Megan Gorman
speaker
56 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 1 Jul
Megan Gorman’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 — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
I know, you know, I think we get tired of using the word without precedent when it comes to the Trump administration.
But I think we have to take a step back and look at why it's unprecedented by looking at the history of presidents and their money.
And this goes back to George Washington.
You know, George Washington understood that there was always going to be an inherent conflict with his personal finances and running the United States.
And so he sort of laid the framework in having it sort of arm's length.
And he actually had an overseer who helped manage his holdings.
And keep in mind, George Washington was not only the most popular man in the United States at that time, but he was probably the wealthiest.
And so he had extensive holdings.
But what you see over the course of history is presidents pass the baton on how to handle this conflict.
Washington passes it on, and you look at Lincoln.
And Lincoln really exemplifies this idea of putting country over self.
And what you see in Lincoln's finances is not only was he taking his salary and putting it in US Treasury bonds, but when the income tax was established, it wasn't clear if it applied to Lincoln, and he paid it anyway.
He passes the baton more to presidents that we know, you know, like Eisenhower.
Dwight Eisenhower, when he was running for president, did something shocking.
He gave up his military pension of $19,000 a year, buying power today of about $250,000, because he wanted to seem conflict-free.
Same thing with LBJ and Jimmy Carter, and Reagan.
All of them use blind trusts.
What's happened, though, in recent years, right, and you look at a president like Barack Obama, who originally had a blind trust, but because the trades are so public and he was not involved, but he was getting heat from it, he finally said, forget it with the blind trust.
I'm just going to sit in treasuries.
So each president grapples with this challenge.
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