Bulwark Takes - Is Abu Dhabi Bribing the Trump Family?

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

Tim Miller takes on the massive crypto corruption scandal involving Donald Trump, billions in foreign bribes, and shady deals using the Trump family’s own cryptocurrency. Bloomberg: US Weighs Easing Nvidia Chip Curbs on UAE as Trump Plans Visit The New York Times: At a Dubai Conference, Trump’s Conflicts Take Center Stage

You set the gold standard for your business. Your website should do the same. Wix puts you at the helm, so you can enjoy the creative freedom of designing your site just the way you want. Want someone to bounce your ideas off? Talk with AI to create a beautiful site together. Whatever your business, manage it from one place and tie it all together with a personalized domain name.

Gear up for success with a brand that says you best. You can do it yourself on Wix. No offense, but your brain is a terrible place to keep your big idea. It belongs in the world, but you know that already. You have a calling, a voice that says, this is what I'm meant to do. Create the website your big idea deserves with Wix. Make it your own with top-to-bottom customization, AI to help realize your vision, and built-in business tools to turn your daydream into your dream job. Wix supports every stage of the business journey except one.

Your decision to begin. Ready? Go to Wix.com. Hey guys, it's Tim Miller from The Bulwark. The Trump crypto corruption is now off the charts. It is unimaginable in the history of American politics. What is happening with Trump's crypto coin is something in history that would be only akin to what would happen in tin pot dictatorships. Like we have a Gaddafi level scheme happening right now in this country under our nose.

I want to point you to this most recent story from the UAE, which is well reported by the New York Times. You've got to give credit to the mainstream media. There is some value to these huge legacy organizations that the Times has this David Yaffe-Bellini reporting

from Dubai, the UAE, something we don't have the resources for quite yet. Subscribe to the blog. So a shout out to David. Here's his report. Sitting in front of a packed auditorium in Dubai, a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business made a brief but monumental announcement. A fund backed by Abu Dhabi would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm's digital coins. That transaction would be a major contribution by a foreign government to President Trump's private venture, one that stands to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family. That man that was on stage, Zachcoff son of steve whitcoff so our chief

negotiator in the russia ukraine war if you're going to call it that i mean maybe the chief advocate for russia at the negotiation table in the russia ukraine war steve whitcoff um his son is a business partner with the president that appointed him. And that family business, the Whitcomps and the Trumps, managed to shake down the UAE for hundreds of millions. They get a processing fee. Let's get a little taste off of this deal that is done using their coin. Why would they use a Trump coin? Like, let's just think about this for a second. Think about this for a second. It's not as if they're investing in Trump's business, which would be totally inappropriate and stupid and moronic.

But what they're doing is even more idiotic than that. What they're saying is that this fund is doing a $2 billion deal, but instead of using U.S. dollars, instead of using the Saudi rial, instead of using a real currency, you know, fiat dollars to do this deal, they're doing it by transferring the Trump stable coin. This is an industry term in crypto. They have these stable coins that are meant to be. It's right there in the name. Meant to be more stable than the more volatile other crypto coins. It's kind of one of those things where if you have to say that it's stable. It does raise some questions about the stability. But anyway. So rather than using real money to do this deal.

They're going to use the Trump shit coin. Like just imagine this in your life. If you're going to the fucking coffee shop and you're saying to the owner, hey, I want to make a big purchase. I want to buy all of the beans that you got here. Do you want my dollars or would you like the Trump shit coin? Everyone is taking the dollars. Like, what? Who wants to do a $2 billion transaction with the Trump shit coin?

Like, the only rationale for doing a $2 billion deal with Trump shit coin is because you want to bribe Donald Trump. You want to bribe the President of the United States. That's it. It's the only possible rationale. There's no logical rationale for it. It makes no sense in any other context. So we have a bribery scheme happening with Abu Dhabi and the Trump family. I want to highlight something my friend Ian Sams flagged on Twitter.

Here's another story from today I want you to look at. This is from Bloomberg. Shout out to Bloomberg. The U.S. is weighing a potential easing of restrictions on NVIDIA Corp sales to the United Arab Emirates, according to people familiar with the matter, who said President Trump could announce the start of work on a bilateral chip deal during his upcoming trip to the Gulf. That's interesting. That's interesting. That's interesting. So we, you know, we have restrictions on like, on the most powerful AI chips, who can use them, the restrictions on China buying them on other countries. You can see the value in other countries and countries of big investment funds, sovereign wealth funds, having access to the,

the best, most highest quality AI chips that we're creating. You can also see why the U S would want to think strategically about that, you know, when it comes to deals. So it's pretty interesting that the UAE right, right after a fund that they support financially, made a massive investment, the Trump administration, it's like, yeah, you know, that's very easy restriction. Let's give these guys access to these high powered AI chips.

Maybe that's a big coinkydink. Maybe it's coincidence. Maybe there's nothing to see here. But, um, color me skeptical. Let's just say that. Color me skeptical. Uh, it say that. Color me skeptical. It is truly astonishing what is happening. The other story, I mentioned this on a pod recently, but just worth adding a little layer to this. That same young man, Steve Witkoff's nepo baby, was not just part had a meeting with the prime minister of Pakistan about doing deals with the Trump shitcoin.

This can't be real. According to that story, he family received a presidential-style motorcade and met with the leader of Pakistan to try to cut a deal with Donald Trump's business. Is that really what we want? Do we want our foreign policy with Pakistan, with a country that was hiding Osama bin laden that has a nuke like do we want that to be influenced by whether or not they invest in world liberty financial there's nothing like this it's crazy that this is happening there is no equivalent to this in modern American history. And this is literal tinpock dictator crap. But I guess that's where we are in the country right now. So I'm obsessed with this.

This is on my list of story obsessions as there are continued developments in the Trump crypto corruption bribery grift. We will keep you apprised of them. Shout out to the New York Times and Bloomberg for their reporting. Everybody else, please subscribe to the feed. We'll be back here soon. This podcast is sponsored by IQ Bar. Hi, I'm Will, and I created IQ Bar to empower doers like you with clean, delicious, low-sugar brain and body fuel.

Millions of people rely on our protein bars and hydration mixes to win their day. Turns out Thomas Keller, Michelin star chef of the French Laundry, is one of them. We've teamed up with Chef Keller to craft a bar and hydration mix that marry world-class flavor with exceptional nutrition. Our special edition salted caramel chip bar delivers all the decadence of a fine dining dessert plus protein minus sugar and carbs. And our zero sugar yuzu mango hydration mix packs an authentic citrusy punch and a mental boost from lion's mane and magnesium. The best part? 10% of sales go directly to Chef Keller's nonprofit that supports aspiring young chefs.

Great taste, great nutrition, great mission. Total no-brainer. Go to IQBar.com today and enter promo code Keller20 to get 20% off all IQBar products plus free shipping. That's IQBar.com, promo code Keller20.