Trump's Presidential Payday

The way that I want people to think of it is just that he has opened up the presidency is a personal vehicle for self-enrichment, whether that be to advance his personal coffers or his political goals. Everything's for sale. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day, the show that says, if a company says you need to get a tattoo in order to get a job interview, maybe that company isn't for you. The AI startup, Lemon Lime, told attendees at a networking party that anyone who got a company tattoo would get a job interview. Not the job, to be clear, a job interview. The company has since apologized, but let me say it again as a helpful limerick. If the company wants you to get a tattoo, and that is just for an interview, then maybe just maybe. Don't do it, baby, because that company is not for you. On today's show, we talked to editor Amanda Carpenter about how to stop President Donald Trump from profiting off the American people. Before we dive into Trump's big money pit, here's what we're following today, Friday, July 31st. On the disarmament deal that you announced, do you have assurances from Israel that they are on board with this deal? And what comes first? Does Israel pull back and then Hamas disarms or does Hamaschi to disarm and then Israel? So we do have an understanding with Israel. Israel is very happy about it. Israel helped us. And they've been... Very good. They've been very good about it. Most people said that would be a deal that would be undoable. Now, will it go through its ups and down? It's a very complex situation over there. The people are very complex and difficult. Many cases wonderful and many cases not so wonderful. What? The peace president is at it again, and there might finally be a breakthrough in Israel's war in Gaza with Hamas, two and a half years into the conflict. Maybe. Hamas said today it has agreed to disarm if Israel would stop all attacks, withdraw from the territory, and increase the amount of aid allowed inside. Israeli officials, however, said that a full disarmament by Hamas would have to proceed any Israeli withdrawal. So there are still so many ways this deal could fall apart, but Donald Trump doesn't want to talk about that. Today he described the agreement as, quote, a big step for the Middle East and people are really impressed by it. I would like to meet these people. Trump's war in Iran is incredibly unpopular with pretty much everyone, even increasingly, Republicans. But you know who is having an awesome time right now? Oil companies. ExxonMobil and Chevron reported massive profits on Friday. They've made nearly $30 billion in just the second quarter of this year, which began in April. That's a $9.6 billion increase for Chevron over the second quarter of last year, and more than double what ExxonMobil made over the same time period. In fact, ExxonMobil made $160 million a day from April to the end of June of this year.

So what can we do about it? Amanda Carpenter is a writer and editor at Protect Democracy, an anti-authoritarianism advocacy group. And she has some ideas. Amanda, welcome to Water Day. Hey, thanks for having me. Big fan. So before we dive into your piece, let's do a quick Trump lightning round. Because there are so many examples of Trump's, shall we say, quiddish, pro-ish-quish relationship with others, his relationship with FIFA. The very fancy diamond ring he got, and then a month later, it turns out the Trump administration isn't going to tariff natural diamonds, the Qatar Air Force One, his cryptocurrency business, the finance pardon, the Rolexes, the ambassadorships, more pardons, it's hard to keep up. What's your favorite example of Trumpian corruption? Oh, man. My favorite example, I mean, it's, I do think the plane is the most visible in that he's accepted this giant, it is the most visible. Giant foreign gift. Yeah, it doesn't work. He can't actually use it for the job. We're going to spend billions of taxpayer money making it secure only so that he can take it home and use it as a private citizen or put it in his library. Like, he thinks we're going to pay to outfit. this personal jet to make it to presidential level security so that he can use it after he's out of office. Like, I'm sorry, as a private citizen, you don't get to have a floating Air Force one. So that thing is the most visible. But there are so many schemes and shakedowns and payoffs happening right now. It's hard to keep up. And so the way that I want people to think of it is just that he has opened up the presidency as a personal vehicle for... self-enrichment, whether that be to advance his personal coffers or his political goals. Everything's for sale. And this giant story that came out in the Wall Street Journal in the last 24 hours, we've known a lot of this was happening, but it is stunning the level of open corruption that is happening in this administration. So I think there's a lot of potential for reform once we start shining the spotlight on both sides of this transaction. Yeah, because the Wall Street Journal story is about how he basically has a person. who goes to companies and is like, quite literally, the boss wants his money. So it will be for political donations. It'll be for donations to his own campaign. It'll be for donations to pretty much anything, to build the ballroom, to make an arch, to, I don't know, put more gold somewhere else. And to your point, Trump made $2.2 billion last year. And you write that... Much of that money in your piece, which was excellent, is tied to policy decisions he's made as president. But why is this the first time in America we're seeing a president do this? Because for context, what he's doing is not technically illegal. It's just morally wrong. And no one has seemingly ever thought they would just go do this. Are there no guardrails at all?

Well, there's a few things to disentangle from that. Like, on a base level, a president is allowed to solicit donations for personal things, whether it be a presidential library. Now, typically, are you allowed to use your official office to do it? No. They would go out of office, it would be private fundraisers, but like this is all happening, most of it, a lot of it, through the White House with official employees. And, you know, we used to be worried about things like the Hatch Act, which was a law that applied to all federal employees that you couldn't use official time to advance political goals. Like, maybe I was a fool because I took this seriously. When I worked in the Senate, if we had to do a campaign meeting or anything like that, even a phone call, I would say, hold on, I would walk off the grounds. I would go to a... a non-official office, do that call, we'd have to log our time. I worked with somebody who was a scheduler, who got engaged to a lobbyist. And she was so careful about these laws, she logged her engagement ring as a gift. Because technically, it was a gift until they were married. So, like, these are the laws that used to apply. Those are all out the window now. And what is so different. is that Donald Trump is not just, you know, getting donations for a personal library that'll come later off campus. He has inserted himself into so many federal decisions where he himself is the dealmaker, right? Like you see. Mark Zuckerberg, you see all these CEOs going to Trump personally, giving him gifts because they know that he is the decision maker for this. They're regulatory decisions that are not being outsourced to, you know, the regular federal agencies through a process. He says, I'm the dealmaker. And now we have this considerable reporting that needs to be followed up on that essentially says, yeah, the boss wants the money too. And so that's where I think there's a lot of vectors for reform, for oversight. Donald Trump has been promising or talking about giving pardons to everyone within 200 feet of the Oval Office because what they are doing, I think they know it's wrong. I think they know the day is coming when there's going to be oversight, there's going to be investigations, and they think they have a get-out-of-jail-free card. And let me tell you what, they do not. There are ways that we can get this money back using it's called disgorgement laws. Essentially, that just means if you are getting profits through ill-gotten gains, fraud, bribery, extortion, there are ways to get that money back. And so Congress could start now. I think we need a full audit of the White House, everything that's going on in there. We need to be looking at what these companies are doing, the favors that they have received and start to track. All that down, there's state AGs who can investigate this on the private side, because again, corruption takes two parties. Trump can ask for the money, but all these companies are giving it. And we have a good example earlier in the administration when Trump was trying to shake down all these law firms. And there's a lot. They wanted to pay the money first. But as soon as people started talking about oversight on the law firm side and saying, you know, maybe this looks like you are giving a bribe. A lot of them reorient it.

And they realized, yeah, like, we can't have a hand in this corruption, too. And so I think companies like meta and everyone else, like paying for this kind of access, need to get the same signal. If you also love words like oversight and going after corruption as much as I do, stick around. In the meantime, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch it on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. What Today is brought to you by Willie's Remedy. Finally, an alcohol alternative that actually works with an uplifting euphoric buzz you can really feel without any of the negative side effects. Willis is a premium THC-infused social tonic crafted by the legendary Willie Nelson, inspired by Willie's Way of Living, where peace flows freely and hangovers are a thing of the past. It is a low-calorie, low-sugar alcohol alternative that actually works, delivering a fast-acting euphoric social buzz without the regrets that can come with alcohol. Willie's social tonics come in 5 milligram and 10 milligram doses with a best-in-class flavor experience. So smooth and balanced, you barely realize you're drinking a THC product at all. You can enjoy the tonics as a shot, sipped over ice, or mixed into your favorite macktail. One shot of Willis helps you relax, unwind, and de-stress. Perfect for taking the edge off at the end of a long day or socializing with friends. Willis offers the kind of feeling that makes good company even better. Willie ships directly to your doorstep in 40-plus states and has sold out three times in the first six months with over 300,000 happy customers. So order now at drinkwillies.com and use code Wad for 20% off of your first order and free shipping on orders over $95. And live like a legend. What a day is brought to you by HomeServe. Here's the thing about the home disasters that sneak up and bite you. Most of them cost more than a car repair. Home serve offers plans starting at $4.99 a month. With homeserve, when something goes wrong, you're not scrambling, you're just making one call. Home serve is like a subscription for your home. For as little as $4.99 a month, they've got your back. Regular homeowners insurance usually doesn't cover a lot of the day-to-day wear and tear. Plumbing failures, HVAC breakdowns, electrical issues. It's super simple. Choose a plan for your needs and budget. And when something on your plan goes wrong, just call their 24-7 hotline to start the repair process. With nearly 4.5 million customers, a 4.7 out of 5 rating on Trust Pilot, and an A-plus Better Business Bureau rating, they're the real deal. Your cooling system isn't going to warn you before it quits. HVAC breakdowns, burned out motors. These repairs hit hardest when it's 95 degrees and you need AC the most. Don't wait until you're sweating it out to figure out you're not covered. I think all the time about all the stuff that can go wrong at home, and I'm so glad that if I needed it, home serve would be there to help. Your next costly home repair is already coming. Act now and get protected with a plan through homeserve. For 50% less your first year, go to home serve.com slash wad to find the plan that's right for you. That's homeserve.com slash wad for 50% less. Savings compared to renewal price. Boyd in Florida.

Hi, I'm Alex Wagner. I do not need to tell you that being an American right now is a wild ride. But as a longtime journalist, I am not interested in the noise or the fearmongering. I'm interested in the stories at the heart of the headlines. That is why every week on my show, Runaway Country, I'm joined by folks in the middle of the crossfire. From disillusioned Maha moms to newly fired immigration judges to Epstein victims themselves, to understand what it means to live through this political chaos. as an actual human being. And now I'm excited to tell you that Runaway Country is available ad-free to Friends of the Pod subscribers. Friends of the Pod is the subscription that supports the work Crooked does as an independent media company and gives you a ton of great bonus and ad-free content. With the midterms approaching, you are going to need more content to keep you sane, and now you can find Runaway Country right there. Subscribe now at crooked.com backslash friends. Let's get back to my conversation with Amanda Carpenter. I was curious as your thoughts because I love personally imagining some sort of repo man situation in which somebody goes into the White House and is like, yeah, we're going to take all this. But what money or assets are you saying could actually be recoverable? Well, I think the big pots of recovery that we can start to look at, look at the gifts that are made to Trump's nonprofits. Look at the funding for his presidential library. Look at all these lobbying firms that have cropped up for these pay for pardon schemes. I mean, it is flagrant. I think a lot of this is traceable. We have a good groundswell of reporting that is happening now. And number one, like, we can get this money back. Like, if Congress. starts to follow the money. State AGs start taking an interest in the business side of this. And then also, if you get a new administration, there's all kinds of investigative authorities that can be used through places like the SEC, the IRS. So there's a lot of vehicles to do this. And this is important to the pardon discussion because civil asset forfeiture is not touchable by the pardons. A pardon may keep you out of jail, but it is not going to allow you to keep ill-gotten gains. So what's the roadmap? What needs to happen to start clawing back this money? Number one, you just got to follow the money. We have to find the money, start to have investigations about, like, I can tell you where these pots are. And again, I think the reporting gives a really good start. But I think there's going to be committee interest as soon as some Democrats start to get the gavel. But also, they don't have to wait to get the gavel, right? Like, they have staff that can start to put this together. And so. You know, it's just going to be a matter of where do we focus? Because, again, the corruption is so rampant. It's so widespread. I mean, we didn't even talk about all the no-bid contracts that are happening now. Like for the reflecting pool. Yeah, like a good example. But also, part of this discussion has to be, why is this not just we're going to get the money back and get these guys and show them where the law is? What they are doing is making life worse.

in America, right? Because corruption is bad, not just because the bad guys walk out with like a big pot of money. It leads to worse government services. It leads to less competition that make things better. And it's just not fair, right? Like, you should not have to pay your way to get a fair shot before the government, whether it comes to a contract or a job or whatever. And so I think as a part of the discussion as well, like we also need to do a good job demonstrating how everything ends up like a shit reflecting pool when you let this corruption go on. You point in your article to Hungary as an example of a country that's implementing an anti-corruption playbook post-Viktor Orban. What are they doing? And what would the American version look like? Yeah, so essentially what they did, number one, they campaigned on this and saying that we're going to root out the corruption and throw these guys out because we're going to do something about it, right? Like, it's not just, oh, we got an office now and it's all over. They've set up an anti-corruption bureau that unites a lot of investigative power into essentially one agency. And I got to tell you, Chuck Schumer, he did introduce a bill this week that does something extremely similar. Now you can kind of say like, oh, another government agency. actually uniting all these things in one house can be very effective in bringing the right people together to track this money down because it is going to be complicated. It's going to require a lot of forensic analysis, subpoenas, probably hearings, talking to the right people at these companies to find it in order to explain what happens. So just getting those resources ready is really important. But on the front end, what I think was just... phenomenal that they did is that they followed up on the campaign promise, right? They didn't just get up in office. They said, we got to make sure that this never happens again. And I think we have a lot of lessons to learn. Amanda, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks. That was my conversation with Amanda Carpenter, writer and editor at Protect Democracy. We'll link to a piece in the show notes. Before we go. America can feel like it's spiraling out of control, but could a state like Wisconsin hold the blueprint for turning things around? Stacey Abrams podcast, Assembly Required, explore solutions for fighting back against fascism and corruption. In last week's episode, Stacey talked with author and former chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Ben Wickler, about how Democrats can win back voters ahead of the midterms. New episodes drop every Tuesday on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. Relish the one thing that can bring European countries together. Hating one guy. And tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how all 55 members of European Soccer's member association, UEFA, along with a bunch of other countries in soccer associations worldwide, say that they will boycott future World Cups if FIFA goes ahead with its scheme to sell stakes in competitions to private investors, like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at cricket.com slash subscribe.

I'm Jane Koston, and nothing brings a continent together like collectively despising one person. What a day is a production of crooked media. Our show is produced by Caitlin Plummer, Emily Four, Erica Morrison, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Haley Jay Jones, Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Joseph Dutra, Johanna Case, and Desmond Taylor. Our music is by Kyle Murdock and Jim Jordan Cantor. We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Hi, my name is Mitch Landrie. My name is Erin Haynes. My name is Jennifer Palmary, and we're hosting a new series called Long Play. The South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South, too. I mean, the South has always shaped American politics. We know that. The stakes could not be hired, but to win the South, you have to understand it. People in the South feel really misunderstood, left behind, put down on, and they want to explain that to somebody. We're traveling across six southern states to explore the people, the issues, the assumptions that no longer hold, and what the rest of us are missing about a region that will shape the future of our politics and our country. From left, right, and crooked media starting July 27th. Watch long play series on YouTube at YouTube.com slash long play series or listen wherever you get your podcasts.