NEWNow you can hearken to Fox Information articles!
A Tesla showroom on the White Home Garden. $5 million for 1-on-1 conferences with the president. Illegally firing Inspectors Basic. Particular tariff exemptions for pleasant firms. The primary 100 days of the Trump administration have been stuffed with continuous acts of brazen corruption, bribery, and favors for President Donald Trump’s billionaire pals.
If you consider corrupt politicians, you may think smoke-filled rooms the place secret offers are brokered and bribes are exchanged. However what makes Trump’s corruption distinctive is that he isn’t making an attempt to cover what he’s doing. He brags about it. After he posted on Fact Social, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!!,” after which paused his across-the-board tariffs, he introduced Charles Schwab — sure, the identical Charles Schwab (internet value $12.9 billion) of the financial institution Charles Schwab — into the Oval Office on April ninth and introduced Schwab had made $2.5 billion that day because of some suspiciously well-timed inventory purchases.
Why is Trump doing all of this out within the open? It’s not as a result of he believes in transparency. No, it’s as a result of Trump thinks that if he publicly engages in sufficient corruption and grift, it would begin to really feel regular to folks. As the media fails to maintain up with the sheer tempo and quantity of corruption, most of it flies below the radar. He’ll attempt to persuade us that is regular. However it’s not.
ANDREW BATES: Trump killed our economy in just 100 days. Democrats must act now
Let’s take one instance, which would be the most corrupt of all of them: the Trump meme coin. For most individuals, the crypto business is an enigma. That’s what makes it an ideal automobile for corruption.
Proper earlier than the inauguration, Trump launched a meme coin referred to as $TRUMP. It has no precise worth — its worth is solely associated to how a lot demand exists, and as president of probably the most highly effective nation on this planet, Trump is able to use his monumental official energy to generate demand for the coin, and in flip, income for himself and his household.
TRUMP’S MEME COIN SOARS AS PRESIDENT OFFERS DINNER TO TOP HOLDERS
Final week, the crypto coin scandal went nuclear. Trump posted on the coin’s web site: “HAVE DINNER WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP. Essentially the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION within the World. Just for the TOP 220 $TRUMP Meme Coin Holders.” The value of the coin jumped greater than 50%. Its market worth soared to $2.7 billion. To juice the worth much more, they introduced the highest 25 coin holders would even be invited to “an Unique Reception” earlier than dinner with Trump full with a “Particular VIP Tour” of the White Home.
In simply two days following the announcement of the dinner, Trump and his allies made almost $900,000 in buying and selling charges alone. It’s so brazen as to be onerous to imagine — the president promoting entry to the White Home as a mechanism to counterpoint himself personally.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION
The get-rich-quick scheme isn’t even the worst half. The largest rip-off is that we’ll by no means know who precisely is shopping for the Trump coin and placing money straight into his pocket. It’s as if Trump has posted his Venmo or CashApp on-line for each company curiosity and international authorities to funnel cash on to his checking account. Tech billionaires, Russian oligarchs, Saudi princes, CEOs of oil firms, or executives searching for exemptions from the tariffs — they will all buy Trump’s meme coin and curry favor with the president by making him even richer. There may be even a leaderboard monitoring who buys probably the most coin however the usernames are utterly nameless.
Trump’s meme coin is simply one of many dozens of examples proving that Trump has no real interest in protecting the guarantees he made to the American folks about decreasing prices.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
It’s no marvel he’s completed nothing to sort out costs — he’s spending daily making an attempt to determine tips on how to use the facility of the presidency to make himself and his pals richer. In truth, Trump has completed extra to counterpoint himself and his ultra-wealthy pals within the first 100 days of this presidency than he did in his complete final time period.
America doesn’t want to simply accept this degree of corruption. It’s as much as us whether or not we permit him to make all of this really feel regular.
