Fox News PRAISES Trump Son For Scoring Gov Contract
Breaking Points
0:00 One thing that I think we have struggled to cover as extensively as we should is
0:04 the epic level of corruption in uh the Trump
0:08 government and with Trump and his family in particular.
0:11 So fortunately for us, uh, Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle News,
0:15 has gone in and done the work over the past year or so,
0:18 compiling as much as we can possibly
0:20 get about the various corrupt skies and dealings,
0:24 compiling it into one comprehensive piece to truly understand
0:29 the scale and magnitude of the level of corruption we're experiencing,
0:32 which is truly unlike anything we have seen before.
0:34 And Isaac now joins us.
0:36 Great to see you.
0:37 Thanks for having me, guys.
0:38 Glad to be here.
0:38 Good to see you, dude.
0:39 Yeah, of course.
0:40 So, let's put your story up on the screen here.
0:42 Um, which is the everything everywhere all at once corruption story.
0:47 Well said.
0:48 And I also want to as a jumping off point here just to get at the level of sort
0:52 of brazeness and how this has just become part
0:56 of the water that we swim in with the Trump administration.
0:59 this clip of Eric Trump, the president's son,
1:02 appearing on Fox News and being congratulated
1:07 for contracts that his company won with the Pentagon
1:11 as this is a as if this is a completely like normal and above board thing.
1:15 Let's take a listen to that.
1:17 And the company's chief strategy adviser, Eric Trump, President Trump's son.
1:21 Congratulations to you both.
1:23 Thank you so much for being here.
1:26 Thanks, Maria.
1:26 Thanks for having us, Maria.
1:28 And as you rightly, Isaac in the piece point out like we spent a lot
1:31 of time and you spent a lot
1:32 of time thinking about Hunter Biden and potential corruption.
1:34 They nothing compared to this.
1:36 Imagine Hunter Biden going on MSNBC and having
1:40 their Congratulations on this contract you scored with the Pentagon.
1:43 I mean, it's unimaginable.
1:45 But before we get into some of the specific details of your piece,
1:48 just talk about that climate and the environment it's
1:52 created for journalists and the way that this has
1:55 just become kind of a an accepted part
1:58 of the way that the Trump administration operates.
2:02 Yeah.
2:02 I mean, there there's something happening where
2:04 it feels kind of like we're under
2:05 a bit of a cell and I don't really know how to explain it.
2:09 But I think for opponents of the president,
2:11 you know, Democrats, people who didn't vote for him,
2:13 there's just so much coming out of the fire hose every day,
2:17 it's hard to get your head around it.
2:18 And I think they don't know really where to focus
2:21 or where to attack or which allegations to even prosecute.
2:25 And then the people who support him, I mean,
2:27 the brazeness, they're being so forward about it.
2:30 I mean, Trump told the New York Times, "Look,
2:32 my first term, we tried to separate the family business.
2:35 Nobody cared.
2:35 I got no credit for it.
2:36 So this time, I don't care.
2:38 We found out nobody cared, so we're just doing what we want,
2:41 basically is how he put it.
2:43 And it's true.
2:44 I mean, they are literally the president's son-in-law is landing deals,
2:49 raising money from Saudi Arabia while he is in the Middle East
2:54 negotiating a war that we're involved
2:57 in with Saudi Arabia's primary regional enemy.
3:00 I mean, the the thought of that a year or two
3:03 ago or happening under the Biden administration was really unfathomable,
3:07 but we've just become so used to it now and it's so almost expected.
3:12 I don't know if it's, you know,
3:14 just the low expectations or it's the fact that it's
3:17 happening so much that we've kind of numbed ourselves to it.
3:20 But when you look at it all together as I did
3:22 and you try and take it all in at the same time, it's just it's gobsmacking.
3:26 I mean, I reading my own writing, I have a hard time wrapping my head around it.
3:31 Isaac, you uh there are there's almost literally too many for us to mention.
3:35 So, why don't you pick a few of the examples?
3:38 And again, everyone needs to go and read this.
3:40 Like, just go read it.
3:41 We'll have a link down in our description, but for those who are just listening,
3:44 can you pick a few examples which you
3:46 think are the most egregious over the last year?
3:49 Yeah, look, I mean the the one to me that is probably the most
3:53 offensive is just the whole of the cryptocurrency stuff, which is, you know,
3:58 Trump launched a literal meme coin that had zero
4:01 value with his name as the name of the coin
4:04 and basically rugpulled a bunch of investors leading up
4:08 to his inauguration and then the days after his election.
4:11 And now he's soliciting dinners at the White House, at Mara Lago,
4:16 at his properties across the country to people who
4:19 buy the most amount of coin of his Trump memecoin,
4:23 which again has no inherent value.
4:24 It's just basically this social hype cryptocurrency and he's
4:29 just out there advertising it and flaunting it.
4:32 And the people who are paying money to get
4:34 to those dinners are not just random American fans of his.
4:38 They are sometimes foreign dignitaries.
4:40 There are people with associations with governments whose,
4:43 you know, who we're making foreign policy around.
4:45 There are people in industries that Trump is responsible for regulating.
4:49 I mean, the overtness of it is so insane.
4:53 It's it's really is genuinely hard to fathom.
4:55 And I don't mean to be hyperbolic.
4:57 I am somebody, like I said, I'm not I don't have Trump derangement syndrome.
5:00 I spent the four years of the Biden
5:02 administration chasing the Hunter Biden story,
5:04 which I thought there was a lot of smoke around
5:06 and some very weird stuff happening there that was worth investigating.
5:10 But what we're seeing now is just
5:11 a waterfall unlike anything I can really comprehend.
5:14 And then I' I'd say second to the cryptocurrency is the pardons.
5:18 I mean, we now have what I called in this piece a pardon industry.
5:23 There are people around Trump who are taking money
5:26 to to literally go to him and say, "Hey,
5:28 we got to pardon this guy who paid me a million
5:31 dollar fee and donated to your campaign and wants to get
5:34 out of prison for Medicare fraud or for defrauding donors when
5:38 he was a member of Congress." And Trump's just doing it.
5:40 I mean, these are some of the slimiest slime of the DC swamp
5:44 that he promised to drain when he first came up the escalator, you know,
5:49 and now he's letting all these people off
5:51 with a free pass for some of the really grossest,
5:54 you know, kind of uh fraud and um
5:58 low denominator DC schemes that you can imagine.
6:03 And it's it's hard to accept.
6:05 Yeah.
6:05 I do want to I want to pause on the crypto part as well
6:08 because not only by the the dollar amount is that the most significant,
6:13 you know, the bulk of Trump's wealth
6:14 at this point comes from crypto investments.
6:18 It's this incredible scheme to funnel him money
6:21 um to facilitate some of the some some
6:23 of the pardon industry comes directly through um investments
6:27 in Trump's or assistance for Trump's various crypto ventures.
6:31 It also is direct exploitation of his own supporters who are the ones
6:35 that through buying both Trump's shitcoin and Melania's shitcoin had the rugpull
6:40 and you know ultimately lost money in service of further enriching
6:45 the very guy that they so support and believe so and believe in.
6:49 So I feel like the crypto piece is what has really enabled the truly world
6:55 historic amounts of corruption and graft that Trump
6:59 personally himself has been able to participate in.
7:02 Yeah.
7:02 I I would say on top of just the the sadness and frustration
7:07 that I feel for his supporters who sort of followed him out
7:09 onto this branch before they cut it off and Melania Trump participated
7:13 in this too as you said with her own shitcoin that she rolled out.
7:18 We also have, I mean, literally some of the wealthiest people
7:22 and most politically influential people in the Middle
7:24 East like uh from the UAE who own nearly half of World Liberty Financial,
7:30 which is this crypto firm that the Trump family stood up.
7:34 I mean, they're investing hundreds of millions of dollars into this firm.
7:39 And I want to reiterate, when Biden was president,
7:42 we spent four years talking about his son getting a $50,000
7:46 a month salary for a Ukrainian at a Ukrainian energy firm.
7:50 And now we have the most influential people in the Middle East,
7:55 closely tied to a conflict that we're deeply involved in, who own hundreds
7:59 of millions of dollars of a crypto firm that the Trump family is running.
8:03 I mean, the the dynamics there are genuinely horrifying
8:08 in terms of what it means for the decision-m process
8:11 that we as a country are making as we set
8:14 off into this war in the Middle East with Iran.
8:17 And the UAE again, like Saudi Arabia,
8:19 is a country that wants us to stay in this war, which right now we're doing.
8:24 And it it's just it's too easy to do the 1 plus 1 equals two here,
8:29 but it's so obvious.
8:30 I don't know what else to think.
8:32 Yeah.
8:32 You talked there not just about I mean give us some of the other
8:35 examples you you cite like Trump mobile a branded phone I didn't
8:39 even see you had so many things in here I'm like I didn't
8:42 even know about this I didn't know that there was a Trump phone
8:45 it took so long to compile this picture but yeah
8:50 Trump mobile is a $400 branded phone 4745 a month
8:55 for the 47 plan the Trump organization doesn't even manufacture
8:59 this phone they're basically just licensing his game and selling it.
9:03 Um, there's a club in Washington.
9:05 Like, wait, what does the phone do?
9:08 I actually believe it's an Android phone.
9:09 The phone is yet to be released.
9:11 The network is going to be operated by Liberty Mobile Wireless, by the way.
9:15 So, there's sort of this circular thing here where
9:17 they're looping it back into their other firms and companies.
9:20 He's just licensing his name and then
9:23 promoting the presidential brand, you know,
9:25 while he's while he's in office and then taking
9:27 a profit from all the people who sign up for it.
9:30 Um, and this is a theme, too.
9:31 I mean, the Trump family opened the executive
9:34 exclusive club called the executive branch in Washington.
9:37 $500,000 for a membership to it.
9:40 The parent company, Trump social media platform, uh, of Trump social is DJT.
9:45 That's their ticker in their public stock.
9:48 Trump holds a huge stake in that company.
9:50 And weirdly, the stock seems to fluctuate with the Trump's popularity,
9:54 the President Trump's popularity.
9:56 Uh, Eric Trump, as you mentioned, went on Fox News,
9:58 graciously accepted a congratulations for this $24 million
10:02 Pentagon contract a company he's helping run got.
10:06 While I was viewing this story, the Financial Times reported that the Trump Suns
10:10 had taken a stake in this Kazak mining company.
10:14 And then literally hours later,
10:15 a Bloomberg story came out about the US Air Force agreeing to buy an undisclosed
10:20 number of interceptor drones from a company
10:23 that the Trump sons are also backing.
10:26 I mean, it's just on and on and on.
10:28 Don Jr.
10:29 is investing in and advising Poly Market and Cowshi gambling companies where
10:34 by the way we've seen these very
10:36 peculiar trades happening huge huge whales coming
10:39 in and betting on things like you know tariffs being called off or a ceasefire
10:44 in Iran with the kind of timing that to me only implies insider information.
10:49 I mean the the deeper you go the more there are.
10:52 And the crazy thing for me was as this piece was coming
10:54 out as I was literally drafting the piece more stories were breaking.
10:58 So I'm I'm like having to add
11:00 paragraph and paragraph right up to publication time.
11:03 I mean it seems like every other day there's another story like this.
11:06 Yeah.
11:06 Well, and I'm you are going to have to continue to update
11:09 this as long as he's in uh the White House because Yeah,
11:12 it is every day that a new revelation comes out or new questions too
11:17 cuz some of it is hard to pin down like the insider trading thing.
11:19 There's a lot of smoke there but you
11:21 can't pinpoint exactly who or exactly how much etc.
11:24 But it certainly seems like it's a systematic aspect of this administration.
11:29 Talk to us a little bit about the role that the Trump properties serve.
11:33 Um I I was kind of shocked by this statistic that you have here.
11:36 You say eight foreign governments have hosted or sponsored events
11:40 at Trump properties in just the first year of his second term.
11:44 You can also fold into that, you know,
11:46 the deal making that Jared Kushner is doing uh throughout
11:49 the Middle East and and around the world as well.
11:51 So, how significant have these Trump branded properties been to this operation?
11:57 Yeah, they they've been pretty significant.
11:59 And this is something that I think is really understated
12:02 because Trump has done a really good job of branding,
12:05 you know, Mara Lago as the winner White House.
12:08 And we've all sort of become accustomed to the fact that he might meet
12:11 with some foreign leader or have some highlevel
12:15 meetings at his properties outside the White House,
12:18 which you know, this is almost a place where I'm
12:20 I could be a little more sympathetic to the president.
12:22 He comes in as this businessman.
12:24 He owns these properties.
12:26 Of course, he might use them.
12:27 They're they're functional for these kinds of highlevel glitzy meetings.
12:32 But then you dig into it and you
12:34 realize that these properties exist all over the world.
12:37 And as Trump's political fame has risen,
12:41 they using that they use that fame to raise all
12:45 this money for people who are donating to his campaigns.
12:48 And then they're sometimes gifting out big events at these major properties.
12:52 Sometimes they're allowing people to pay to come
12:55 in and host big events at these properties,
12:57 not just in the United States, but again all over the world.
13:00 These are often foreign leaders who are organizing events or meetings,
13:04 high level events or meetings,
13:05 then giving the Trump family cash under the table,
13:08 which is sort of like this open, hey,
13:11 we just gave you a few million dollars and now
13:13 I'm going to come meet with you at maybe
13:15 your golf course in Ireland or at this site
13:18 of a luxury hotel that's not even finished yet,
13:20 but you're building in a place like Qatar.
13:23 And then while we're there,
13:24 we're going to discuss how the US regulates arms deals to cutter.
13:30 That is problematic.
13:31 Like there is an issue there that everybody should really care about.
13:34 Um I think one of the big ones that we're going to see happen now is
13:37 that Trump just selected National Dural Miami uh
13:41 hotel to host the December G20 summit this year.
13:43 So 20 of the biggest countries and leaders
13:46 are going to be coming to his property.
13:49 there's going to be a huge amount of money
13:50 dumped into reserving that property and paying the Trump family,
13:54 the Trump organization to come use it.
13:56 And then when everybody's there,
13:57 Trump's going to be on his home turf kind of, you know,
14:00 negotiating and navigating all these relationships he has.
14:03 That that alone, like that story by itself, I should just say,
14:08 would be a massive monthsl long scandal in any other administration.
14:13 And it is two sentences of a 6,000word piece
14:16 that I wrote about this like That alone would would do,
14:20 you know, newspaper headlines in a different era for months on end.
14:24 But in this administration,
14:25 it's like most Americans don't even seem to know about it.
14:28 That's crazy.
14:28 Well, you did such a great job, Isaac.
14:30 Again, we're going to have a link down in the description.
14:32 Go subscribe, go read, uh, support them over there.
14:35 We appreciate you, man.
14:36 Thank you.
14:37 Thanks for having me on, guys.
14:38 I very much appreciate it.
14:39 Very welcome.
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