Le Grift, C’est Moi

President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a signing ceremony in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 13. Alex Brandon/AP

The only time I ever worked on a political campaign, decades ago, I did opposition research on a Republican senator from New York named Alfonse D’Amato. He had a scandal-ridden background, most notably due to his proximity to a kickback scheme in Long Island in which public employees were forced to pay 1 percent of their salaries to the local GOP machine. (He denied wrongdoing.) He also was tied to a corruption scandal involving federal contracts doled out by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. (He denied wrongdoing.) He also had been chummy with at least one mob-related crook—and maybe more. (He denied wrongdoing.) Add to all that, a string of other sleazy controversies.

But none of this ever stuck to D’Amato, who cultivated the reputation of a street-savvy, give-you-a-wink rogue. Through his 18 years in the US Senate, he survived various allegations and investigations and was reelected twice. He was pure Teflon. It took me a while to figure out why.

I finally got it and derived the White Tablecloth Theory of Dirty Politics. If you’re out at a nice restaurant, sitting at a table with a white tablecloth, and you spill your red wine, everyone notices. There’s a big ugly stain that’s hard to ignore. But if the tablecloth is already dirty and marred by previous wine spillage and you knock over your glass, well, one more stain doesn’t matter. It blends right in.

D’Amato had so many stains on his record that by the time I started digging and finding additional ones, it just didn’t matter. The new revelations hardly stood out; they became part of the existing mélange. This dynamic continued throughout his political career. With his image as a guy who played perhaps a bit too loose and too fast, yet another disclosure of improbity didn’t change anything.

He was nothing compared to Donald Trump. But watching the president these past few months, I kept thinking of the Tablecloth Theory. Trump has engaged in record-setting levels of corruption, as he mixes his business interests with his day job. It’s as if the presidency is a mere side hustle to his main gig of maximum personal enrichment. His trip to the Middle East this past week was more a venture of Trump, Inc. than a presidential mission. His Trump Organization is developing projects in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—the three nations on his Mideast tour—while hooking up with firms tied to these Arab governments.

His family business is also cutting lucrative crypto deals with Arab partners. As my colleague Russ Choma recently reported, Eric Trump, who runs the Trump Organization now, was recently in Dubai and announced that

MGX, a UAE-based investment fund, would invest $2 billion in crypto exchange Binance using a “stablecoin” created by the Trumps’ crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. The deal could net the Trump family hundreds of millions, as the transaction lends enormous credibility and liquidity to their crypto business. MGX isn’t just any UAE-based investment fund. It’s chaired by Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser and brother of the Emirates’ ruler, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Let’s not forget the Saudi investment fund that kicked in $2 billion when Jared Kushner started his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, which subsequently attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in backing also from Qatar and the UAE.

Never has a president been so financially intertwined with foreign governments. No wonder he praised Mohammed bin Salman, the murderous ruler of Saudi Arabia, as a “gentleman.” After all, he’s helping Trump and his family make millions. And, as we all know, Trump agreed last week to accept a $400 million gift airplane from Qatar. Any slice of this would have been unthinkable for an American president in the past. But not with Trump. The latest grift is just another drop on an already huge pile of grift.

Which includes the new crypto ventures he recently started, and there’s not just one. He and his family own a 60 percent stake in World Liberty Financial (WLF), which was launched in September. It manages two digital currencies: $WLF1, which is known as a “governance” token, and $USD1, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. Whenever either coin is purchased, used, or transferred, WLF gets a fee. So, anyone—a foreign official, an oligarch, a crook, an overseas or domestic corporation seeking preferential treatment, an office seeker, a pardon seeker, a Trump buddy—can put moolah right into Trump’s grubby hands and curry favor with him by purchasing or using either of these coins. Best of all, these transactions can be anonymous. Ca-ching! There’s never been an easier way to bribe a president—or for a president to collect bribes.

Then there are the meme coins that both Trump and his wife, Melania, set up around the time of his inauguration: $TRUMP and $MELANIA. They, too, generate income from transaction fees. The early action on these coins brought in at least $350 million for Trump and $64 million for Melania. More recently, Trump established a contest with the prize of a White House visit for whoever buys the most amount of his pump-and-dump meme coin. Remember how the media and the right went nuts when President Bill Clinton hosted coffees at the White House for Democratic donors? Now Trump is using access to the White House as a way to line his own pockets. And his social media company is looking to go public. Even though it loses a ton of money, Trump stands to gain $3 billion from that deal.

Don’t forget that as president, Trump is in charge of regulating—or not regulating—the crypto industry, and the decisions his administration makes on this front could lead to greater riches for him and his clan.

What we’re seeing is not a conflict of interest, but a congruence of interests. Trump has merged the US government with his business. It's a cavalcade of corruption. It’s out in the open. It’s brazen and blatant. It’s orders of magnitude shadier than the false allegations (backed by Russian disinformation) that Republicans and right-wing media and operatives have hurled at Hunter and Joe Biden.

Unfortunately, no conflict-of-interest rules apply to the president. (They cover other government officials.) But would such rules slow down Trump’s unprecedent money-grab? He’s waving the blood-red tablecloth and shouting, “What are you going to do about it?” The founders’ remedy for a run-amok president was impeachment. They didn’t count on a political party becoming a personality cult committed to defending an autocrat-wannabe.

There’s simply too much sleaze for reporters to keep up with. I’ve only skimmed the surface here. And the White House wants to make it harder to cover Trump’s transgressions. When Business Insider recently ran an article headlined “Don Jr. is the new Hunter Biden,” which examined Junior’s venture capital fund and the conflicts it presents, the White House threatened to go after the publication’s owner, Axel Springer, the German media conglomerate, which also owns Politico.

If Al Capone were alive today, he would look at all this, smile, and say, “I’m going into politics.”

For more than 100 days, Trump has been assaulting American democracy, trampling the rule of law, and running a corrupt autocratic regime. A few Democrats are trying to call attention to his greed spree—which ought to be a bigger focus of their opposition. Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Rep. Sam Liccardo of California have introduced legislation to prevent federal officials—including a president—from using their position to profit off cryptocurrency. Murphy said:

The Trump meme coin is the single most corrupt act ever committed by a president. Donald Trump is essentially posting his Venmo for any billionaire CEO or foreign oligarch to cash in some favors by secretly sending him millions of dollars. It’s almost unbelievable until you remember this president will do whatever it takes—even selling access to the White House—to make himself richer. This is not normal, and we won’t let him get away with it.

Trump has already gotten away with too much. It seems the most important lesson he learned from his first term was not to leave any money on the table. And now he doesn’t give a damn how dirty the tablecloth gets.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

There’s a lot of media hullabaloo about several new books providing inside accounts of how the Biden White House covered up Biden’s impairments and, thus, helped set the stage for Trump’s victory last November. Most notable of these is Original Sin by CNN host Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of Axios. The New Yorker recently ran an excerpt, headlined “How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump,” which focused on George Clooney’s concerns about Biden that led the actor to publish an op-ed in the New York Times following Biden’s disastrous debate against Trump that called on Biden to quit the race.

Many people have asked me if I intended to, as some said, “weigh in” on all this. In short, no. To me it’s clear that Biden’s inner circle protected him and did not level with the rest of us or with him. He should have not run for reelection, and his family and close aides did him and the nation a profound disservice by not encouraging him to say goodbye—though, ultimately, he bears the blame, for stubbornly insisting on remaining in the race.

I will also note that I don’t think it’s obvious that an earlier departure would have boosted Kamala Harris’ chances—as some of her campaign aides have said. She and her camp managed to stage a well-run convention, and voters certainly had a chance to assess her as a candidate, after her three-and-a-half years as vice president. More time for her campaign might have helped. But perhaps not. Had Biden not run at all, a primary contest could have led to a different and perhaps stronger nominee. But it also could have been a bloody and exhausting contest that would have divided the party.

Who knows? We never will.

Political junkies, no doubt, will get a thrill poring over these accounts and siding with this or that axe-grinder. And, yes, it’s important to have a record of what happened and accountability regarding one of the worst political decisions in American history. But right now, there is a clear and present threat to the existence of our republic that surmounts score-settling.

Earlier this month, Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way, and Daniel Ziblatt, political scientists who study how democracies collapse, wrote a clear-eyed piece for the New York Times that summed up how America “has crossed the line” into what they call “competitive authoritarianism.” Their bottom line: “The Trump administration’s weaponization of government agencies and flurry of punitive actions against critics has raised the cost of opposition for a wide range of Americans.” Meaning that Trump has already succeeded in creating a situation in which “citizens must think twice about criticizing or opposing the government because they could credibly face government retribution.” When this occurs, they say, we are “no longer live in a full democracy.”

They are right. We are slipping into authoritarianism. That doesn’t mean a full descent is assured. This decline can still be arrested, as the authors of the Times piece noted. It will, though, take much focus and effort. Political dramas from last year that consume oxygen—especially those that pit Democrats against each other in an orgy of blame-gaming and CYAing that feed the media narrative of Dems-in-disarray—will not help. I’m not saying don’t buy or read these books. But try to avoid obsessing over the Biden Betrayal. There’s no room for distraction these days.

There was much stupidity emanating from Trump’s trip to the Middle East, not all of it fixed on the topic of Qatar offering him a jumbo jet as a gift. But we’ll get to that. One of the hardest-to-bear remarks came from Trump himself when he was in Saudi Arabia and said of Mohammed bin Salman:

We have great partners in the world, but we have none stronger and nobody like the gentleman that’s right before me. He's your greatest representative, your greatest representative. And if I didn't like him, I'd get out of here so fast…He knows me well. I do. I like him a lot. I like him too much.

A gentleman? According to US intelligence, bin Salman instructed Saudi operatives in 2018 to assassinate Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and American resident who was killed and dismembered within the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. These days he rules an autocratic state that represses and jails critics and continues to deny women their full rights. Only Trump would call him a gentleman. Only Trump would “like him too much.”

Appearing on CNBC, Kevin Hassett, the director of Trump’s National Economic Council, tried to blame Canada for tensions between Ottawa and Washington: "Canada kept making it worse and worse with their rhetoric."

A Trump adviser complaining about somebody else’s rhetoric? How absurd can you get? You don’t hear Canadian leaders threatening to make the United States the 11th province of Canada.

Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, had a tough time when asked a simple question by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) at a congressional hearing: Was the photograph that Trump showed of wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s knuckles tattooed with “MS-13” doctored? The answer is yes. But Noem just couldn’t say that.

Nothing but word salad to cover for Dear Leader’s disinformation.

Let's stick with the topic of disinformation. “There has never been a president more willing to stand up to the oligarchs” than Trump, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a press conference. Maybe he ought to ask Elon Musk about that. Or look at the numbers. Trump’s tax cuts in his first term led to an average break of $252,300 for people in the top one-tenth of 1 precent. Middle-income taxpayers got about $900. That’s quite a good deal for oligarchs. And Trump and the GOP are looking to do the same with new tax measures now before Congress.

The judges, though, did want to award Kennedy (a regular contestant) a special mention for the surprising candor he displayed at a congressional hearing this week, when he proclaimed, “I don’t think people should be taking advice—medical advice—from me.”

Back to our large group of contestants this week: Addressing the recent calamities in aviation traffic, Sean Duffy, the secretary of Transportation, remarked, “Patriotic controllers are gonna stay on and continue to serve the country.”

It takes a lot of chutzpah to say that after the Trump administration has fired several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees, causing serious problems that affect the already high-stress environment in which air traffickers operate. As Axios reported in March, “Some air traffic controllers are worried about safety, staffing and more amid the Trump administration's purge of federal workers.”

Fox News supplied this piece of hard-hitting journalism this week:

They fawn. You decide.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) went into full Dear Leader-itis mode when he was asked about the brazen conflict of interests posed by Trump’s crypto business: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"

So does that mean Trump’s crypto is just a hobby? Like crochet?

At a talk he gave at Georgetown University Law Center, Chief Justice John Roberts bemoaned the fact that the rule of law is “endangered” these days. He added, “The notion that rule of law governs is the basic proposition.”

It’s a bit late for Roberts to be grousing about Trump and his minions undermining the rule of law. He led the court last year when it ruled that Trump (or any other president) was partially immune from criminal prosecution. You hand a fellow (a convicted felon!) criminal immunity and then act surprised when he tramples the rule of law? Not too smart, Chief. Harvard College and Harvard Law School ought to be ashamed.

Nonetheless, our winner in this crowded field is a veteran purveyor of dumbrageous remarks: right-wing columnist Ann Coulter. Defending the Qatari plane deal, she quipped, “I can’t wait for the press to find out about France’s so-called ‘gift’ of the Statue of Liberty, accepted in 1886 by then-President Grover Cleveland.”

Um, there’s quite a big difference here. Cleveland did not take the Statue of Liberty home and put it in his backyard. It was hardly a bribe. And Congress voted to accept the statue as a gift—which is what the Constitution requires. We can’t wait for her to learn how to use Google.

This week, Donald Trump showed that he does care about refugees—if they’re white and from South Africa. Dozens of Afrikaners whom he granted refugee status landed at Dulles Airport, all part of a right-wing disinformation campaign that claims white genocide is underway in South Africa. This is bunk. In the last quarter of last year, there were between one and eight murders of Afrikaner farmers (the figure is disputed), out of a total of 6,953 homicides across South Africa. Still, Trump, South African–born Elon Musk, and other right-wingers are promoting a phony tale of anti-white mass killing. And to prop up this nonsense, Trump is granting safe haven to Afrikaners who are supposedly threatened.

At least one major player in refugee resettlement in the United States has said no to this. From the Washington Post:

The Episcopal Church is ending its refugee resettlement agreement with the federal government rather than comply with a directive to help resettle White South Africans arriving in the United States as refugees, citing its “steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation.”

The church’s decision…drew criticism from the White House and Vice President JD Vance.

The church’s presiding bishop, Sean Rowe, said in a letter that the US Refugee Admissions Program, which the church’s resettlement ministry participated in for decades, “has essentially shut down” since January, with no refugees arriving and hundreds of staff laid off. Then, several weeks ago, the Trump administration told the church that it would be expected to resettle the White Afrikaners under the terms of its federal grant.

Rowe said the church wouldn’t do so given the “highly unusual manner” in which the federal government selected the White South Africans, who received “preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years.” Instead, he said, the church would end its refugee resettlement grant agreements with the government by the end of the fiscal year in September.

“I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country.”

Kudos for Bishop Rowe for taking a stand.

Bruce Springsteen, during a show in Manchester, England, gave the sort of speech we should be hearing from Democratic leaders here:

There was much mail about the recent issue that highlighted the Trump-Musk actions that are eviscerating a generation of scientists, researchers, and policy experts.

Bill Gray wrote:

Great piece on the Trump-inflicted brain drain. It's all a disaster, but few are aware of the specific disaster you address.

Thanks, Bill. It's too bad there doesn't seem to be space in the political-media cosmos to make this a major part of the debate. R&D is the engine of future economic prosperity. That’s a rather basic point. Yet Trump and his posse, looking to own the libs, are so eager to undermine government agencies and academic institutions that they will purposefully crush a generation of innovators.

Michele Coxon needed to vent:

I just don't get it! Why is everyone, the population, congressmen and women, university populations, and all those in the scientific community not pushing back more forcefully? What would happen if everyone just stood their ground and said, “No, I won't go?” Naive, maybe, but in many ways, we are allowing Trump to dismantle the best institutions in this country. Like it is often said, bullying can only exist when it is allowed. And we are allowing him/them to do these things. Lawsuits are useless so why waste time on that? Aren't there other means for stopping him? It's one thing to continue protesting, which we are with great fervor, but quite another thing for those closer to the crime scene to be working more diligently and forcefully to stop this devastation. I don't see it. Writing opinions is essential, for sure, but is it changing anything? Preaching to the choir? I would love for you to enlighten me on what the reasons may be that the silence seems to get louder.

I receive many emails that boil down to this: What the hell can we do? And why isn’t more being done? The options are the obvious ones: protest, file lawsuits (which do, for now, have the potential to curb some Trump assaults on democracy), organize for elections (federal, state, and local contests), support advocacy groups on the frontlines, engage with everyone you know to make sure they are informed and engaged themselves. Opposition is spreading slowly but inexorably. You see that at town hall meetings and rallies, as well as in polling. Courts are trying to impose some guardrails. A few more prominent voices are speaking out.

But, yes, as of now, it is not happening as quickly as is necessary. How to accelerate resistance? That is a tough one. We can only hope that the more that is done, the more the pace will pick up. As far as I know, there are no magic bullets or secret strategies to save the day. Organize, organize, organize. And preaching to the choir is a good thing. A strong choir is essential for any church. One of the first issues of this newsletter was a defense of preaching to the choir. Give it a read.

Nancy Bruski wrote:

My main concern at the moment is that I’m not sure our country can survive even close to intact until a potential big win for Dems in 2026. I feel it is hugely urgent that we find a way to put the brakes on Trump before that. I’m hoping and wondering, and even praying, that there might be a way for just a small handful of Republican legislators to begin to oppose Trump and stand up, just a little bit, for what is right for our country. Not holding my breath, mind you, but hoping. What do you think about the issue of 2026 being too late to save us?

I don't want to be so pessimistic as to say we won't make it to 2026. But I do think it's important to note that even if the Democrats regain control of the House, Trump (with a compliant Senate) can still take many actions to implement authoritarianism. His most egregious steps to date have not been through legislation but through executive orders. A Democratic-controlled House can try to stop some of this. But there still will be a major battle at hand. 

Wyn Snow responded to a recent conversation I had with Moxie about the death of a friend. I noted I was sad because I could no longer talk to this person. Moxie replied, “But you still can talk to them. They just won’t talk back.” Wyn observed:

Wow, that is so true. They just won't talk back. Moxie wisdom. Love it!

Speaking of Moxie...

“Moxie, you’re a lot of work—taking care of you, going on walks, keeping you company. But you’re worth it.”
“I could say the same about you.”
“Then we have a good deal.”
“Indeed, we do.”