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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Today explained from Vox, Sean Ramos' firm here in Washington, D.C., where all the attention is on the reflecting pool. Back in May, it was going to be indestructible.
If you had a knife, I don't want to give anybody ideas. If you had a knife, you can't even cut it.
Yesterday, it's been vandalized. Who would think that somebody would go into a pool and take a knife and start cutting it?
People are big mad because it sure looks a lot like the president of the United States gave a buddy of his and another company like $15 million or so of our taxpayer money to completely bungle a renovation of our National Mall just weeks before our nation's 250th birthday. What a waste, what a scam. We're going to get to that one later in the week.
But on the show today, we're going to talk about two Trumpy scams that are directly enriching the Trump family, all while Daddy Trump is running the country. The Trump phone, which maybe you've heard about, and a Trump bank, which maybe you haven't. Support for this show comes from Odoo.
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What happens when political appointees push charges that career prosecutors don't support?
There is an element to this administration that wants to simply shout down reality. And I think shouting down reality and shouting down justice, shouting down fairness, should be a deeply concerning thing to all Americans.
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Chapter 2: What is the Trump phone and how does it work?
This long-awaited T1 phone from Trump Mobile is finally here. But yes, it was just the one-year anniversary of the announcement of Trump Mobile and the Trump phone. The made-in-America phone that wasn't really made in America. one year later has still kind of only halfway launched. Do you have one? I do not. I have one on the way. It has been, we have paid for one. The Verge has bought a phone.
We've put down money. It is somewhere in transit at the moment. How much does a Trump phone cost? $499. Oh. But to get that, you've got to put down a $100 deposit. So we paid $100 a year ago and have been waiting very patiently ever since to see if we would get anything in exchange for that $100. It looks like maybe we actually will.
Donald Trump, President of the United States, I believe user of the iPhone. Yeah. Why phone? Very unclear, in all honesty. I think the bigger angle from the Trump organization perspective, they just like licensed the name to this company that's running all this stuff. Really, they seem to be building it all around the network.
There's Trump Mobile, which has this plan called the 47 plan, which costs you $47.45 a month.
45th president of the United States. 45th and 47th.
Very carefully chosen numbers. And I think that's really what it's about. That's the way of making money. I chatted to a couple of executives from the company back in February this year, and they kind of said, we're in the razor blade business, not the razor business, by which they clearly meant the money is made in the monthly subscription service. The money is made in the plan.
Here's what you get. Unlimited talk, text and data. Free calls to over 100 countries, including places like U.S. military bases. you will see the telecom tax being added to the cost of the plan. And this is really high. This is higher than the taxes and fees added by AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon. The phone, when I spoke to these executives, they kept trying to downplay the phone.
Like the phone was this marketing idea they'd have. The phone was this thing that would drum up interest in the plan. And then suddenly all anyone wanted to talk about was the phone. I think I might be the first person to have a T1 Trump phone. Guys, you will not believe what I have in my hand. This is actually the trombone, the T1. It's actually real. So weird, but tell us about this phone.
I mean, how does it compare to some of the most popular phones on the market? It's a very generic mid-range Android phone. It's golden. It's kind of golden-ish. It's a bit of a yellowy gold in person from everything I've heard. They couldn't even get the gold right? The phrase pea-colored has been thrown around. Oh, no. This anodized aluminum is just straight up not gold.
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Chapter 3: What are the costs and features of the Trump phone?
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Chapter 4: How does the Trump phone compare to other smartphones?
And according to The Wall Street Journal, it looks like the payments didn't even go through until after he was inaugurated. So if you have concerns, as the Constitution does, about the United States president accepting payments from foreign powers, this one seems to be a massive one.
Kind of impossible to imagine another president doing this kind of thing recent or, you know, especially like I can't I can't picture Teddy Roosevelt being involved in crypto. But is there some degree to like Trump has this long history of grift that people just kind of look the other way at this massive grift? I've absolutely thought so since he first came in.
When he first came in and had that D.C. hotel and the golf clubs, I thought people were like, well, it's Donald Trump. Of course he's going to do this sort of stuff. And, you know, they pledged not to do some things. They weren't going to do any foreign deals. Don and Eric will say they abided by that promise and didn't get any credit for it. It locked to terms on, you know, how you'd...
what you'd consider a foreign deal. You know, if you think a foreign government spending a lot of money on one of his properties is a foreign deal, then they clearly violated it. Um, but yeah, it's, it's Donald Trump. It's what were you expecting? You know, I think that's the advantage that Donald Trump has long had is that people have known him for decades and he's always been like this.
So, so what are you expecting? And that's, you know, massively problematic. No other president to the best of my knowledge has applied for a banking charter before. Um, And you're seeing it a lot. There was Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden. And what Hunter Biden did was wrong. It was wrong in the same way of Roger Clinton and Billy Carter.
And there's a long history of family members of presidents running some kind of grift. But that is such low dollars. According to Forbes, Eric Trump's net worth is shot up from $40 million before his dad was elected to 400 million. Donald Trump Jr. went from 50 to 300 million. Barron Trump, college student, he's doing all right. He's worth about 150 million, again, all according to Forbes.
These are massive amounts of money. You know, we would talk about how Don Jr. and Eric, while certainly wealthy, were not nearly as wealthy as the children of a lot of other billionaires who were involved in the family business. Well, they fixed that. And a lot of that has come through World Liberty Financial. Those two are both listed as co-founders. They're both promoting it.
And Barron as well is listed as a co-founder of the company. And that is largely what is driving this massive amount of wealth that you're seeing the Trumps accumulate this term.
So
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