Is Trump Media ‘failing’? Hundreds of millions lost in 2026 so far prompts new questions

0:01 With the nation's 250th birthday just two

0:02 months awa the president's pet projects are

0:05 moving at what a White House spokesman tells The New York Times is Trump speed.

0:09 The administration bypassed oversight of his latest project

0:12 to turn the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool blue,

0:15 according to new reporting from The Times.

0:17 It invoked an exemption meant for urgent situations and gave a $6 .9

0:23 million no-bid contract to his former pool guy at one of his golf courses.

0:27 Meanwhile, the Qatari gifted jet that Donald Trump

0:31 plans to temporarily use as Air Force One,

0:33 is getting painted red, white, and blue.

0:36 The president says it is set to be ready by July 4th.

0:39 Joining me now we have Tim O'Brien,

0:41 senior executive editor, Bloomberg Opinion, MSNOW political analyst as well.

0:46 So So, welcome, Tim.

0:47 So, look, the painting of this pool,

0:48 it is just another example of the president bypassing oversight

0:52 and laws to get a pet construction project done quickly.

0:55 I mean, do you remember how shocked people were

0:58 when the historic White House East Wing was suddenly bulldozed?

1:02 So why is he avoiding public scrutiny if he

1:05 is confident his projects are so beautiful and fabulous,

1:08 as he might put it, for the country?

1:11 Well, I think the most charitable interpretation is that he just wants

1:15 to move quickly and he doesn't want to be encumbered by regulations,

1:19 by other people's input, by other people's taste.

1:22 Trump has a very idiosyncratic peculiar dose of bad

1:26 taste in much of the stuff that he builds, and he likes to do it on his own.

1:30 I think the more critical observation is where's the money going?

1:34 You know, if you look at the East Wing project,

1:38 that That began when you decided to turn it into a new mega ballroom.

1:43 It was going to be $250 million.

1:45 It was going to be privately funded.

1:47 Taxpayers wouldn't pay a dime.

1:49 And they set up some sort of a structure to receive those funds.

1:53 And in the months since,

1:54 the price tag has escalated into the high hundreds of millions.

1:58 It's now a billion dollars estimates.

2:02 And taxpayers are going to be on the hook for it,

2:05 according to a new bill moving through Congress.

2:07 Well, what happened to the original money, you know,

2:11 that was raised to pay for this privately?

2:13 And in everything else he's touching, his presidential library in Florida,

2:18 the triumphal arch he wants to build a memorial bill, Memorial Bridge.

2:22 Even the, you know, even the contract for painting, the reflecting pool,

2:28 there is this whiff of grift around all of it, that somehow the money,

2:32 it's not just a monument to himself, which is troubling enough.

2:36 It's not skirting the interests of the American people,

2:39 which is troubling enough.

2:40 But there also is this suggestion or at least a very strong indication

2:44 that some of the money is channeling it back into Trump or his friend's pockets,

2:49 which is also a problem.

2:51 Well, that latter point, friend's pockets,

2:53 apparently that $6 .9 million no-bid contract goes to his former

2:56 pool guy at one of his golf courses shows to that point.

3:00 You have the Qatari plane,

3:01 which has raised serious ethical and legal questions over violating

3:05 the Constitution's Emoluments Clause when

3:07 accepting gifts from a foreign country.

3:09 But Trump defends his action,

3:11 saying this one is going to save Americans their taxpayer dollars.

3:15 The Wall Street Journal reports, though, the so-called palace in the sky,

3:19 that's going GOING TO KEEP ITS LAVISH INTERIOR, THE $400 MILLION U .S.

3:24 TAXPAYER DOLLAR SPENT ON MODIFYING THE PLANE,

3:26 THAT ALL WENT TOWARDS SECURITY MEASURES.

3:29 I MEAN, IT'S AIR FORCE ONE, RIGHT?

3:30 YOU'VE GOT TO HAVE OF THEM.

3:31 SO WHAT DO WE KNOW FOR CERTAIN?

3:34 I MEAN, IS IT GUARANTEED THAT DONALD TRUMP IS GOING TO PUT THIS PLANE ONCE

3:39 HE LEAVES OFFICE INTO A LIBRARY BECAUSE THERE'S

3:43 been question about where that library will be.

3:46 Will it be built big enough to house a plane,

3:48 or might he still just use it to fly around?

3:51 I suspect he will use it to continue to fly around,

3:54 probably until he passes, at which point maybe it will end up in a library.

3:59 But I think he, his designs on this is to use it until he can't use it anymore.

4:04 And again, in this case,

4:05 it's not simply taxpayers being put on the hook to upgrade

4:10 a plane for his use as president and ultimately his personal use.

4:14 It's also he's accepting a gift

4:16 from a foreign government that has national security

4:19 concerns that present themselves in a region in which we are in a war.

4:25 Everyone is scrambling to get the favor of the United States,

4:29 not just militarily but technologically.

4:32 And Trump is skirting every kind of guardrail you would want around the White

4:39 House so something that appears to be a bribe isn't in fact a bribe.

4:44 And that's certainly what this jet represents.

4:46 Let me quickly ask you about Trump media and technology group,

4:50 of course the owner of Truth Social announcing this week it

4:52 lost over $400 million in the first quarter of this year.

4:55 DJT is now trading at under $9 a share.

4:58 That's down about 30% in this year.

5:01 Their business spans kind of weird mix of social media,

5:04 cryptocurrency and a $6 billion bet on nuclear fusion.

5:08 But what does this tell you, Tim?

5:10 Is Truth Media failing?

5:12 Oh, it certainly appears to be failing.

5:28 He never had his hands on a publicly traded company that didn't end

5:31 up in some sort of financial trouble ever over the last several decades.

5:36 Um, anyone who invested money in Trump media, um,

5:41 this go around, uh, has lost the lion's share of their money.

5:46 Uh, even going if they, if they invested in several years ago,

5:49 there was a period when people got in early made money,

5:51 but that's no longer true either.

5:53 And certainly people who bought this stock when

5:56 Trump got inaugurated have been taken to the cleaners.

5:59 It doesn't have a viable business model, and it's evident in the numbers.

6:04 Tim O'Brien, we'll have you back again,

6:07 because there'll certainly be more to discuss.

6:09 Thank you.

6:10 Rubio's awkward visit.