Trump's crypto billion dollars - why is everyone fine with it?

0:02This is a global production. The original idea of the social contract of America was that its leaders would prioritize the people over themselves. Donald Trump clearly didn't get the memo. He has become roughly two and a half million dollars richer every single day. Donald Trump is enriching himself on a scale that no one has ever seen before. Country first, party second. That's the order of things. And he's just reversed it. Self first, country, well, a bit later on, once we've done the financing. $800 million came from the government of the UAE. Of all the crypto ventures around the world, it decides to invest and buy a stake in Donald Trump's.

0:52I wonder what first attracted them. What first attracted them to Donald Trump? You've got your head in your hands at this point, because you're saying, what must that be like for a taxpayer? What must that be like for an American voter? Would you say you're profiting off the presidency? Well, you know why I'm profiting? Because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting. If you have a 401k, how's your 401k done? It's about up 85%. Thank you, President Trump. So we're all profiting. I'm profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash and I give it to institutions. I don't know if they know what they're doing or not, but they buy a vast array of things.

1:38The question the reporter asked was, are you profiting from the presidency? The answer is an unequivocal yes. And it's not just because the stock market's gone up. That does not explain how Donald Trump is$1.4 billion richer than he was before he went back into the White House in January last year. Yeah, we know this. We've seen it. There's proof of it. So why is everyone pretending it's absolutely fine? Welcome to the News Agents USA. The News Agents USA with Emily Maitlis and John Sopel. It's John. It's Maitlis. And some of the numbers that are emerging from this disclosure about how much Trump has made is so stark and somehow so shocking.

2:32The original idea of the social contract of America was that its leaders would prioritise the people over themselves. Donald Trump clearly didn't get the memo on that because it sure as hell looks like he is prioritising himself and his family over everything else. And some of the financial deals that have gone on are just eye watering. Let me just take you through that one point four billion dollar figure of how much richer he's become since becoming president. That means that for every day he's been in the White House since taking office, he has become roughly two and a half million dollars richer every single day.

3:16The average wage of an American is sixty thousand dollars a year. How long would it take an American to earn what Donald Trump is raked in in one day? 40 years, a lifetime. Donald Trump is enriching himself on a scale that no one has ever seen before. No one could have ever imagined before. And no one seems to want to stop him. Yeah, he has taken that Bible of country first, party second, family third. That's the order of things. And he's just reversed it. And it now says self first country. Well, a bit later on, once we've done the financing. And I do think that if you go back in history and you look at, for example, Jimmy Carter, who, when he became president, had to give up his peanut farm.

4:16He literally had to give up a peanut farm. His brother, I think, had a beer business. William had this beer business and he wasn't even allowed to call it Bill's beers, Billy's beers, because it was seen to be that he was on the make from the presidency. And the whole idea of public office generally in American life has been that it is actually a source of debt. It becomes something that you do where you know that you will not be enriched, quite the opposite. But you give up everything you have because you are putting the soul of America, the remaking of America, the bettering of your country before yourself.

4:59Trump's just torn that one up and said, oh, sod that. There's a lovely phrase that Kara Swisher, who writes extensively on tech, has for Trump. She calls him the coin operated president. In other words, if you want to get anything out of him, you have to put money in the slot. That's the only thing he understands. If you want to try and get policies changed, if you want to try and get laws changed, if you want anything, you put money in the slot. So let's just go exactly on from that to some of the detail of what happened. So Donald Trump's interest in crypto seems to happen just as he's about to become president for the second time.

5:43And he served as co-founder of the crypto firm, his family's crypto firm, World Liberty Financial. That business has now generated eight hundred million dollars for the president. This is according to the latest financial disclosure, a significant share of which of that eight hundred million dollars came from the government of the UAE, which bought a stake in the company. Now, why was the UAE? Of all the crypto ventures around the world, it decides to invest and buy a stake in Donald Trump's. I wonder what first attracted them. What first attracted them to Donald Trump? Yeah. What may they get from it?

6:24What might they gain from it? Then you take three days before the inauguration, he separately helped launch a meme coin, dollar sign Trump kind of collectible version of crypto. That business has generated another six hundred and thirty six million dollars for Mr. Trump, equal to slightly more than the entire amount of money he made from his entire property portfolio. So Trump has got rich off the back of crypto in a huge way. And, you know, stuff that he passed into law about having these coins, this type of coin. four months before the boys had invested in that company and so suddenly Donald Trump signs a law that makes it all perfectly kosher and legal and you just think my god well I think why this is so interesting is that the regulation of crypto is actually one of the hottest conversations that is being had at the moment around government around the White House and it actually falls into the domain of executive power to be able to sort this out.

7:28So if it is an official action of the executive, i.e. it falls under the decision of Trump versus the United States to decide to do what he wants, he can take public payments for regulatory changes because that's official too. He is essentially immune from prosecution if he wants to go where the money is leading him. In In other words, he gets to decide how crypto is regulated. He gets to decide what the laws look like. The tech bros discovered this years ago. They understood the deal that you have to do to get Trump on side before he was elected, which is why, obviously, they all ended up on the front row of his inauguration.

8:14This is a man whose very executive office, his job is to decide who's in and who's out. and it just so happens that this is making him filthy rich. Yeah, it's making him filthy rich. And you look at that Supreme Court ruling that came a little while back that gives Trump more or less immunity. So when we play that clip at the top of the show where Donald Trump says, I feel it's my duty as a president, that means you have total frigging immunity from prosecution because anything you are doing that is in connection in any way with your role as the president of the United States is protected. And so he can do whatever he likes and never face any sanction of anyone coming in and saying, I'm sorry, Mr.

8:56President, you acted corruptly. He's got the backing of the Supreme Court on all of this. Yeah, you should spell that out a bit because this is taking our listeners back to something that happened before the 2024 election, which was essentially the whole question of the insurrection. It was the whole question of whether he could find himself in trouble for leading an insurrection. and what the Supreme Court eventually decided after I think it was the Arizona lower court that sort of brought this to him was they said, well, he has to be able to have the freedom to act as he sees fit as president.

9:30Now, curiously, in that interim, he was no longer, I mean, he was technically president, but he wasn't acting as president anymore because he just lost the election. But the fact that the Supreme Court have given him this enormous birth, this enormous space to say anything that falls under the purview of the presidency has to be protected. Essentially, they have given him, they have doled out so much more executive power to Donald Trump so that his hands aren't, as it were, tied by the judges, tied by Congress, tied by the judiciary. They have enabled him to basically say, if I want it, I can have it.

10:09He can act with immunity and impunity. And that is a very happy place to be if you're Donald Trump and you want to amass your family's fortunes to an even greater extent with your Mar-a-Lago golf resort and all the rest of it that he is now able to do. And what this paperwork has shown is, you know, this is official paperwork that has come out that has shown just how much richer Donald Trump has become. He is saying, no, no, no, there's no conflict of interest here. I'm obeying all the rules because, you know, it's my son's company. But he is making decisions. You know, his son is going with him on business trips to China.

10:49His son is alongside him when deals are being negotiated. And surprise, surprise, Trump hotels come out with a very sweet deal from the Vietnamese or the Chinese or whoever it happens to be because they are alongside him. There is absolutely no effort to hide it. And what the White House also says is, how can this be corrupt if I'm doing it in plain sight, if I'm doing it openly? Well, sorry, if I pull out a gun now, Emily, and murder you, I'm not going to, I promise you, I'm doing it in plain sight. It's still murder. It doesn't make it any less corrupt what Donald Trump is doing just because he says, well, look, it's everywhere.

11:29It's obvious what I'm doing. But also it's the fact that he has garnered enough people on his own side to essentially whitewash it for him. So, you know, the White House, when they are asked about this, they say President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public. Right. In other words, you have people who are taking it on as a subject to be discussed and then pushing it back and saying, don't listen to the fake news media. He's only acting in the best interests of the American public. And you're kind of you've got your head in your hands at this point because you're saying, what must that be like for a taxpayer?

12:04What must that be like for an American voter? What must that be like to see not only the greed and the corruption, but the justification that is all being done for you? Now, do you remember a couple of days ago, Trump suddenly changed his mind on the midterms? I wonder if we can find you that clip. You've got to win the midterms because if we don't win the midterms, it's just going to be, I mean, they'll find a reason to impeach me. I'll get impeached. We don't impeach them. You know why? Because they're meaner than we are. We should have impeached Joe Biden for 100 different things. He suddenly starts saying, oh, actually, I do care about the midterms.

12:50We must win them because otherwise I'm going to be impeached. This is one of those rare moments where Trump accidentally sort of says what he's really thinking rather than kind of the bullshit around it. And I went back and I did a bit of ferreting. And it is true, actually, within the Constitution. I mean, the Constitution is still, as we speak, in effect, treason and bribery are still impeachable offences. So if you can connect this corruption back to bribery, and as you say, it is whether you're receiving gifts like jet planes from Qatar or from the UAE, whether you are receiving money for pardons, which is another source of income now, all those people who want to have their pardon fixed before Trump leaves office.

13:33How much is that costing you? In this coin operated sort of vision, you are raking stuff in from anyone who needs to get something from you. And that can be impeachable because it's bribery. Now, look, the Democrats haven't done very well when it comes to impeachment. We know that. But I think it does speak to the fact that Trump basically knows he's on the clock now. Right. If I was the Democrats, the last thing I would be reaching for is the weapon of impeachment. Donald Trump keeps talking about there's no affordability crisis in the United States of America. Well, no, there's bloody not. If you've got Donald Trump's bank account and you've got two and a half million dollars richer every single frigging day that you've been the president.

14:15No, Donald Trump does not have an affordability crisis. The American people, on the other hand, are not making the same sums of money in the way that Donald Trump has. And a lot of Americans who may not follow financial affairs as closely as Donald Trump, who've invested, have lost tons of money in some of his crypto ventures because they've got shot up. He's cashed in and they've picked, you know, they've been left with the bill. So I think that I think if I was a Democrat, I would just focus on how out of touch, how much self enriching has gone on with this president. While Americans have suffered because of the war in Iran, the cost of fuel at the pumps, the inflation that is still in the system, the fact that interest rates have not been cut and don't seem to be being cut anytime soon because of that residual inflation brought about by the war in Iran that Donald Trump chose.

15:06He has laid this on the American people while he has got rich. And the question we began with was, why is nobody awake to this? Why is nobody screaming about this? Not even a squeaking about it. Not even a squeak. And it is interesting. Like once you've recognised that Trump is able to fear impeachment still, you know, another time, you kind of start wondering why the Republicans who are fighting in the midterms aren't worrying about this a little bit more. And I think the truth is they are because Trump's genius electorally, politically, was getting out voters who really hadn't voted for a long time, who weren't that engaged in the political system, who were sort of, you know, behind, as it were, the political rock or the stone.

15:55And Trump isn't on the ballot now. There is a very good chance that when the Republicans that need to win their seats in the Senate, in Congress, go and ask for those votes, those votes just don't materialise. Because people don't feel the energy. They don't feel very rich. They don't feel they're doing very well. They look at the president at the top of the ticket, who's clearly not put country before party or party before self, and they kind of go, I don't think I'll bother. It's not that they're necessarily going to flock to the Democrats as a result of this, but they might just stay home. I hate whataboutism, but you look back at the hue and cry and outrage and indignation that was shown by the Republicans over Hunter Biden getting a directorship of Burisma, some energy company in Ukraine, when his dad back in the day was vice president and saying that he enriched himself by hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of his connections to his dad.

17:03and how corrupt are the Democrats. And you look at what is happening now. I mean, my God, it's the difference between the mafia and a kindergarten at the moment, between what the Trump family are enriching themselves with and what Hunter Biden did. Yet everybody was their hair was on fire over Hunter Biden. And as you say, Emily, this time round, not a squeak, not a sound from those same people who were so indignant a few years back. Because they've learned how to brazen it out. Yeah. Right. I mean, the Democrats, the Biden family got itself in all sorts of contortions over whether Hunter Biden had overstepped his role as son of the president.

17:49And they sort of acted guilty before there was even any evidence of guilt. And I think the opposite is true of Trump. We know how he does business. He sends out his sons ahead of him. They are the segue to Trump. Turn up in Kazakhstan. Is there anything you'd like to offer us? My father might be here soon. Are there any deals you'd like to offer us? Is there anything you think might be of interest? My father will be here soon. And it's all done virtually as official business. We'll be back in a moment on the changes that have been made in the Supreme Court and how they might benefit Donald Trump.

18:38The News Agents USA. Just as in England, where we have the season. So if it's June, July, you have Wimbledon. In America, you have the Supreme Court. And what happens is there's a week at the end of June, July, before the justices hang up their black robes and go off for the summer. They announce a whole series of blockbuster decisions that have been in the works all year. And everyone camps out at the Supreme Court waiting for the judges to rule on whatever the issue happens to be. And this year, there have been some mega ones. I mean, the biggest was Donald Trump's executive order, which challenged the 14th Amendment about birthright citizenship.

19:20In other words, if you're born in the United States, you're American. Donald Trump wanted to overturn that, said it was anachronistic. It was all to do with when slaves were freed and that they should be allowed to stay in America. The Supreme Court came back and said, no, you can't do that. But there were a number of other areas where on the surface, it looks like Donald Trump has had a major setback. But if you dig a little deeper, Donald Trump seemed to get quite a lot of want he wanted from this Supreme Court, made up as it is of six small c conservatives and three liberals. Yeah, it's really worth just dwelling on what he was fighting over what's called the birthright question, because in a nutshell, it would have redefined what it means to be an American.

20:10And if you are American, there is an understanding that the country offers you chances, the country offers you opportunity, that if you are born within it, that you can rise to become anything, that you have opportunity to become anything. and this would have gone straight to the heart, I think, of a real question of identity here, which is trying to decide who is a real American and who is not an American, who gets to make you American and who doesn't. But it wasn't a universal decision. As you say, it came down to 6-3. The conservative ones ultimately did go with the importance of retaining this birthright citizenship.

21:05But there were dissenters. Brett Kavanaugh was one. Samuel Alito was another, who basically gave their own reasons why there was concern about the law as it stands. And Stephen Miller, from right inside Trump's coterie in the White House, explains why the president wanted it to change. This is absolutely a deep knife wound in the heart of the American Republic. Look, Jesse, I can step tomorrow onto the deck of a 747. It does not mean that I am the pilot of that plane and I'm qualified to fly it. Just physically being on U.S. soil does not make you a citizen or qualified to carry on or capable of executing the inheritance of this country.

21:49We have people from all over the world, from third world nations, nations that on their own would have never invented the wheel, let alone modern technology, let alone medicine, let alone air travel. And they can just come into the country, have a baby at a hospital, paid for it by you and me. And then that baby is automatically a citizen. That baby can sit on a jury when he turns 18 and sit in judgment of you and sit in judgment of me and sit in judgment of our loved ones can decide who our mayors are, our governors are, our presidents are. One angry man there. I'm worried about his blood pressure.

22:23I'm sorry, Emily. Listening to that clip. Have a cool drink. Just take a breath. Yeah. But I suppose what he's trying to get to the heart of that, which is an ongoing debate about immigration, is if you think that people are coming to the US to have their babies so that they can get the status rather than so they can sort of, you know, become part of American life, then they're worrying. I knew people who did that. I'm sorry. just to it's it's not without foundation right when i was at the bbc in washington someone's sister came over from another country six seven months pregnant waited stayed with her until she had the baby hey presto the child will have an american passport so honestly it does happen and there are people who are abusing the system as a way of getting into america so it's it's not fantasy when Stephen, I mean, when he talks about countries that would never have invented the wheel.

23:20Oh, for God's sake, you racist idiot. I mean, you don't put it away. Don't talk like that. It's so unnecessary. Yeah. And I think to the point about, you know, your anecdote is it is still a legal mechanism. It's not, you know, when Trump was focusing on immigration, it was getting the wrong ones out, getting the bad people out, getting the people who've committed crimes off American soil. It wasn't people who've literally been through the whole system, who've actually sort of earned their spurs, earned their status, been born in, grown up there, paid their taxes. There wasn't anything illegal about that.

23:55But I think I'm just going to say one thing, which sort of speaks to the Stephen Miller tone. I think this is not a bad place for Trump to be. I think it's actually, weirdly, a political win without the headache of having to make it right. Exactly. For Donald Trump, the fight is more important than whether you win or not. He doesn't want to have to sit there deciding. And also what happens if it becomes retrospective? What happens if you say, well, you were born in America. Bye bye. Thank you. Goodbye. No. Well, let's talk more about what the Supreme Court changes and rulings mean for immigration and a number of other matters as well.

24:32Well, joining us now, Zach Schoenfeld is the legal affairs reporter at The Hill. And you've had a busy week. Zach focuses specifically on the Supreme Court and it is the end of term, essentially. So, Zach, what are your takeaways? What has been the really big defining move this week? Yeah, we've had quite a number of blockbuster decisions here. In the final few opinion days, the Supreme Court really left some of their biggest cases this year for the end of the term. And really the biggest case that we saw this year, at least when it comes to President Trump's agenda, was this massive case over birthright citizenship.

25:10This case that involved a day one immigration policy of President Trump that would restrict birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil if their parents are in the U.S. unlawfully. But from the Supreme Court, six of the nine justices disagreeing with the president, five of those justices saying it violates the Constitution. A sixth one said it violates a different federal law. And so now a key prong of President Trump's immigration agenda is no more because of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has really emerged as one of the biggest roadblocks to the president's second term agenda.

25:48He obviously has majorities in both houses of Congress. So it really has been the courts here over the last year and a half that have been really one of the only roadblocks from stopping the president from moving ahead very quickly with so many different aspects of his agenda. As you say, this was a long held wish of Donald Trump. But where is the public on this issue? I mean, was there a lot of support for this? Do you think people cared about this? You know, I think this issue is you compare it to some of the other cases that the Supreme Court has decided. Right. We had a big abortion case just a few years ago where the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion.

26:27That was a case where they were really against public opinion. But as you look to a case on birthright citizenship, I'm not so sure that public opinion is as lopsided as compared to the abortion issue. And really, though, this birthright citizenship issue before President Trump took office, the conventional understanding among most lawyers had been that the Constitution protects birthright citizenship with very few exceptions. And so really over the last year and a half, it's been interesting to watch because as President Trump signed that executive order back at his inauguration, it really invigorated this debate among conservative lawyers over the last year and a half.

27:06I have been traveling to conservative legal conferences, you know, across the country. I've been reading op-eds. I mean, these debates have been going on in conservative legal circles. But this is really a debate that we weren't having before the president retook office. Like I said, most people thought that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protected birthright citizenship full stop. Just on. OK, so birthright citizenship in the 14th Amendment remains intact as a result of what the Supreme Court ruled a couple of days ago. But on other measures on immigration, didn't Donald Trump notch up some kind of important wins on what he can do to deport people?

27:44That's right. We saw a big decision on a program called Temporary Protected Status Program. This allows the sitting administration to designate certain countries that are experiencing armed conflict, a natural disaster, or some sort of other extraordinary condition. And then the government can give nationals from those countries temporary deportation protections and a pathway to get work authorization in the U.S. When President Trump took office, There were 17 countries designated for that program under President Biden. Trump, he has said that the Biden administration abused that temporary protected status program.

28:23He has been trying to remove many of the countries from it. He has removed 13 of the 17 countries and counting. And the Supreme Court in this big decision essentially greenlit his efforts to do so. This was a six to three decision. And the bottom line of what the Supreme Court said is that federal judges have almost no power to second guess what the administration is doing here. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal law that sets up this immigration program says that federal courts and federal judges do not have power to have judicial review and actually review the president's actions. So what is that going to mean in real terms?

29:02Does that mean there's going to be a big increase in the number of deportations taking place now from America or of people from these countries? They're very well could, because this program, as you look to the 17 countries, there are more than a million recipients of this program. And so it says more than a million people in the U.S. who have these deportation protections. And now the president seemingly is going to be able to remove them. Now, there is all these different countries. There are different lawsuits. And a lot of this litigation has been in the lower courts. It hasn't gotten to the Supreme Court.