Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump Pushes $250 Bill Vanity Project as Approval Ratings COLLAPSE

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Trump pushes to put his face on a $250 bill, plans a UFC fight on the White House lawn, plus Don Jr's latest corruption scandal. Tommy Vietor and Brian Tyler Cohen break down the weirdest political stories from the week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor,

free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Brian, I have some bad news for you. What's up, Tony? You might be seeing a lot more of Donald Trump's big, ugly, stupid face. Here is Scott Besson. He's the pissy cadaver that we installed as Treasury Secretary here in the United States to explain what the hell I'm talking about.

Let's watch. You said that it's up to Congress. The president's face is on a $250 bill, but it is actually the Washington Post that's reported two political appointees from the Treasury Department who have asked agencies to be ready to do that. Do you think politically it's a good idea to put his face on a $250 bill when people are struggling Again, you know, I don't really understand this Washington Post article that who hears from the post? Yeah. Terribly written, terribly edited. Because basically what it says is that

Treasury is following the law and that we've created the bill and that it's up to Congress, but that we follow the bill and it's up to, I didn't really understand what the story was. Me no like formaldehyde, me like cascade. He's like, well, first of all, I noticed that you didn't use the Oxford comma. So that's a pretty serious gripe that I have. Baby. So, Treasury, the Treasury Department, is actually prepared a design for a $250 bill featuring President Trump's face. We're going to put it on the screen in the edit here. Because I think the way we all want to celebrate America's 250th birthday is by putting America's

worst president on its most useless currency. On a currency that most Americans aren't even able to get their hands on. If you thought the $2 bill was dumb, way to like see the 250. At this point, you cannot engineer a series of events that puts on full display the extent to which this administration does not give a flying fuck about regular people. From the ballroom to the billion-dollar Kachari jet renovation, the reflecting pool, covering the Oval Office with gold leafing, the walkway from the White House into the Oval Office. The sign. I mean, like, every single thing that this White House does is just vanity projects for the president, which would be bad enough unto itself. It's so much worse, given the fact that Trump took office on this pretense that he alone was going to be the one guy that would actually care about regular people.

No, no, no. I think he's laser focused on the job. So Joe Wilson, remember that guy? He is authored a bill directing the Treasury Bureau of Engraving and Printing to make this bill happen. So the Washington Post had the scoop on this story. They said it would be the first appearance of a living person on U.S. currency and more than 150 years current losses. It can only be dead people.

So I don't know if that's how Trump's thinking of solving the problem. Two for one. Just kidding, everyone, kidding Secret Service, kidding 86, 47, whatever. Apparently, two of Trump's political appointees have been pushing for this idea. The artist who designed it said he spoke to Trump directly on the phone about it, to your point earlier, that they're not quite laser-focused. This is the artist, quote, Brian. He likes to call me his favorite British artist.

He's British, said Alexander, a former competitive swimmer, and DJ describes himself as a royal portrait artist of Queen Elizabeth II and others. the back of the bill, the theme is Women's Liberation, featuring Betsy Ross. And she said Trump was passionate about that. This week, the DOJ opened up a criminal prosecution of E. Gene Carroll, which we're going to get to get to. But like, that was this week. This week. Yeah.

No living person has appeared on the U.S. currency since 1866 when it was outlawed after some mid-level Treasury bureaucrat put himself on a five-cent note. I want to know more about that guy. That's the real hero here. Trump already put his signature on some $100 bills. Dude, like, it's just, it's crazy. He has this insatiable appetite to just shove his name on things. It is unbelievable. I mean, the Kennedy Center, like, he took a memorial to John F. Kennedy and, like, shoved his name on it.

I mean, it's like putting your name on somebody else's gravestone. He's going to scratch it out on the tombstone. It's just insane. Put himself in, like, the Lincoln Whirl. Yeah, so when he's not putting his name, he's not putting his name, he's like, on stuff or personally directing renovations of fountains or whatever, flecting pools in DC, talking about how he picked the rubber that they put down. He's also preparing the White House for its first ever UFC fight.

Here's some of what we have in store for us for this 250th birthday extravaganza. June 14th, we're having a big fight. State banquets, Easter egg hunts, and now cage fighting. President Trump's latest bid for a massive spectacle at the White House is a huge. UFC events in front of thousands of fans on the South Lawn. You can see they're building the arena behind me ahead of the events on June the 14th. Thousands of fans expected. Critics say it's nothing better than human cockfighting. Making the most of all the beautiful historic landmarks here in Washington, D.C., not least right here at the Lincoln Memorial, where they'll hold pre-fight press conferences

and the way-ins ahead of the fights on June the 14th. But those cocks fight. I mean, like, you've heard the phrase, um, uh, neuro fiddled while Rome burned and like bringing back the fucking Coliseum. Yep. I mean, it's just, it's just so dead on. Wild.

I mean, so that the reporter ran around asking people if they were like offended by it or that it was a disgrace to the West. I think that's a bridge too far. There's lots of dumb events at the White House. There are people dressed up like the Easter bunny and roll eggs around, right? Like whatever. But it does strike me, as you were saying earlier, is quite politically risky to focus is so much on these anniversary celebrations when people are pissed about inflation and costs

and like genuinely pessimistic about their personal future, their ability to own a home, to have a job, to see their wages go up. And he's focused on this crap. Right. I mean, it would be one thing if the administration was bringing down costs or if gas was inexpensive or if they were expanding health care or expanding food assistance, but they've done the opposite on all of those things. And so you have all of these problems that were the cause of of Trump's election in the first place. Those have all been exacerbated. Nothing is being done to solve them. And yet you have Trump who is like in this, in his let them eat cake era and just hosting vanity parties and projects for himself. And so it's going to only send

one message to people because regular people are not going to be there. Regular people do not give a flying fuck what happens. Yeah. Regular people don't have, don't care what happens in this fight anyway, and they're all going to be looking at their grocery bills and their utility bills and their gas bills and clothing and food and electricity and all of these things that actually impact them. And they're not going to be able to separate the two, especially given the fact that there are no Democrats in charge to point the blame at. Like, Republicans have full control of government, House Senate White House. And so... It would be funny if they blame Democrats for scheduling this fight on the South Law. Like, my speaker, Johnson, like, how dare you Joe Biden?

I mean, they could. Would you be surprised? Yeah. What's the modern day let them eat cake for a UFC fight? Let them beat meat. Punch each other. It's a cockfight. You know what I'm saying. One person who's feeling very optimistic about his financial future is Donald Trump Jr. Because he is making bank off of real estate deals, crypto deals, whatever else he can do to

like leverage his connections with the U.S. government, even though Daddy won't go to his wedding. And so the latest story comes to us via this excellent scoop from ProPublica. So last year, Brian, I think we might have talked about it on the show. The Pentagon announced this massive loan to a tiny startup in North Carolina called Vulcan Elements. Vulcan Elements says that they can help produce America's dependence on rare earth materials that are critical for us in like weapons systems, electronic vehicles, cell phones, countless things. And the Chinese have a monopoly on these things currently. So the timeline of this story is as follows. So in August of 2025, 1789 Capital, which is Donald Trump Jr.'s VC fund, they took a stake in Vulcan.

We don't know how much, but at the time the company was valued at $200 million. Three months after that investment, only three months, the U.S. government gave Vulcan two separate loans or grants. There was a $620 million dollar Pentagon loan, and then a $50 million financial contribution to them as part of the Chips Act. So $670 million all in. And then by January of 2026, Bloomberg says the company was valued at $2 billion. So that's a 10x markup in the value of Vulcan elements in five months, thanks exclusively to our tax dollars that benefits Donald Trump Jr. So ProPublica learned that this $620 million Pentagon loan happened after Peter Navarro weighed in some way.

Remember he's Trump's trade advisor and he's also close friends with Don Jr. So he called over from the White House. ProPublica reported that DOD was considering dozens of companies. This was the only instance, though, of the White House weighing in. And it happened. The process happened in weeks, not the usual months. And then get this, Don Jr. had Navarro on his show right as the deal was being negotiated and then announced and told everyone watching to buy Navarro's book. And the two are so close that Don Jr. visited Peter Navarro when he was in prison and is mentioned in the book's dedication.

But of course, Don Jr. says he did not talk to anyone in the government about this deal and has no idea how it got done. So that settles that. Yeah. I think they asked the Pentagon about this. The Pentagon said, quote, no company receives preferential treatment. Outside affiliations, investors, or political connections play absolutely no role in the department's funding decisions. But it just so happens that this one in particular got all this funding in which Don Jr. was an early investor and saw his investment, I mean, saw the company in. increase 10x. And so, you know, your investment, presumably, is going to increase 10x along with

it. And this isn't even the only time this has happened because there was another company that's under Pentagon Review for a loan that's called Unusual Machines. I think you want to talk about that. Yes, unusual machines. They make drone parts. Don Jr. is on the board and he owns millions of dollars of shares because he is a drone technology expert. As we all know. When I think drones. Yes. I think that guy. Here's some recent coverage of unusual machines from CNBC. And then drone stocks are moving higher by double digits. This is all on a Wall Street Journal report that the Pentagon is in talks to fund American drone companies. Among those companies that Pentagon has identified is unusual machines of which Donald Trump Jr.

is a shareholder and an advisory board member of. Those shares, you can see there are moving up to about 27%. 27% in a day. What a coincidence. You know, if anybody's wondering why this administration is so fucking hellbent on staying at war, despite the fact that nobody wants to be at war, that Congress hasn't approved this war, and that it's aggressively unpopular. Look at who's benefiting from this financially. If you just so happen to be on the board of a drone company, you're probably doing pretty well right now.

If you're an early investor in another company that's getting a Pentagon loan for $620 million. If you're named Trump. If you're named Trump, you're probably doing pretty well right now. So, you know, at the end of the day, yes, this war is unpopular and you've got, Warhawks like Lindsay Graham who do it for the love of the game, but there are other people who are just going to benefit financially from this, and Don Jr. is among them. It's just, it's incredible. It's happening in the private markets with this loan to a startup that just so happens to be connected to Don Jr. And the VC fund is like, oh, we have,

we had no part of this loan getting engaged. The bullshit you didn't. The reason that you guys got to invest in this company is that the company knew there was a connection to the Trump administration, and that would help them out. That's just how the shit works. But it's also happening in the public markets where we can see it. It's like Donald Trump is, is trading stocks like crazy. They were like 3,600 trades in the first, whatever, like year and a half. And one of those trades, Brian, I saw he bought millions of dollars of Dell stock, Dell computers. And then just recently, the Pentagon announced a $9.7 billion contract for the purchase of Dell computers. Right after Trump had bought millions of dollars with the shares.

You know, look, I hope that what happens next when a Democrat takes control and we have a Democratic attorney general, that they look at what Merrick Garland did and do the polar opposite of that and recognize that all of this insider trading that's happening right now that every resource has to go toward making sure that this doesn't happen again because this is foundational. Like if you have a government that just engages in cronyism, then you may end up in a situation where, for example, you're at war because the president's fucking family stands to benefit from it

even though nobody wants to be in that war and Congress hasn't even approved that war. Right. And so, like, there are going to be people who say, oh, no, we have to turn the page. Like, eliminating corruption in government is so foundational to the functioning of that government that absolutely it deserves, it deserves focus in the next administration. And frankly, the fact that Merrick Garland didn't lift a finger to do any of this stuff until two years into the term anyway, really set the stage for Trump to be able to engage in this corruption like he is now, because there's no deterrent effect. Yeah, it is, it is outrageous. And it just saps people's faith in their government. And yeah, there could be like real world implications.

Right? Like, again, we are in this kind of Cold War with China. One of the things they have over us is a chokehold on these rare earth materials. If this, if we put all our eggs in this basket of this company connected to Don Jr. And then they're not able to deliver. And then we don't have these rare earth materials to make missiles and drones and magnets and all the things we need them for. We're fucked. Or if we put all our money into this other unusual drone company that he invested in. Unusual machines. And then other than work. Unusual machines and the drones don't work. We're fucked. How dare you insinuate? that Don Jr. won't get the job done. It's just, it's so outrageous. It's so brazen. They just don't care. But Hunter Biden, blah, blah, blah. Who sucks, by the way. But, like, this is so much more money.

Right. I mean, no, for these people to spend four years dining off of Hunter Biden, purportedly getting paid $50,000 from Burisma for sitting on the board as a private citizen, when it didn't lead to any government contracts or anything like that. Now this family, like Trump has increased his net worth by $4 billion. And his kids are both making themselves into billionaires onto themselves through government contracts, and yet we don't hear a peep from these champions for government accountability is just the whole game.

Oversight Committee, rather silent on this stuff. Liberal Tears is brought to you by Incogni. Most of us don't realize that our sensitive details are being traded like commodities by data brokers fueling scams and identity theft. Your home address, your Social Security number, and even your browsing habits are being harvested without your consent. Incogni helps you take back control by scrubbing your info from shady directories and brokerless. Don't waste dozens of hours fighting data brokers on your own.

own. Incogni automates the legal opt-out process for you. Just create an account, grant permission, and Incogni takes care of the rest. And they don't just stop after one sweep either. They'll keep monitoring sites to make sure your data doesn't pop back up. Look, unfortunately, it's just a fact that in 2026, all of us have way too much data out there on the internet. You want your peace of mind. You need a company like Incogni to come and help you get that off the internet so that bad actors, hackers can't just buy it anytime they want. If you want total peace of mind, their custom removals feature on the unlimited plan lets you send links to a privacy expert, will manually handle the removals for you.

Take your personal data back with Incogni. Go to incogny.com slash rank and use code rank to get 60% off their annual plan. That's code rank at incogny.com slash rank for 60% off. Plus, try it risk-free for 30 days with their money-back guarantee. Finally, we all know that Trump's favorite part of the job is interior and exterior design.

That is his heart. But his true passion is revenge. The revenge store now reportedly, includes, as you mentioned earlier, the Department of Justice opening a criminal investigation in E. Jean Carroll, who is one on the long list of women who has accused Donald J. Trump of sexual assault. Here is former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson on CNN last night talking about this outrageous case. So on a personal level, because of me coming forward almost 10 years ago now against Fox News for sexual harassment, I mean, this is very personal to me that the President

of the United States would be coming after somebody who had the courage to come forward and say that something bad happened to them. As a nation, I think that every American should be just really pissed off tonight, because what the hell is the Department of Justice doing? What are they actually doing for the citizens of the United States of America? We are wasting time on cases that, according to legal experts, are not credible all to fulfill the mission of one man called the President of the United States who's on a retribution tour. I'm sorry, I'm angry about, I'm angry about this, not really about the sexual nature of the alleged crime, but as an American. Damn good questions there.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, the whole thing is disgusting. It reeks of vindictive prosecution. And frankly, I think the onus is on the state bars to investigate and review the law licenses of any DOJ officials who allow this to proceed. We already know that this administration's engaged in vindictive prosecutions because just days ago a case was thrown out and the judge expressly came out and said that this was a vindictive

prosecution. That prosecutor's law license should be reviewed. Todd Blanche's law license should be reviewed. I think we have to get out of this mindset that we have to wait for these things that we know are happening to ultimately happen before we can finally take some action. We have to take some preventative steps right now to make sure that people know the consequences of their actions, especially as they abuse their law licenses to carry out the edicts of this president. Yeah, if you're abusing the system, there should be a penalty. I mean, what we're talking about here is like an investigation into whether Eugene Carroll committed perjury in the civil lawsuits, all of which she won. I mean, she won. Yeah. No, there's no reason whatsoever to suggest that anything on her side was improper.

No. And she won a $5 million civil judgment. And then she won an $83.3 million civil judgment. And three judges on the Second Circuit upheld or rejected Trump's ask for a new trial in December of 2024. And then the verdict, the $83.3 million verdict was again upheld by the Second Circuit. But what's happening here is a Trump handpicked U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Illinois for no reason was probably tapped by someone to say, hey, you got this one. Go try to punish this woman in the same way that John Brennan has a prosecutor in Miami coming after him, even though none of these events occurred in Miami. No. I mean, the whole thing, I mean, it just reeks of selected prosecutions, cherry picking prosecutors. who are going to be hack-ish enough to actually carry these things out.

Frankly, look, E. Jean Carroll is tough. Roberta Kaplan, her attorney is tough. And I think and I hope that after this vindictive prosecution, this criminal prosecution fails, that she sues Trump again in a civil suit and gets more money for the fact that she is being forced to shoulder all of this, all because Donald Trump is too much of a bitch to own the fact that he is being held accountable for his own actions. Yeah, he's a god-awful human being.

All right, well, that's it for us for today. Wait, that's not it for us for today. You know, I was sitting at home the other day and minding my own business and watching my favorite show, Pod Save America on YouTube. Y'all should subscribe if you're not yet subscribed. And I came across this clip right here. YouTube is a tough business. Politics is a tough business, right? One day you ride that algorithm up the next day, it rides you down.

Don't we know it? And it can lead to some tough times like this. Oh, yeah, dude. Oh, yeah, you playing tennis? Oh, eat it. Link in my bio. I just want to keep as my ringtone. Brian's doing some thirst traps too.

Posting a shirtless thirst trap? What is going on? The comment section was popping off on that thing. So, Tommy. So, Tommy, I watched that and I figured it would be so unfair for me to gatekeep that wonderful moment for charity. And it is for women's heart health. So I figured, why not give you the opportunity as well to make sure that you could crush your own watermelon? Oh, thank you so much.

Yeah, I absolutely won't be doing this at the office with pants on, but I appreciate the opportunity. We also brought you shorts. And we have a tarp set up right over here. So everything's going to be clean. Your pants will be spared. And you'll crush a watermelon for women's heart health unless, Tommy, you don't care about women's heart health. I hate to break it to you. I'm a big fan of heart attacks for women.

And so I won't be doing this. I'm not going to play your cynical little watermelon fucking game. Are you not going to crush the watermelon? No. What do we do in this instance? Can't the producers step in here? I want me to take my pants off and crush a watermelon? Yeah, that's exactly what we're trying to get you to do.

I don't think so. Do you think that you can't do it? Not even for a second, do I think I can't do this? I think this thing will crush me before I crush it. I don't know how you did that. Well, let the record show. Fuck, this is so hard. How do you do this?

That's a great clip right there because you can't see the watermelon. You son of bitch. You got what you needed. You got what you need it. Well, even though Tommy's being too much of a baby to crush this watermelon for women's hard help. Oh, so hard. How did you do that?

Even though Tommy won't do it. We're still going to link in the post description of this video through the American Heart Association. The link to that fundraiser here. You really can't not make the noises. Can you? Can't not make the noise. Not so easy now, is Tommy?

It was going. The narrator comes in and says, it was indeed not going. So to that end, we will leave it there. If you're not yet subscribed to Pot Save America's channel, we're going to put that link on the screen and also in the post description. And if you're not subscribed to my channel,

you can subscribe to that as well. And we'll leave you with the nice light din of telling with the watermelon. I just don't want to take my pants off. Hey, y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if, like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old.

from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca.