Eric Lipton
speaker
759 appearances
6 recordings
4 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard 5 Aug
Eric Lipton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So to some extent, the midterms will be an answer to this question of do people really care?
Thank you, Rachel, for having me.
To me, I think it's over.
I don't want to deal with them anymore.
They're scum.
As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them.
They're liars.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, no.
Right, and was ultimately acquitted.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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