President Trump's position on crypto, though, has changed, right? Do we know why?

Yeah.

I think there's three ways to answer that.

The most cynical way is if you look at the crypto business, it was a quick way to get rich, and what it, what crypto as a business suffered from was public distrust.

A lot of people, frankly, accurately, thought that what it's really good for is crime and speculation, right? Money laundering, evading the laws, or speculating that someone is gonna buy it for more later and it's just gonna go up and down, so gambling.

So a kind of miasma of doubt hovered over it, and if you take crypto then and you add the presidential imprimatur, bingo.

You're right away in the money because you add that extra credibility of being associated with President Trump, and it's a real advantage over other players in the crypto business since its biggest obstacle is that general distrust.

Where does he fit in the larger context of leaders around the world [chuckles] who are benefiting from their power?

President Trump's position on crypto, though, has changed, right? Do we know why?

Yeah.

I think there's three ways to answer that.

The most cynical way is if you look at the crypto business, it was a quick way to get rich, and what it, what crypto as a business suffered from was public distrust.

A lot of people, frankly, accurately, thought that what it's really good for is crime and speculation, right? Money laundering, evading the laws, or speculating that someone is gonna buy it for more later and it's just gonna go up and down, so gambling.

So a kind of miasma of doubt hovered over it, and if you take crypto then and you add the presidential imprimatur, bingo.

You're right away in the money because you add that extra credibility of being associated with President Trump, and it's a real advantage over other players in the crypto business since its biggest obstacle is that general distrust.

Where does he fit in the larger context of leaders around the world who are benefiting from their power?

Can you talk about the significance of that letter and why it was important at the time, but also what the response to it tells us now?

So I should say this is a letter from the International Committee of the Red Cross that was provided to me by a former US official, not by the ICRC, which guards the confidentiality of their communications with heads of state very, very closely.

It was important to me because the ICRC has a special role under the Geneva Conventions with helping governments avoid war crimes and violations of the laws of armed conflict, and they didn't lay out anything secret.

Uh, they didn't have any inside intelligence.

What they laid out in that letter was a kind of informed reading of the public record as of March two thousand and twenty-four.

And after you've read that letter, it's really hard not to believe that Israel was testing the limits of the laws of armed conflict at best, that there was a significant danger that Israel was killing more Palestinians and destroying more civilian infrastructure than could legitimately be justified.

And to me, most telling, uh, is the fact, which no one disputes, that Israel, after October seventh, had announced they were no longer gonna let the ICRC visit their Palestinian prisoners.

Just to kick things off, based on your conversations with former Biden officials, if Biden had been able to rein in Netanyahu, either in Gaza or just in the Middle East more generally, do you think that the war in Iran still would've happened? Or was there a way to prevent that?

Sure.

Uh, so and even some of the heat pump conversion companies, we see a lot in energy efficiency.

So even some of the, like, more efficient window infrastructure reduces emissions, but it also helps you handle severe heat.

Uh, so I think that there's not as much of a bright line.

So I do definitely think sadly adaptation resilience, both predicting weather events, hardening infrastructure, anticipating.

It, it is, it is already in the insurance industry-

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eight.Don't settle.

Is that right?

Yeah, I would use the word promised.

You know, Trump, uh, right at the start of his first presidency, right before he was sworn in, he came out and had a press conference to talk about how he was gonna manage all his business interests.

And he reported that he had recently learned something that he thought was terrific, which is that he could continue to make money on the side as a private businessman while in the White House.

But he went on to say that even though this was all totally legal, he referred to it as a kind of perk in his contract, like a, a no-conflicts provision basically is what he said.

He, he went on to say that even though he had recently learned that all this was totally legal, he would voluntarily abstain from, uh, foreign dealsAnd he had a, a lawyer, his personal lawyer stand up and say that in fact, the Trump family would never do anything that could even be perceived as exploiting the presidency for profit.

And honestly, you know, as much as our friends on the left, uh, fulminated about the Trump Hotel in the first administration, uh, you know, and FBI agents staying at Trump properties to follow...

He spent some time in prison, right? Few months?

Um, David, wha- what do you make of Donald Trump Jr.'s defense there?

Yeah, it was a remarkable non-answer.

You know, the question is, did the president know that four days before the inauguration, he had just received a huge financial payment from the Emiratis, uh, an investment that is so hard to value it looks very much like a gift.

That was, that's what would constitute a conflict of interest, and he didn't really speak to that.

Uh, the other striking thing about this is that it wasn't disclosed.

In fact, the, the company seems to have taken some actions to keep it hidden.

Almost all of the other Trump investments, which, you know, in many ways have raised a lot of questions about potential conflicts of interest or exploiting the presidency for personal profit, he announces those with a press release.

Where do you see that going?

Why of course they wouldn't? Why, why?

If you're gonna open a big resort in the Persian Gulf, and you could go to the Four Seasons, you could go to Marriott, you could go to the Ritz, you got a lot of these giant companies that can lower costs because of their size.

Why would you go to the Trump Organization, which has so little track record in the Gulf? The Trump Organization is a very small management firm.

Usually, if you're going to hire somebody to run your hotel, uh, and license a name for your hotel, if it's Marriott or one of the behemoths, they'll hold out for a thirty-year contract.

But if it's, you know, David Kirkpatrick Hotel Management, you're lucky if you can get a ten-year contract.

But reportedly, according to The New York Times, the deal he got in Oman for a giant hotel, condo, golf course, uh, operation there was a thirty-year deal.

So that's another clue that this is an extraordinary kind of a thing.

Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, after he was senior advisor to President Donald Trump in Trump's first term, he gets into private equity after basically being a real estate guy all his life

Why of course they wouldn't? Why, why?

If you're gonna open a big resort in the Persian Gulf, and you could go to the Four Seasons, you could go to Marriott, you could go to the Ritz, you could go to a lot of these giant companies that can lower costs because of their size.

Why would you go to the Trump organization, which has so little track record in the Gulf? The Trump organization's a very small management firm.

Usually, if you're going to hire somebody to run your hotel, uh, and license a name for your hotel, if it's Marriott or one of the behemoths, they'll hold out for a 30-year contract.

But if it's, you know, David Kirkpatrick Hotel Management, you're lucky if you can get a 10-year contract.

But reportedly, according to The New York Times, the deal he got in Oman for a giant hotel, condo, golf course, uh, operation there was a 30-year deal.

So that's another clue that this is an extraordinary kind of a thing.

Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, after he was senior advisor to President Donald Trump in Trump's first term, he gets into private equity after basically being a real estate guy all his life.

Is that right?

Yeah, I would use the word promised.

You know, Trump, uh, right at the start of his first presidency, right before he was sworn in, he came out and had a press conference to talk about how he was gonna manage all his business interests.

And he reported that he had recently learned something that he thought was terrific, which is that he could continue to make money on the side as a private businessman while in the White House.

But he went on to say that even though this was all totally legal, he referred to it as a kind of perk in his contract, like a- a no-conflict provision basically, is what he said.

He- he went on to say that even though he had recently learned that all this was totally legal, he would voluntarily abstain from, uh, foreign deals, and he had a- a lawyer, his personal lawyer stand up and say that, in fact, the Trump family would never do anything that could even be perceived as exploiting the presidency for profit.

And honestly, you know, as much as our friends on the left fulminated about the Trump Hotel in the first administration, uh, you know, and FBI agents staying at Trump properties to follow, I mean, sorry, Homeland Security agents staying at Trump properties-

He spent some time in prison, right? Few months?

Yeah.

And according to the best numbers in the crypto industry, that comes to more than 300 million right there.

Now, he's also sold these, uh, non-fungible tokens, which are basically kind of digital cartoon representations of President Trump.

Uh, he's made, you know, more than 10 million, I forget the exact number, off of those, and his, his wife Melania has sold some non-fungible tokens too.

And then his sons have gotten into a couple of other, uh, more substantial, uh, crypto businesses.

One of them you mentioned is a company called American......

Bitcoin, that's a little bit of a complicated saga.

So where is that line here? And are we gonna know when that line is crossed?

Why do you think they've made crypto such an important piece of their portfolio?

You know, uh, uh, that gets into their head in a way that I can't do.

I mean, I, I, I know, as you do, the, the story that Eric Trump often tells that it's a reaction to being blackballed by the big banks, in their view.

He omits from that story that the reason they were blackballed is because of the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.

But I just, you, you know, a lot of people are attracted to crypto right now because it's a fast way to make money.

It's also an area, I guess, where a lot of people have doubts about the credibility of what's being sold.

And so if you put the name or the face of the President of the United States behind a particular crypto enterprise, that means something.

So on both of those, kleptocracy and oligarchy, can you say more about why the Trump administration, despite its really flagrant profiteering, doesn't reach that bar? But also, what would make you worry about that or other kind of blurring of these lines?

Yes.

Okay.

Well, here you go.

So first of all, for people who might not be familiar with crypto, all it is really is a kind of online ledger, uh, or spreadsheet keeping track of who owns what.

Uh, there's a number of ways that the Trump family has tried to take advantage of this new technology.

He started out by selling NFTs, non-fungible tokens, which are basically sort of digital cartoons of himself.

Uh, then he m- moved on to, um, uh, setting up a company, his family, his sons set up a company called World Liberty Financial, and that's done a couple things.

(laughs)

But maybe just at the biggest picture first, where is all this money that is going into Trump's coffers coming from?

You know, all over the place.

So, I did an article which basically asked two questions.

You know, of, of all of the businesses or income streams flowing into the Trump family coffers, which ones are really related to the presidency? Which ones are monetizing the presidency in one way or another? And then of those, can we put a dollar on it, right? What's the best estimate we can come up with for how much he's got in terms of money in the bank? You know, maybe it's a commitment over the next 10 or 30 years, maybe it's payments he's already received.

And I came up to $3.4 billion, which is a lot of money.

But now in that, you have some real estate deals which may involve a direct or indirect participation by a foreign government, especially in the Middle East, also in Vietnam, but you also have money he's making off his own supporters.

You know, e- uh, the Trump organization is not above selling campaign-like merchandise, uh, on their own account, you know, to make 50 bucks off of a hat or, you know, 40 bucks off a pair of flip-flops that buyers might actually think is supporting the MAGA candidates and its movement, but it's in fact just enriching Donald Trump.

Sure.

And so when you look at the things that are possible because of the presidency, what are those?

Well, it ranges from selling merchandise that looks like campaign merchandise, but is actually going into his pocket, as you mentioned.

There's some real estate deals.

Now he's done some de- deal, details while president, or his company's done some deals while president that I'm gonna say are fair.

You know, it's a continuation of the family business before he was elected, like in India.

Others, there's just no way to imagine them happening without his presence in the White House, and I would count all five of the mega-deals that he's done around the Persian Gulf with a Saudi company.

A lot of the crypto ventures that he, that, uh, he's launched definitely are unimaginable without the fact that he's, that he's president.

Go ahead.

How does a money losing venture that only has about a million dollars in revenue per quarter end up sitting on billions and billions of dollars?

Yeah.

I- I- I almost had to pinch myself when I figured that out.

I mean, it's- it, it's a crazy amount of money.

Um, in short, here's the deal.

So, Truth Social is not really a business.

It's not, you know, we don't know, there's no convincing, uh, plan for it to make money.

Like, how do you explain the fact that there are- there are schemes that are- there are nine-figure schemes, eight-figure schemes, seven-figure schemes, and even six-figure schemes? Like, how do you explain the willingness to fight for a hat sale from their users, their- their supporters, while at the same time shooting for the moon, you know, with these billion-dollar crypto moves?

How did you come up with your figure? I mean, billions of dollars? That's crazy, man.

Well, just to be clear, I am not gonna answer the question, is this White House for sale.

Uh, as you reported, when Trump first took office, he didn't just say, "I'm not gonna do any quid pro quo deals, I'm not gonna sell off official favors for personal payments." He went further than that.

He said, "I am not gonna do anything which could even be perceived as exploiting the presidency for my personal produ- profit," and that's what I looked at.

Because I- in many ways, uh, he has clearly, especially in his second term, done precisely that, ranging from, you know, hotel leasing deals to sales of, uh, Trump merchandise, uh, ar- arguably at the expense of his own campaign, to, uh, billions really, uh, in crypto.

Um, uh, so, what I did was go through all of the different lines of business that he and his family have engaged in.

I asked, "Does this depend on the presidency? Is this monetizing the presidency?" And then, using the best of- information available, how much are they getting from that? How much have they brought in or can we be guaranteed that they will bring in over the next 10 or 30 years from that business? And, and that's how eventually I got up to the 3.4 billion.

Have we ever seen anything like this out of any previous White House?

in, during, before the first term.

Right.

And part of what, the reason th, that she said he was doing that was because that way no one else will take his name and crassly exploit its connection with the White House.

So to keep the pri, the White House protected from this kind of exploitation, the Trumps can be trusted to own it.

In retrospect, looking back, a lot of the liberal criticisms of Trump, uh, the way that he was making money out of the hotel in Washington during the first term, those look, uh, not that substantial.

Re, you know, he, he lost money out of the hotel all four years.

It did better under a new owner when Biden was in the White House.

What are, what is he doing in the Persian Gulf with his family members?