Welcome back everyone. I am Cass PNC.
I'm joined as usual by my partner in crime, Mr. Bennett
Tomlin. How are you today?
Oh, I'm doing OK. How are you, Cass?
Whatever we are talking about a kind of a strange, I, I think
most people already know the answer, our answer to this
question. But there's kind of this there
was this weird moment today where it became a question of is
Donald Trump and Donald Trump's and are Donald Trump's
administration, his administrators, cabinet, are
they corrupt? And I think for anyone who's
been following along for the past several months of the
podcast, I think, you know, our answer to that is absolutely,
100%. But this isn't about what we
think. This is about the fact that
after publishing a pretty damning article about all of the
crazy bribe, like, I guess I'll say bribe like moments that are
occurring under the Trump administration, namely with
Trumpcoin. The New York Times put out this
article pretty damning. And then immediately after they
put it out, one of the authors of the article, Eric Lipton, put
out a, a, a post on blue sky that said, you know, this isn't
corruption in, in more words than that, But basically, this
isn't corruption. You can't define it as.
Corruption. Right, it's potential
corruption. Theoretical corruption.
It's Schrodinger's corruption. The corruption must be observed
before you can officially declare that it is corruption.
But yeah, so let's we've talked about Trump coin before.
I think when we last talked about it, I'm not sure if the
dinner was a part of the narrative.
Probably, probably not. I think either way, we were
pretty worried about it and what it meant.
But can you talk about what what they did since the last time we
talked about Trump coin and what it is?
Sure, Donald Trump issued A valueless meme coin.
And now that meme coin, the largest holders of it, at a
certain point in time, are going to get an exclusive invite to
dinner with President Donald J Trump.
Among the people likely to attend to this dinner are is
Justin's son as well as a few others.
Well, it's probably Justin Son. And I say this because Justin
Sonny's wallet is not the one that acquired these tokens and
Justin Sonny's wallet is not the one that signed to say it wants
to go to this event. That was HTX wallet.
And as we all know, Justin Son does not own HTX anyways.
That's a side issue that's not really related to this because
he does. He does.
He does fucking own it. But all these people can now buy
their way into this meeting with Trump and there was a discussion
online about whether or not this is corruption.
I obviously feel that it is corrupt for the president of the
United States to issue a valueless cryptocurrency token,
allow people to purchase it, and then let those selective people
come to him to pitch him on various official actions he
should take. I think that's obvious.
The reason this is controversial is because, like Cass mentioned,
Eric Lipton, an investigative reporter for the New York Times
who contributed to, again, like Cass said, a pretty damning
piece if you just take the facts contained in the text of the
article. Chose to promote the article on
Blue Sky by describing this as kind of a case of potential
corruption. Eric's stance is that for a
thing to be corruption, you need to like see the explicit quid
pro quo. So the transfer of value needs
to be done in exchange for an official act from the President
of the United States. So for example, if Justin Sun
had purchased a large stake in World Liberty Financial directly
to get the official act of his criminal investigation and his
SEC case being dropped, that would be a bribe and would be
corruption. Now, if Justin Sun buys a
massive stake in World Liberty Financial, more than they were
originally intending to sell, and then the administration
drops his criminal investigation and drops his SCC case, but we
can't prove those two things are interrelated.
That is not necessarily corruption.
And so the debate that's been going on is how to describe
these obviously corrupt actions. And part of the reason this is
important is because recently the Supreme Court has made it
much more challenging to criminally indict a president
for certain acts of corruption, including taking bribes.
So that's kind of the backdrop for this discussion.
I also want to point out that just, and maybe this is just me
misunderstanding the basic concept of quid pro quid pro
quo, but in my opinion, paying for the paying $2,000,000 to
have a private exclusive dinner with the president to pitch
whatever you want to him, it seems like a quid pro quo to me.
Like that just feels like that is actually already a quid pro
quo. You're paying for exclusive time
to pitch the president whatever you want.
And I know there's going to be an argument about like.
If that's an explicit quid pro quo, then all the people buying
like memberships at his club to spend time with him and stuff
like that are also participating in an explicit quid pro quo.
Golly, that'd be something. There's a couple interesting
things about this that I I want to, I want to talk about 1.
I think the the obvious comparison and is, oh, well, you
can do campaign dinners, you can do campaign, you can do like you
can do stuff where you give people exclusive or donors get
to like go to the, you know, the Lincoln bedroom or whatever.
Like they're these, these things have happened in the past
before. They're not new.
First of all, I think we probably shouldn't let that
stuff happen either. You know, what about ISM?
I don't think just because we let that happen right now, we
should let all corruption happen.
We probably shouldn't let that happen.
But two, doing campaign donations, you still have to
report it. You still like there are factors
involved that allow people to kind of at least even if
there's, you know, super PACs and obviously ways to cloak
donations. This this is entering a
different stage of obfuscation. And one of the interesting
questions that I have is from the way everyone's talking about
it, right, there's these 25 wallets.
No one knows for sure who these wallets belong to.
And I'm just curious like is the goal ultimately to never tell
the public who these 25 people are?
I like how, how could that possibly how?
How would that happen? Well, I think, sorry, before we
get into that one, yes, I think that is their goal.
I think they want to say as little as possible about as many
of these things as possible as they can, right.
Like that's clearly in their best interest.
What's also interesting when you made the comparison to
fundraising dinners is we have a variety of different laws on who
can give and how much can be given.
For example, like Qatar can't give $400 million to a Trump
super PAC. That's illegal.
Qatar could have one of their like members of their royal
family invest a bunch into this token and show up at this
dinner. Justin's son very limited in
what campaign contributions he can make.
Who do you think he is, Ryan Salami?
And so instead he would have to, you know, hypothetically go out
and invest in Trump coin and World Liberty Financial.
There is a whole additional set of persons who cannot access the
already corrupt pay for access system that is involved in
campaign finance. And so Trump has stood up an
additional more corrupt system to enable, and this is
highlighted in the New York Times article, I should say the
potential for these foreign influence OPS and stuff to take
advantage of this in a way they cannot easily take advantage of
other campaign things. Now, that's still a little bit
jingoistic. What The corruption coming from
the United States is OK, but the corruption coming from Qatar is
not OK. But I think it is important to
highlight, just to contrast it with the other more banal types
of corruption we encounter on a day-to-day basis.
It's it's hard to judge the levels of corruptness in places
that are more authoritarian. I guess I would say generally
they they would suggest they're not corrupt at all.
But I mean, how would you know you have no window in?
But I guess in, in that sense, that feels like the route that
we're going on right now, which is there is no window anymore
into this. And maybe that speaks to what
corruption is, right, Like, and part of why so many people had a
problem with the way that Eric Lipton discussed this.
I think he was trying to discuss it in the most legal sense that
he could and try to say like, oh, well, legally speaking,
something, something, something. But I think that that that's
it's a it's like almost apologism for allowing what can
only like there are few other reasons to close off these
windows into campaigns and politicians reporting their
financials and whatever small windows we have into that still
to close those off. I there there's very few reasons
outside of corruption that that could be the case.
And I understand being like, Oh, well, legally we can't
explicitly say that. But loudly making the argument
that that is not what you're saying, it just feels very
fucking weak, especially when you're the New York Times and
it's almost, it's almost like it's your duty as the, as the
most note, like paper of note in America, the most important
paper in the world, arguably to be like, OK, well, this is what
this is. Maybe you just say corruption,
not in the legal sense. You know, maybe you explicitly
say that. Maybe you say that Wired just
published something right after the New York Times and they said
it was quid pro quo. They explicitly said that.
So I don't know how Wired can say it, but the New York Times
can't. It doesn't make sense to me.
On that note, I also want to tell people subscribe to Wired.
It's awesome. I've I've been subscribed to
them for a while now and it's it's really great.
They do great reporting, you should subscribe.
And I think I think the other thing we should emphasize is
there what you're kind of getting at here is there is an
important difference between like the legal statues Trump
could potentially be charged under and like what corruption
is. You know, like using the office
of the presidency to make a bunch of deals that enrich you,
even if it's unclear how many of your official actions you would
have done with or without. That enriching is still
corrupting. You're corrupting the office.
And like we've talked about kind of with regulation before, you
are twisting the the like one way ratchet in the same way
deregulation does. I think Corey Frayer was the one
you talked about this when he was on like whence once you
deregulate, it is very hard to bring the regulations back.
You've turned that back in a way people struggle to turn it the
other way. I think a very similar thing
happens with public trust in institutions and public trust in
politicians. When you have enough people who
are openly corrupt in this kind of way, it is very hard to
convince people that it. But like the honesty is the path
out of that. And you also made a comparison
to like, is this the like, I think one of the most accurate
comparisons that kind of gets close to this moment we're at is
like the moment where the USSR collapsed and Russia started
transitioning from this like pseudo market economy controlled
economy to like this full kind of mob state, oligarchical,
kleptocratic, really it's a mob state.
Like there's organized crime entities that run huge portions
of effectively the Russian state apparatus.
And that seems to be kind of what the Trump administration
and the Trump cronies envision is the future of the United
States. Various parts of the state power
and capacity being either sold to them, delegated to them, or
otherwise effectively transferred from the democratic
control of the state and the people who control it to a
smaller number of oligarchs who will define the path forward.
And like I think Alex Carp and Palantir is I think one of the
companies that like really seems most committed to this or Andrea
is the other one with their like drones and things.
Or Elon Musk suggest suggesting like he wants to create a space
defense laser system to shoot down nukes or whatever, but that
he's not actually going to sell that to the United States.
He's going to sell the United States access to his space based
super weapon. It is the transitioning of the
holding of these levers of power from the more democratic
institutions straight into the hands of these corrupt and
corruptible individuals. The the problem I have with the
way that they presented this article, which again, you should
read the New York Times article as well.
It's a good article, but the way that Eric Lipton presented this
article was from a defensive shielding yourself from some
sort of legal repercussion that you're imagining is going to
happen. Even though at no point in the
article did they state anything about like, they never said
quid. I don't think they like they
never said quid pro quid. They don't say, they don't say
the words that are like they or they say could be thought of as
right. They like they clearly already
shielded themselves from the possible legal repercussions to
start arguing with your audience is like, what?
How? How scared of Donald Trump are
you and why are you so scared of him?
You're the New York fucking Times.
Like, if anyone shouldn't be scared of this guy, it's you.
You have great lawyers. You have a shit ton of money.
Carlos Slim is a major investor. What are you afraid of?
What in the world are you afraid of?
And why are you so afraid? Because that makes that means
that's This is why it's like a silencing effect, right?
This is something where it's like, OK, well, if the New York
Times is fucking being afraid, I guess all of us should be afraid
then. I I mean, arguably all of us
should be afraid, right? We are in a fascist takeover of
the United States. The state is unlawfully
kidnapping and detaining people, removing them from the state,
and they have expressed their desire to like eliminate the
writ of habeas corpus. Very broadly, everyone,
especially anyone, like vocally or publicly against the
administration should have a certain degree of fear.
I think that's rational. I also think just getting at The
New York Times, it is. This is one of the more clear
examples of the New York Times House style, which is where the
headline will be. Trump tries crazy trick and
buried in like paragraph 20, it'll be like, here's the crazy
illegal part. And then in paragraph 22, you'll
get critics call this the most batshit insane thing I've ever
seen. So you have to like whenever
you're reading The New York Times, if that's a thing you do
for some reason, you have to actually read it because the
headline, the headline has barely anything to do with the
text. And the important part of the
text, and Wall Street Journal does this too, is like at least
15 paragraphs down. They didn't get it up in the nut
graft. They didn't get it up in the
lead. It's way buried in there because
like you said, it's like they're they're so worried about the
legal liability around like defamation and libel.
And the administration has again said they want to challenge
Sullivan. So it's like not crazy to
believe that there's going to be changes in defamation and libel
law. But the New York Times, I've
heard a statistic that I'm not going to try and source right
now that the New York Times employs almost 10% of
journalists in the United States.
Like if you're not willing to speak truth to power, then who
else can? I know that other like CBS has
already caved to the Trump administration.
They've already agreed to pair however much insane amount of
money, and I'm sure there's been other media conglomerates that
have also already caved and given him money.
I can't remember which ones. When 60 Minutes had a bunch of
people resigned because they were ready to cave.
Right, right. Yeah, I mean, this is I, those
are institutions that shouldn't be doing it either.
But like the New York Times, again, it stands for something
larger than just like, Oh well, it's a newspaper.
Like it is the most important newspaper, again, arguably in
the world. And I think it absolutely has a
a liberal tinge to it. But I if liberal tinge is like,
well, let's just not call Trump corrupt then.
I don't even like that's, I don't know what liberal tinge
even means anymore. That doesn't like, you can't
stand for that. What can you fucking stand for?
So yeah, it's, it's it's it's wild.
When I think the most important thing for us to take away from
this moment is that for all of us, I think it is critically
important that as many people who can describe the things they
see as they see them. There still needs to be a belief
in some amount of reality or the value of truth or things like
that for there to be any kind of path out of this.
And like, those things do matter.
Like corrupt corruption and not being corrupt matters.
Doing good things instead of bad things fucking matters, you
know? I mean, if it is never disclosed
who goes to this dinner? I mean, to me that is like one
of the most insane, illegal, corrupt corruption.
Like we're on like we're, I don't know who.
I was talking to a friend yesterday.
I feel like we're getting past Nixon at this point.
Like we are moving well past Nixon into territory that is
like, I know we have an episode. I know we have an episode about
this. The Valentine's Day massacre was
arguably worse than the Saturday Day or the Saturday Day.
The Valentine's Day Massacre was worse than the Saturday Night
Massacre. Yeah, yeah.
And that's not all right. Like a $400 million gift that
you're gonna take with you after you leave office is insane.
It's insane. No, No president has ever done
anything like this before. And yet again, the idea that
you're like, I'm going to have a secret meeting with 25 people
have no idea if they're like, they could be they could be
Chinese, they could be Russian, they could be Saudi.
They could who the fuck knows where they're from.
They they are just in Sun probably.
Yeah, I, I. By the way, if Warren G Harding
just said the Teapot Dome is mine now, not even talking about
corrupt contracts, he was just like, no, this is mine.
I'm taking it. It's it's me.
And loudly, like just said it to everyone was like, I'm doing the
thing that is definitely not OK. And then and then there were
people who came out and said it's potentially corrupt for
Warren G Harding to declare the Teapot Dome his new personal
ranch. And for what it's worth, I know
we're now we're entering ridiculous territory where we're
talking about Warren G Harding and everyone lost fucking
interest. But it it just it just tells you
that that I he's using that Bennett's using that example
because Harding was considered or is still considered the least
popular, like one of the worst presidents in history, if not
the worst of all time for America.
And again, Trump is flown past this with the scale of
corruption and the levels of ineptitude.
We don't we're not we're not even getting into the tariffs
again, which are clearly just extortion like that is clearly
just extorting other. I mean that like, that's how
Qatar is going to get rid of their tariffs, by giving Donald
Trump a $400 million airplane, right?
Like that is how this shit is going to.
Work. That's what I call closing a
trade deficit. Art of the deal, baby.
What trade, Donald? There is no trade deficit for
Donald Trump, motherfuckers. So I don't know, man.
I, I guess I, I wanted to talk about it because I think we need
we, there's a few things that need to be clear.
We all need to be able to say what is going on with this
administration and not be afraid to say it.
I know, I know there there are reasons to fear this
administration, but you cannot be like they can take my speech
and I guess I'll just move on. And especially from the the
journalists. There's a lot of things you have
to do while you're afraid. That's just life.
Like by cast coin.