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• To the average American, the world of cryptocurrencies can be completely inscrutable. Only about 17 percent of U.S. adults say they’ve ever invested, traded or used crypto, according to an October Gallup poll. But that relative obscurity might be exactly why President Donald Trump and his family have gone all in on crypto. From pay-to-play memecoin dinners to billion-dollar investments in bitcoin, the Trump family now has a huge stake in a growing industry with few regulatory guardrails — and mounting conflicts of interest. Allison Morrow, a senior writer for CNN Business, tells us what the Trump family is up to and why ethics experts are waving red flags.
• And in headlines: The Trump administration ordered a pause on new student visa interviews, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stripped Covid vaccine recommendations for healthy children and pregnant people, and King Charles told Canada’s Parliament ‘that the true North is indeed strong and free’ in a speech widely seen as a rebuke of President Trump.

• Check out Allison’s work – www.cnn.com/profiles/allison-morrow
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• What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Wednesday, May 28th. I’m Jane Coaston and this is What a Day, the show that salutes us district judge for the district of Columbia, Richard Leon for using 26 exclamation points to smack down president Donald Trump’s effort to target a major law firm via an executive order. To quote Leon, “indeed to rule otherwise would be unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the founding fathers,” exclamation point. [music break] On today’s show, it turns out the majority of district court judges aren’t ruling in Trump’s favor despite their political party appointment. And little Marco is coming for foreign student visas. But first, let’s talk about how the White House is for sale. On Tuesday, Trump Media and Technology Group announced it would be raising more than $2 billion to invest in Bitcoin. As the name might indicate, President Donald Trump is heavily involved in Trump Media and Technology group. He is the company’s largest shareholder. Trump Media is also the parent company of Truth Social, where Trump posts literally every thought that enters his head. This deal is not the president’s first do-si-do with cryptocurrency. There was his dinner last week with the top holders of the president meme coin. The Trump family owns 60% of World Liberty Financial, another crypto firm that’s playing a central role in a $2 billion deal between an investment firm backed by the government of the United Arab Emirates and Binance, the biggest crypto exchange on earth. In short, the president of the United States has made it clear he and his family are going to make as much money as possible and are thrilled that crypto is giving them the chance to do so, even if press secretary Karoline Leavitt tries to argue otherwise. 

[clip of Karoline Leavitt] It’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency. This president was incredibly successful before giving it all up to serve our country publicly. Not only has he lost wealth, but he also almost lost his life. He has sacrificed a lot to be here and to suggest otherwise is frankly completely absurd. 

Jane Coaston: Ah absurd, absurd to think a rich person might want to use his power and influence to get richer. Who could imagine such a thing? That never happens in our capitalist society. So to better understand all of the Trump family’s conflicts with the crypto world, I spoke with Allison Morrow. She’s a senior writer for CNN Business. Allison, welcome to What a Day. 

Allison Morrow: Thanks so much for having me. 

Jane Coaston: So it’s pretty clear to me the Trump family is going all in on cryptocurrency, but I’m admittedly still very fuzzy on how they’re making actual money from it. I know they are, but I don’t know how. So I guess let’s start there. Broadly speaking, how is crypto turning into real wealth accumulation for the Trumps?

Allison Morrow: It is so vast and kind of hard to wrap your head around all of it. You’re right to be confused. A lot of people are. And I have to say in my reporting, it seems like the Trump family is counting on crypto seeming scary and like confusing for people to not really wanna like dive into it. So first and foremost, they have at least four crypto ventures now. Um. That’s a crypto trading platform. They have a Bitcoin mining platform uh that they’re going to take public. Trump’s digital media company is essentially becoming a Bitcoin holding company now. So there’s a lot of different ways that they can make revenue off of these things. The primary way so far that we know about is that through this meme coin, which they just held this crypto dinner for, the meme coin they make money off of transaction fees. So it doesn’t matter if the value of the actual asset is up or down, as long as it’s trading hands. The Trump Organization and by by extension, the Trump family are making money off of that. 

Jane Coaston: And this actually gets us into the last few days. And let’s start with Tuesday. Trump Media and Technology Group, which is a parent company of the president’s social media platform, Truth Social, which is where he says everything he thinks. It announced it plans to raise more than $2 billion to invest in Bitcoin. I’m not gonna lie, I read you that question from a script, but I’m like 100% sure what these words mean. So can you explain why this is a big deal and how Trump, the person who is the president of the United States, will benefit? 

Allison Morrow: Sure this is an increasingly popular strategy among some corporations to stock up on Bitcoin and use that Bitcoin as leverage to do what? Buy more Bitcoin. Um. As long as Bitcoin keeps becoming more valuable in the marketplace, that increases the value of your market capitalization. For the Trump media company, this seems to be kind of an admission that it was never really going to be a successful media company. They had no real media model to make money. And this seems to be a way to make it more of a Bitcoin holding company, which allows investors to invest in a stock that they’re familiar with, that’s not as scary as crypto. So you get the exposure to Bitcoin’s valuation changing, but you don’t actually have to have a crypto wallet. 

Jane Coaston: And late last week, the president hosted his meme coin dinner at the Trump national golf club outside of DC. It was this ultra-exclusive event specifically for the top 200 or so holders of the president’s self-branded crypto token. And I saw some posts from Instagram, like some of the attendees complaining that they didn’t actually get to talk to the president. What do we know about the people who attended? 

Allison Morrow: There’s a lot we don’t know about the people who attended, and that’s kind of the problem. I think the thing to keep in mind is that we asked for a guest list, and we have been rebuffed by the White House, by the Trump Organization, by the organizers of the crypto dinner. What we do know about some of the people who were there, they all paid a lot to be there. Some people paid tens of thousands, even millions of dollars. And one of those guys is really worth knowing his name and just kind of like flagging that he was there is Justin Sun. He is–

Jane Coaston: Yes, uh the Chinese born crypto entrepreneur? 

Allison Morrow: Yes, based on what he has said to the media, he is a billionaire many times over. He’s 34 years old. He started a very popular crypto trading platform called Tron. Um. But the thing to know about him with his connections to the Trumps is that under the Biden administration, he was under investigation for potential fraud in the crypto securities market. There were civil fraud charges against him. And then once Trump won reelection, Justin Sun was right there donating to the Trump family’s nascent crypto efforts. He has poured in millions of dollars into these Trump crypto projects. And then in February, his civil fraud charges were just evaporated. You know they were put on hold officially, but the SEC is dropping most of its enforcement cases against anyone in crypto. So the Trump administration has just been very beneficial to Justin Sun. And according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, he was able to come to the US for the first time without fear of being arrested for this crypto dinner. 

Jane Coaston: You reported that the top investors in Trump’s meme coin collectively dumped nearly $150 million into it over about three weeks, even though these meme coins are functionally useless as a currency or investment. Like, I could not go buy dinner with one of these. And if I tried to, the restaurant would get mad. So what’s the–

Allison Morrow: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: –upside for Trump to push something like this? Like, why this and not boosting initiation fees to his Mar-a-Lago resort, which, to be clear, he has done. Or accumulating more Boeing 747s from foreign governments. Why this? 

Allison Morrow: The crypto stuff is interesting because the scale is virtually unlimited. There’s only so many, you know, 747s from Qatari royal families he can get or other royal families that want to peddle influence with the White House. Crypto is really just unlimited. It’s very, very difficult to trace who the original senders of that money are. So, anyone wanting to buy influence, and then, you know, the way crypto is designed, it is anonymous, and it’s also easy to even anonymize your anonymous transactions and like go through kind of like money laundering techniques to hide the source of that money. And that is why, you know, ethics experts who I’ve talked to have said that the crypto game is the bigger ethical concern, the bigger like you know Qatari Jets are one thing, but this is like a scale we’ve just never seen before, and we’ve never had the technology to even comprehend for a president in office. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, at the risk of asking a really obvious question here, what are the ethical and legal lines that are being completely flouted here, specifically with crypto? 

Allison Morrow: The Constitution is pretty clear cut about you can’t sell access to the White House and the founding fathers were very concerned about the potential of foreign actors trying to manipulate or influence the president one way or another. Um this just the crypto aspect opens so many doors because all of this is overseen by a regulatory system that Trump directly controls. And he is working very, very constructively to defang the regulators who would otherwise keep these companies and these kinds of financial products in check. So there’s essentially no limit on the amount of money that can flow in through these channels. 

Jane Coaston: And you made that reference to the potential concerns for foreign influence. And we saw that at the crypto dinner. Bloomberg had some reporting that most of the people who were the top investors in Trump’s meme coin appear to be from overseas. 

Allison Morrow: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean there are a lot of names that were known as like they’re crypto guys. But I just can’t imagine there weren’t concerted efforts from foreign governments trying to infiltrate that dinner and it wouldn’t be hard. You didn’t have to spend that much money to get in. 

Jane Coaston: If Trump’s presidency is virtually for sale, whether it’s through meme coin or private jets or billion dollar promises from oil rich countries, what do you think he’s signaling to the American people? 

Allison Morrow: Trump will make money however he sees fit and any way that there’s a way to make money, he will do it. If you ever listened to some of his speeches about crypto, you know, he was a crypto skeptic and a doubter as recently as 2021, 2022. It wasn’t until he figured out that there were a bunch of rich crypto bros looking to influence the election that he was like, oh, this could be a thing for me. And when you hear him talk about it, you know, at the Bitcoin conference last year, he said something about like, have fun playing with your coins. I don’t think he really cares about crypto. I think he sees it as a way to make money and he knows that his sons are interested in it. And so he’s just kind of going with it. 

Jane Coaston: Allison, thank you so much for your time. 

Allison Morrow: Jane, thank so much having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Allison Morrow, senior writer for CNN Business. We’ll link to her work in our show notes. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule. 

Jane Coaston: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a major rollback of COVID vaccine recommendations on Tuesday. Ah, what a surprise, an anti-vaxxer being anti-vax. Kennedy made the announcement in a video posted to Twitter, flanked by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty McCary and National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya. 

[clip of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot, despite the lack of any political data, to support the repeat booster strategy in children. 

[clip of Jay Bhattacharya] That ends today. It’s common sense, and it’s good science. 

[clip of Marty Makary] There’s no evidence healthy kids need it today. And most countries have stopped recommending it for children. 

[clip of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] We’re now one step closer to realizing President Trump’s promise to make America healthy again. 

Jane Coaston: Missing from the video, officials from the CDC. Kennedy made the change ahead of a CDC advisory panel set to meet in June to discuss guidance for the fall shots. Up until now, the CDC had been recommending that all Americans six months and older get the vaccine annually. The policy change throws into question whether health insurance companies will still cover the shot and how accessible it’ll be for people who want to get one. 

[clip of King Charles] Today, Canada faces another critical moment. Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination, and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear and ones which the government is determined to protect. 

Jane Coaston: On Tuesday, King Charles delivered the speech from the throne, marking the beginning of Canada’s 45th session of Parliament. Typically that speech, which outlines the government’s goals for the new parliamentary session, is delivered on behalf of the Canadian Prime Minister by the monarch’s most senior representative in Canada. However, this year, newly elected Canadian Prime minister Mark Carney invited King Charles to make the address. King Charles is the non-partisan head of state of Canada, which is a member of the British Commonwealth of former colonies. A monarch has only personally delivered the address three times in history. Queen Elizabeth II made the speech on two previous occasions, first in 1957. 

[clip of Queen Elizabeth II] I greet you as your Queen. Together, we constitute the Parliament of Canada. 

Jane Coaston: King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived in Ottawa on Monday. Their trip comes amid tensions between Canada and the US. President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war and repeated threats to annex the country reportedly prompted Prime Minister Carney to invite King Charles to make the address. President Trump took note of Monday’s events, writing on Truth Social that Canada was considering an offer to become the 51st state in order to join the US’s Golden Dome project, because of course he did. The Trump administration ordered a pause on new student visa appointments. According to a State Department document signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the pause is quote, “in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting.” It said the State Department is reviewing existing operations for student and exchange visitor visa applicants and plans to issue guidance soon. At a briefing Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce wouldn’t confirm the possibility of requiring all foreign students applying to study in the U.S. to undergo social media vetting.

[clip of Tammy Bruce] What I can remind everyone of, which we’ve discussed for months here, is that we use every tool in our tool chest to vet anyone coming in who wants to come into this country. 

Jane Coaston: The Trump administration has been scrutinizing student visas and announced last week that it would halt Harvard’s enrollment of international students. A federal judge has since temporarily blocked the action. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Well, he’s a loser. You know, the guy’s a loser. 

Jane Coaston: That’s President Trump talking about Minnesota Senator Tim Walz in March, but he could also have plausibly been talking about himself, too. Why? Because federal district courts have ruled against him on 26 out of 27 possible occasions so far in May. For those of you into percentages, that shakes out to a loss rate of about 96%. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Well, he’s a loser, you know, the guy’s a loser. 

Jane Coaston: Those figures are according to a piece Adam Bonica published last week on a substack on data and democracy. Bonica has been tracking this cross-party rebellion in the courts since February. Trump’s loss rate has been increasing as time goes on. According to Bonica, this pushback has been motivated at least in part by President Trump’s attacks on law firms and individual judges. He also cited the weakness of the Trump administration’s legal arguments and the unabashedness of its overreach. Earlier this month, Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled against the president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan nationals living in the U S. Rodriguez was appointed by Trump in 2018. And just last week, Judge Myong Joun of the US District Court of the District of Massachusetts blocked President Trump’s executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education. In response, the Trump administration referred to him as a quote, “un-elected judge with a political ax to grind.” Judge Joun was appointed by President Biden in 2022. And that’s the news. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, think very carefully about anyone telling you predictions about upcoming elections, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how it is May, guys, let’s just get to June before we start writing articles about which podcast or sub stack is going to swing the midterms, like me. What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com/subscribe I’m Jane Coaston, and let’s walk before we run, okay? [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

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