were investigating the startup of World Liberty, we heard from several crypto companies that Zach Folkman, using the nickname of Z Money, was sending signal messages out to cryptocurrency executives around the world saying that if they would give World Liberty perhaps $15 million worth of an investment,
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
that World Liberty would use its clout and the Trump family name to buy their token and bring them international attention. And the executives we spoke with were, in several cases, felt that that was a deceptive transaction that was making it appear as if the Trump family and World Liberty had independently decided that it should invest in their token.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And they declined that offer because they felt that it was just the kind of thing that the cryptocurrency industry should be attempting to avoid in which it's not an arms late transaction. And so that's what we learned that Zach Folkman was doing as World Liberty was trying to raise money.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And we do know that there were multiple partnerships formed with cryptocurrency companies, but we spoke with three of them that were offered these kinds of terms and that turned it down.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And the advantage of a stablecoin is once you have a dollar-to-dollar crypto token, you can use it to buy and sell things because it has a reliable value. Right. It is also one of the most profitable chunks of the whole crypto space for companies that issue stablecoins because once they have your money in a stablecoin, they invest your money and they make a lot of yield on it.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
It did. In fact, once these partnerships were being announced, there were short-term spikes in the price of almost all of the companies they invested in. So they had the ability to drive market decisions by making that investment, and they knew that.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So what they were saying is, okay, if you give us $15 million, we'll buy like $12 million of your token, and we'll keep $3 million as part of the deal.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Yeah. Behind the scenes, there was money that was being exchanged and there was no public transparency about the financial relationship between the parties.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Yes. Yet another in the crazy roadmap of things that we've been trying to examine is that there are two crypto companies that the Trump family has started recently. The second one is selling a meme coin, which is something like a collectible. It's like a Beanie Baby or a baseball card and you buy it and it has a certain value.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And so the day before Trump was inaugurated, he announced that he was issuing a new meme coin, dollar sign Trump. And overnight, it became one of the most valuable meme coins in the world. And of course, in this case, yet again, the Trump family owns most of the stockpile of the meme coins that are being issued there. And it also is going to make transaction fees off of it.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So every time that meme coin is bought and sold, it gets a small chunk of money. And now in order to continue to drive up the price of that meme coin, President Trump announced recently they're going to have effectively an auction where whoever owns the most of these meme coin tokens will have the privilege of having dinner with President Trump at his golf club in Virginia later this month in May.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And the people who – among the 220 that – the people at the top of that list will actually also get to make a visit to the White House.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So, I mean, again, it's like this is how – I can't even like imagine that the president of the United States and his family are doing an auction that is now playing out as we sit here to be able to buy more of their crypto token and to bring money to the Trump family in exchange for – getting access to the president. So it's for his personal benefit. It's not a campaign contribution.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
It's to personally enrich the family of the president. That's happening right now. In addition to all the other things that we've spoken about, that's playing out with the meme coin.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And you don't get that yield. You don't get the interest on your money. They take it. And so it's a very profitable part of the business. But it has been held back because in the United States, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have been concerned about Could stable coins represent a threat to the economy?
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Yeah. Well, that's I mean, you know, if anything, you know, Donald Trump is an incredible marketer and brand builder and and he's marketing and brand building. And he's been doing that for decades now. And that's what he's doing here again.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So the Live Golf is backed by the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Saudi Arabia. And they've spent an enormous amount of money trying to create a competitive league to the PGA. And in the United States, the Trump family has been one of their most important partners. And so for the fourth year in a row, they have had the tournament now at the Trump Durrell in Saudi Arabia.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
outside of Miami, not far from the Miami airport. I was there for the tournament this year. But this is the first time that Trump has been president of the United States in the White House while there is a Saudi-funded golf tournament at his club in Florida. In the previous years, he was in the private sector, so whatever. It doesn't really matter. But now...
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
You have effectively the Saudi sovereign wealth fund paying money to the Trump family while Trump is president of the United States. And the United States has massive foreign policy interests with the Saudi Arabia. It's thinking about selling them F-35 fighter jets. It's thinking about giving them nuclear technology to help them build their nuclear industry. And so –
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
What I saw when I was down there at Trump Darrell and I there on the golf course was the governor of the public investment fund of the Saudi Arabia. He's effectively runs more capital than just about any place, anyone else in the world, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars. And he is also the head of live golf. And he was there on the golf course as the tournament was getting started.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And so it has not grown as much as it perhaps could if it had some regulatory structure around it. And that's what this act would do.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And Eric Trump was there as well. And Donald Trump had been there the night before I got there. So it's another conflict of interest. You have the Saudi Arabia paying money through Live Golf to the Trump family at the same time as in the next couple of weeks, President Trump is on his way to Saudi Arabia to talk about foreign policy matters.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Yeah, I mean, it's something that's just developed in recent days and several of them actually cited our stories as a factor in it.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Yeah. And so I think that they are demanding that the Republicans give them some concessions. And I do suspect that there will be a resolution of this and that I know that there are conversations ongoing right now between Republicans.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to try to see if they can reach a resolution because there's a lot of Democrats that are supportive of trying to help the cryptocurrency industry continue to mature in the United States. And I think that there are some Democrats who really want to see the president's family banned from actually participating in the stablecoin industry.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Why use crypto if you're just building a crypto that's tied to the dollar? It's a very good question. I mean, it is more fluid than a dollar and it can cross borders with fewer restrictions. But that's also one of the concerns is they could be used for money laundering or drug trafficking if it's not properly regulated.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And that's a bigger ask that I sort of wonder whether or not Republicans, I doubt the Republicans would agree to that. There could be some modifications made in the legislation that would tighten language around anti-money laundering, that's more likely to occur.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
But what's clear is that the Democrats sort of see this as an important moment to pause and to use the clout that they have, because you need at least 60 votes to get something called cloture to move ahead on debate and to vote on legislation in the Senate. And they're using that clout to kind of, they see this as a moment of opportunity to raise some of these issues
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And to demand potentially some concessions from Republicans. And that's playing out as we speak.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Well, as we record this right now on Tuesday, the House Financial Services Democrats had planned to stand up and walk out of a House hearing as a form of protest to go to do their own hearing in which they're going to open an investigation into Trump's crypto assets.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
They're so frustrated that there has been so little scrutiny of it and little response from Republicans that they're going to have kind of a show by walking out today and demanding that this be investigated. So the Democrats clearly have decided that this is an issue they want to engage on and that they want to try to elevate the national awareness of this issue.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
It was great. And of course, it's sort of cool to have a member of Congress read a story that you wrote. But what was most important to me is that there be more accountability and transparency. And I think that happens when people are aware of what's happening. And her reading it helps increase the awareness.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And that's really what we're doing here by writing about these things is trying to make the American public and really the world more aware of the conflicts of interest that we're seeing and that we're trying to document.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
I mean, the Genius Act would officially recognize stable coins as a functioning part of the financial sector, and it would create some requirements for issuers of the stable coins. The biggest thing that it would do is it would recognize stable coins as a legitimate part of the U.S. financial sector.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And it would also be assigned to banks and other financial institutions that you should start to incorporate them into your mix of services. So, The reason it's so important is that the industry is that it would legitimize stable coins and embrace them through an act of Congress.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And so I think that you would see significant growth in the stable coin market in the United States and globally if Congress enacted it.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
It's a very odd situation because you have simultaneously a president of the United States who is both appointing the financial regulators. So effectively, he's the top financial regulator in the United States and therefore the world. And he is also one of the biggest players in the same regulatory space. So he is the regulator and the regulated. And it is a very unusual situation.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
I spoke with both historians and former White House ethics lawyers, and no one could identify another example of a conflict of interest that was so blatant and worrisome as having Trump be both the regulator and the regulated in this case.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Yeah. I mean, this is a single piece of a much broader kind of landscapes of conflicts of interest when it comes to the Trump family and cryptocurrency.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And among the other examples are the fact that Trump appointed an acting director of the SEC and now has appointed a permanent chair of the SEC, who among the first acts was to roll back most of the enforcement actions that the agency was taking relative to violations of federal securities law and banking secrecy requirements.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And again, one of the first things that Trump did was to appoint an acting head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is the chief regulator of the cryptocurrency industry, who rolled back dozens of enforcement actions around the cryptocurrency industry, either froze those actions or actually stopped pending lawsuits against companies that had violated federal securities laws.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And some of those same companies that have been freed of regulatory actions are actually business partners of World Liberty Financial. And not only that, but he actually pardoned a gentleman named Arthur Hayes, who is an investor in one of the financial partners of World Liberty.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So, I mean, he has rolled back regulatory actions relative to his business partners and given a pardon to effectively one of his business partners.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Well, I mean, cryptocurrency has been around for quite a while now, and it's largely been a way for people to make financial bets that it's going to rise in value. It hasn't had a great deal of use case. It's like, what is it inherently about? And there's a lot of people in the industry who say, well, we want to have a use case. We want it to be used for buying and selling things and for banking.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
You could use it to take out a loan. You could take loan on your crypto. You could invest your crypto and earn yield like you'd put deposits in the bank. And you could do international transactions. And it has been held up by the lack of a regulatory structure to oversee it.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And so, you know, this is a moment and Trump embraced the crypto industry, unlike any other presidential candidate in American history, because it hasn't been around that long. And he said, you know, we are going to become the crypto capital of the world. And the industry pushed in, you know, tens of millions of dollars to help him get elected.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And on Monday night at his golf club in New Jersey, President Trump had a dinner that cost a million and a half dollars to get into that was sponsored by the crypto industry. The crypto industry is quite excited about President Trump.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And the question is whether or not he is going to spoil this moment of opportunity for the industry because his family is pursuing profits so aggressively that it's creating questions about a conflict of interest.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Yeah, it's effectively, it's sort of something similar to a Fort Knox. I mean, the United States has a place where it stores gold. It's like a reservoir of gold. The gold used to back up the dollar. It's just a place that the United States government holds gold.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
The idea of a strategic reserve is that the United States would collect a certain number of cryptocurrency tokens that are popular in the marketplace and And just hold them because it's a store of value. And just like you might collect foreign currencies and hold them because you want to invest in other foreign currencies.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So Trump announced earlier this year that he was going to create a strategic reserve of certain types of cryptocurrency. And the reason that it became a conflict of interest was that among the cryptocurrencies he mentioned when he did a social media posting was one called Ether.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And it turns out, of course, that his son's company, which he financially benefits from personally, World Liberty, had purchased tens of millions of dollars worth of Ether before Trump included that in his social media posting.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And as soon as he said, well, we're going to put Ether into the strategic reserve, Ether surged in value because, you know, oh, if they're going to put this type of crypto into the reserve, it must be worth more. So that was essentially he was basically writing himself a check because, of course, if you're going to mention one particular type of cryptocurrency, it's going to drive up its price.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And it did. Now, Ether has since dropped in value because there's a lot of other things happening in the global economy. But at least temporarily, Trump's announcement drove up an asset that his family had already invested in.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So World Liberty was effectively created in September, October of last year as the presidential election was coming towards a close. And it's a brand new company, therefore, I mean, relatively speaking. And its goal is pretty ambitious. I mean, it wants to be a modern day bank that offers a range of services. And it started off by selling tokens in which you could buy.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
It's called a governance token, and you could buy the right to have some say in decisions that the company is making. So before the election, they had a really hard time selling those tokens because it was started off by Trump's sons and some of their friends who had some experience in the crypto sector. But there wasn't much motion behind it.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
So they only sold tens of millions of dollars in tokens initially. But once Trump was elected, suddenly – you know, there's a thought, oh, it's going to be the future president of the United States. This is probably going to do well. He's going to have the power to influence policy. And next thing you know, they sell $550 million worth of tokens.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And a large chunk of the revenue from those tokens is supposed to be going to the Trump family and their business partners. So their services, their goals are to offer, you know, eventually offer the ability to deposit your crypto into World Liberty and to borrow money off of it or to earn yield on it or to use what they call the stable coins to buy and sell things.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
I mean, it's essentially going to be a modern day bank. It's going to offer a range of services. That's their goal. So far, what they've done is to sell a governance token and a stable coin.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
I mean, the White House has said to us the same statement each time we ask about this, that President Trump has no conflicts of interest because his sons are running this business and that he has divested of his interest to his sons of his corporations. And he did sign a statement in January of 2017 after his first term started in which he transferred control of his assets to his sons.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And that is true. But the issue is that Trump is still the financial beneficiary of these companies.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And so when he files his financial disclosure every year, as he's required to do under federal law, we can see that the same entities that are earning revenue from the crypto business or from the hotel business or the golf business or in the many businesses that he's in, that Trump himself is financially benefiting from them.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
I mean, in fact, that is true. The President of the United States and the Vice President are the only two members of the executive branch that are exempt from a federal criminal law that makes it a crime to take an action that brings you or your family direct financial benefit. I mean, so that's a criminal offense.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
If you do that, if you are an employee of the federal government and you take an action that specifically benefits your family, that's a federal crime and you could go to jail for that. And the president is exempt from that because the president's powers are so broad, I guess the presumption is that you can't prevent the president from doing something that might benefit his family financially.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
But historically, despite that exemption, presidents from both parties have – taken steps to avoid conflicts of interest by either selling off assets, putting assets into a blind trust in which they don't have any control, or trying to avoid, you know, their family being involved in financial efforts that create obvious conflicts of interest.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Now, there have been throughout history relatives of presidents that have drawn attention because of their business activities. I mean, Billy Carter, the brother of Jimmy Carter, Neil Bush, the brother of George W. Bush, obviously Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, have been engaged in business activities that have drawn assertions of conflicts of interest.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
And in many cases, they were well substantiated. But when I speak with various historians who have examined these things, and as a reporter, I've looked at them myself, I've never seen so many simultaneous activities as we're seeing now with the Trump sons and President Trump himself through his financial benefits, as they're playing out right now before us.
Fresh Air
President Trump's Conflicts Of Interest
Yeah. I mean, the thing that really is problematic is when they are doing deals that involve government entities. So, for example, they have a business partner in the Middle East called Dar Global, and they now have six ongoing real estate projects with them, most of them in the Middle East.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
Thanks for having me.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
What we did was we sort of examined the breadth of Elon Musk operations across the federal government. And there are, you know, there are so many pending investigations, lawsuits, inquiries. And we looked at how many of them had been disrupted. And we were quite surprised at how many cases we saw where You know, we don't know.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
We never saw any evidence of Musk explicitly reaching in and, you know, using his cloud or powers to stop any particular investigation. But what we saw was that it again and again. Agencies that are targeting his companies have now had significant disruptions. The inspector generals, the quorums are gone. They can't, therefore, process any potential new lawsuits or settlements.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
And, you know, it just shows you how never before have we had a situation where someone has basically $13 billion worth of federal contracts over the last five years, $3.8 billion just in 2024, and at the same time has dozens of ongoing investigations, that that same person would be given such incredible clout over the federal government. And that is a conflict of interest.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
And now we're seeing the implications of that, where there are more than dozens of investigations that have been potentially disrupted because of the broad disruption that's happening in the federal government. And that's something that we really felt we needed to drill down on and understand and identify as many cases as possible where these disruptions have occurred.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
And that's what we published in today's paper.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
I've been a reporter for three decades, more than three decades. I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen such a blatant conflict of interest. He is one of the largest contractors for the federal government. Again, $15 billion in contracts just in the last decade.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
And the notion that an individual who could be running or founding or operating so many companies that have so many contracts with the federal government, and at the same time, deciding what the budgets of the federal agency should be or what regulatory powers they should have, and even what investigative and enforcement powers they should have,
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
And I mean, the thing is that even before the election, Musk was very clear that he had intense frustration with the Federal Aviation Administration, with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He wanted the FAA administrator fired. He called the SEC political. And, you know, he was very pointed in the Department of Interior.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
He was very frustrated with he blamed all of these agencies for, you know, we're never going to get humans to Mars at this pace. And it was very clear that he wanted to have the ability to to to, you know, to clash with these regulators and to rein them in. And now he has that power. And now these same agencies are having their powers curtail.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
Now, again, we don't have evidence that he has directly reached in, but there is a correlation that that needed to be called out. And we've now called it out.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump opposition finds its footing, from streets to courts to Congress
Thank you.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
But whether or not it is legally, you know, he is acting corruptly, I think that has become a harder question to answer. Right. but it almost doesn't matter. These terms are important and we have to be careful with the words we use, but it doesn't matter because what's happening is unethical and wrong. And it's just damaging to American history and to democracy.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And we are committed and Susan is as well. We're documenting this. The thing that I think really matters is as a reporter is that let's get the primary details, the primary documents, the proof, and let's bring that to the public. And that's what we've been doing.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
That's right. We are the only thing left of accountability. The Justice Department, the IGs have been fired. Oh my God. The Office of Government Ethics, the head has been fired.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, unfortunately, campaign finance at this point, given the Supreme Court actions, is sort of a lost cause. And I don't really see, you know, unless you kind of completely remake the Supreme Court, how we're ever going back. And I mean, but what we're seeing is the personal enrichment aspect.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
of, you know, with Trump, he is both, you know, effectively the chief regulator of securities and exchange by appointing the head of the SEC. And his family now runs one of the world's largest cryptocurrency stablecoin issuers that is regulated. So he is both the regulator and the regulated. And that's the threshold that we have crossed that really has no precedent. And that
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
Campaign finance and the corruption of government through influence and access that comes with campaign donations has been something we have written about for many years and tried to document. But we just have never seen something where the elected official is personally benefiting to the extent that Trump is through his family.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And and that and it just, you know, so like the whole campaign finance debate is important, but it's sort of like it's like tangential to what's going on here, which is direct personal enrichment in a way. You know, the fact is that that like President Trump will benefit from there's there's this legislation pending in Congress called the Genius Act that would.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
for the first time, recognize the issuance of stable coins, which are a form of cryptocurrency, as legally part of the financial system in the United States.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
As a security or just as a... As a form of currency, basically, as an alternative form of currency that in which you have a form of crypto that's worth a dollar consistently and it's backed up with treasuries and it's constantly worth a dollar. FDIC insured? It's not insured, but it would be recognized by the government and it would be regulated by the government.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
But once that happens, while it does create a regulatory structure to some extent, you think the industry doesn't want that. But what the industry recognizes is as soon as that exists, then banks and other financial institutions will begin to embrace stable coins and they will really become almost a competitor of credit cards and financial cash.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And for the Trump family, they are the seventh largest stable coin issuer in the United States now. And so he is urging Congress to act. Wait, you issue stable coins? It doesn't have to be created through mining or anything? You just issue it? You issue it. And the Trump's got $2 billion worth of stable coin deposits from the government of UAE a few weeks ago, just before Trump flew over there.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And now, overnight, they became one of the world's largest issuers of stable coins. And Trump is urging Congress to act on this legislation, and he's going to sign it. But his family is already profiting, and he is profiting enormously off of the same industry that he is giving birth to as the top regulator. It's like we've never seen anything like that. That is such a blatant profit of interest.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
I think you can answer that question by looking at the differences between the first term and the second term. And in the first term, the president and his family agreed to not do what they called new international deals. So they continued to run their real estate business. To avoid the conflict. Right. Right. And now we did all write about the Trump International Hotel in D.C.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
and how it became a den of lobbyists and foreign diplomats that were buying, you know, $50 martinis or, you know, $100 Trump seafood towers at the Benjamin Bar and Mar-a-Lago.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
Yeah. The Mar-a-Lago also became a magnet, and he tried to bring the G7 or the G20, I forget which, to Trump-Durell. But they were not, in fact, doing deals overseas, announcing new ones. Still small ball, right. But now, not only are they doing new international deals, but they're actually doing new international deals with foreign government entities.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
So, you know, UAE is putting $2 billion into the World Liberty Financial, you know, in stable coins. Qatar, just a couple weeks ago, signed a deal to do a $5 billion real estate project that's going to have a Trump hotel. Oman has a project, it's leasing the land for another project that's going to have a Trump golf course.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
Right. And Serbia at the site that NATO bombed during the Clinton administration to stop the Balkans war is now turning that same site over to Jared Kushner where there's going to be a Trump hotel. And Donald Trump Jr. was in Serbia and having dinner with the president of Serbia.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And the president of Serbia was posted on Facebook how I'm roasting a pig tonight to have dinner with the son of the president of the United States as he's trying to keep his job as president because there's huge protest in Serbia.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And he's giving land to the family of the president to build the Trump International Hotel. So having that kind of interactions with foreign governments at the same time that you are directing foreign policy and making decisions, for example, should Saudi Arabia be able to get F-35s?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
Should the United States authorize the sale of advanced AI chips to Saudi Arabia or to UAE, Qatar, and what role is the military presence in Qatar? And Serbia, should the United States help Serbia's effort to get into the EU? I mean, these are all huge.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And how are those choices influenced by the fact that money is flowing from those governments personally to the pockets of the President of the United States? that creates an appearance of corruption that really undermines the legitimacy of government in a way that is, for any person, would be disturbing.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And it's happening again and again and again in front of us at a scale that's much worse than the first term.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
Yeah, no, it's really interesting just because this nation for decades now has been the promoter of what is called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. I mean, we were effectively punishing people. companies and governments in nations around the world, if there ever was any type of a government contract that involved a payment to an executive, you know, abroad, basically.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And it was the United States was trying to enforce its value system across the world for decades now in Africa and Europe. And, you know, and Trump has basically announced that, you know, FCPA is, you know, it's the lingo in D.C. that they're not really going to do Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement anymore.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
I mean, I think the United States was successful in a way. I mean, you know, there's still parts of, you know, particularly like, you know, Democratic Republic of Congo, which I've spent some time writing about and where it's still overt and companies, the American companies left DRC mining companies because they were so concerned about the corruption and being accused of it.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
But the United States to some extent has succeeded in really discouraging that kind of corruption. And so when you say Europe and Canada and other nations are like, they're, you know, they're reacting like, how is this possible? Because the United States actually successfully created a norm that now Trump is exploding. And it, it, So, I mean, to some extent he's benefiting.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
Yeah. I mean, I think that if the United States is saying that it is okay to be completely transactional and to be accepting multi-billion dollar payments from foreign governments as you're making critical foreign policy decisions, It just opens up the world to a kind of a family oligarchical –
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
you know, global governance that isn't transparent, that doesn't have any accountability, that is profiting a very, very thin, you know, it's like the Turkey's government or, you know, the kind of, you know, where you're both the financial leaders and the government leaders.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And it just, the United States worked so hard for so many decades to create a world order where that was not, you know, we were trying to move beyond that. And it's, you know, The consequences of this could last a really long time if the one nation that just imposed this new value system globally says, okay, we're done with that.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
We don't really agree and we're going to start taking payments and making decisions. So yeah, it's potentially enormously consequential to the whole world order, honestly, unfortunately. Yeah.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
I've been writing about the Trump family for a decade now, and I've been watching the conflicts of interest that emerge from the mixing of their personal businesses with the governance of the United States. And at the times, we're quite careful about the terms that we use. And what I'm seeing in this administration, without question, is conflicts of interest These are not apparent conflicts.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
Unless he gets called on it and challenged, particularly by his own party. I was up on Capitol Hill last week. Yeah, good luck with that. I was on the Senate side and I spent my entire day, I spent like 10 hours right where the senators walked out of the chambers. I was focused almost entirely on Republicans. And I ended up speaking to over 25 U.S. senators in the course of a day.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
I just spent the whole day there as soon as they were walking out and pestering them. And I only found two. I was asking each one of them about the Trump meme coin.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And, and is it, you know, that he's selling access to a dinner with, with, for 220 buyers of his meme coin, whoever spends the most money on his meme coin, they can have dinner with him and 25 of them can have a VIP reception and 25 of them will get a white house tour. And, and so, you know, was that, is that acceptable to you?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
I was asking the U S senators this, and there was only two of them that were willing to, to give any, most of them gave the answer. I don't know enough about it. you know, the Republican, or I don't do walk and talks. I don't do walk and talks, but I will never sit down with you. Right. Yeah. And yeah, so I think that what's the lasting implication of this?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
I mean, I think it really is going to depend upon a kind of a, you know, a rejection of this approach. And if that doesn't happen, then maybe it is normalized. But so far, I mean, the Cutter, You know, 747, you're you're hearing resistance from Republicans in the Senate in particular.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And if it really does start to go forward, there could be a significant backlash there that each step that seems more outrageous there. There's you know, there there's a certain hints of. of maybe he's gone too far. And so to answer your question, how normalized this becomes, it really depends upon if it becomes normal. And if as an American public, we begin to accept it.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
These are real conflicts. I'm seeing ethics violations. I'm seeing, you know, unprecedented kind of breaking of norms in terms of these financial conflicts. But when you use the word corruption to me, you really need a quid pro quo, which is you need to take a gift. And then the action that comes as a result of that gift needs to be in response to that specific gift.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And as Susan says, one of the challenges that we face as reporters is that even when we write these stories and we try to make sure that they're understandable, plain language, and that they're distinct, I don't sense that they're resonating as much. I mean, the American public is sort of like, well, there's nothing we can do about it.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
I don't feel like the public is as engaged or as outraged by some of the things that are happening. And that's also part of the normalization. So if both the Republicans in Congress and the American public is just going to sort of let this become normal, then it does become normal.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And I think that there is the appearance of corruption and the governance is being corrupted. But whether or not President Trump is acting in a corrupt way.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
No, I think that the partisanship has really undermined accountability. It makes it hard to have accountability when all of these investigations, whether led by Democrats or Republicans, that the other side is immediately dismissing them as witch hunts that are politically driven. And the Congress used to be made up of Democrats and Republicans, more so at least,
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
I mean, like a Frank Wolf was a Republican that I can remember, or Tom Davis is a Republican. I mean, these were, you know, the conservatives, but- Partisans, but not ideologues. They were value-based Republicans. Even Orrin Hatch was a value-based Republican. And, you know, Chuck Grassley is, you know, a value-based Republican. you know, to some extent.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
And, you know, now it's just all investigations are so partisan, and even the way that the public reacts to them is so dismissive, depending on which side you're on, that it empowers the executive, the president, to just ignore them and to say, oh, this is just political, you know, nonsense. And I think that that feeds into this
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
this pursuit of greater executive power and and and and and ignorance of red lines. And I think it's it's unfortunate. And I think social media is also a factor in this where, you know, the tribes are feeding each other, you know, their through tunnels of information that just backs up their favored politician.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
So I do, I think this, this, all of this is becoming more normalized in a way that is unfortunate and potentially long lasting, but you know, we'll see how it plays out. And, you know, first of all, we've got to get through the Trump years and, you know, we're just going to continue to, we're going to continue.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
Yeah, I mean, rule of law, it's just, you know, the Republicans and the Democrats love to use that term, but the rule of law is becoming less, you know, less real and less apparent in society today. And And that's, I mean, our country has really been held up by that norm for centuries now. And it's becoming less and less apparent. And that's really problematic. But Susan, what are your thoughts?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
I mean, I relate more to the terminology like around a bribe. A bribe is something when you take money and you respond to that bribe offer with that cash. You got to go full Menendez.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
I think the governance has been corrupted through this process. As to whether or not President Trump is acting corruptly, I'm observing and waiting for additional evidence. Agnostic. I'm interested, Susan, in what you think. Maybe you disagree. Susan, talk to me. Talk to me, Susan. This word corruption.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
Yeah, it is a really important question. I mean, first of all, the president is exempt under law from the criminal It's a crime and you could go to jail as a federal employee for taking an action that a particular action that impacts your family or yourself and your financial interest. And you could be charged by the Justice Department if the Justice Department were investigating that.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
The president and the vice president are exempt from that. So already – and this president has cited that frequently. I have no conflicts of interest. Legally – I can't. Right. But what the Supreme Court did last year, it opens a question as to whether or not the Justice Department could even charge the president with accepting a bribe because – If it's an official act, there is an open question.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
There's a footnote in that decision, which leaves it slightly ambiguous as to whether or not actually in what the Supreme Court majority wrote, there's a footnote that leaves a bit unclear whether or not there's enough room still to charge a president with bribery.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
But the Constitution does make clear, though, there is the language in the Constitution that impeachment, that one of the crimes and misdemeanors that could justify impeachment, the word specifically bribery is there in the Constitution as the grounds for an impeachment proceeding.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
An emoluments clause could result in a civil suit against the president that would require the president to give back the emolument that he or she received from the foreign government. And it could also be the basis of potentially an impeachment proceeding, but it wouldn't be a criminal matter.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
The For-Profit Presidency
We are back. But the bottom line question that you ask is that over a series of things that have happened over the last decade, it has made these questions much harder. And it's also part of the reason that what's happening is a conflict of interest. It is unethical. It is unprecedented. It is corrupting the government. I agree with all those things.