Bulwark Takes - Trump’s Crypto Bribe Dinner: Tim Miller Exposes It All

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Tim Miller joins Nicolle Wallace and Michele Norris to unpack Donald Trump’s shocking crypto fundraising scandal—accusing the former president of hosting a bribe-filled dinner with foreign investors, including a Chinese national once under DOJ investigation. They also explore Trump’s diplomatic humiliation of allies like South Africa and Ukraine and the broader legal and ethical chaos defining his 2024 campaign.

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into his shit coin to a personal dinner with him. Among the investors included Justin Sun, the guy I've been talking about a lot on here, this Chinese crypto magnate who was under investigation by the DOJ under the Biden administration. Those investigations have been wiped clean under the Trump administration. He put in 50 million at least into Trump's coins. He will be there. A bunch of other folks. This is an unprecedented scandal. The corruption is insane. Earlier today in the press conference, Carolyn Levitt said that Trump was doing this dinner on his personal time. There is no personal time when you're the president. You don't

have personal time. You're always the president. The people at the dinner know you're the president. It's not like they get men and blacked on the way out. It's just you get to have a fun hang with cigars and then he goes back to being the president. They know people that have invested in the coin have said that they're doing it to influence this White House. Trump is getting rich off this. It is unacceptable. It is unprecedented. And I saw a congressman say that Trump is coin operated. Yeah, he's Bitcoin operated. He's cryptocurrency operated. Crypto coin operated. We'll play with that a little bit. This is a bribe. It's insane that there is not that people have gone along with it on Capitol Hill. And geez, the ramifications are are going to be really serious down the line.

I also talked a bit about the ongoing negotiations if you want to call them that in Ukraine, and the way that we are abandoning our ally. So you can check out a little bit of that as well. So stick around, make sure you subscribe to this feed, get all the content. I've got a bunch more coming for you tomorrow, because an interesting AI interview, a juicy interview, maybe if you will, and any breaking news as well. So subscribe to the feed. Stick around for me, Michelle Norris and Nicole Wallace. Tim, so let's bring you into this. If we go back into the way back machine and we remember a time where this was something that we wouldn't expect to see, you know, from a sitting president, how would people have

responded to something like this? And what in particular concerns you most about this dinner? Because listening to you talk about it, it sounds like this has really gotten under your skin. Well, it has because it's absolutely outrageous. And just really quick on history, we have a sentence for how people would have reacted. Spiro Agnew was Vice President of the United States for under Richard Nixon,

and got a deal where he received money from private interest that had interest in his home state of Maryland. I believe it was about $20,000, maybe about $100,000 in modern currency. And he was forced to resign. He was run out of the White House. Trump is taking in tens of millions, more, maybe 100 million. We don't exactly know exactly how much that he's taking in on the fees on this coin, on his ownership of the coin.

He's already sold some of it, as we've seen. If you talk to crypto experts and kind of monitor his wallet, you can see that he's sold some of the coins to enrich himself. And their spin that this is not a way to influence him is belied by the people that have bought the coins. I mean, you mentioned Justin Sun, this Chinese national who put in about 50 million into the Bitcoin, or not into the Bitcoin, excuse me, into the Trump coin. And he was being investigated by the US

and now he's not anymore. So that was a pretty clear deal for him. You have this group called Freight Tech, it's a trucking company and they bought a bunch of Trump coin and the CEO of the company said on the record that they're doing it because it quote provides a unique opportunity to champion free and fair trade across the US Mexico border in the interest

of our customers with the president. So at least the people buying the coins think that they are getting something out of it. So this is a bribe. I can under any other word, you know, we'll see how it actually shakes out with anything, but at least it is an attempted bribe and we've had people like foreign Chinese nationals like Justin Sun who have already gotten paid huge dividends out of

this investment into this worthless coin. It is a scandal without precedent in American history and like the fact that we just kind of move on day to day because there's so much going on. I guess it's just the nature of the Trump administration but I do think because it's important to call it out and just speak specifically about what's happening because it is confusing for people. A lot of people don't really understand what's happening with these with these alternative coins. Tim Miller, it's uncomfortable to watch that scene in the Oval Office. It is also pre-gold gilded mantle being set up so it does it does mark some time between the ambush of President Zelensky and the ambush yesterday of

The president of South Africa It is clear that humiliating world leaders is a tactic that Trump is comfortable turning to and not an accidental emotional outburst That too feels like a mile marker in our descent on the world stage For sure. And look, if you're an ally of this country, throughout all of the post-World War II era, you could feel like you could come to the White House and get candid feedback behind the scenes, behind the cameras as you negotiate

and talk about issues potentially between the two countries. But there's never a fear that the cameras would turn on and that you would get brow beaten by somebody who wants to puff himself up and seem tough for his imaginary reality show. And so obviously that is something that leaders throughout the world are gonna have to start to think about

when they think about how to deal with this person. And particularly with regards to Ukraine and the South Africa scene was just so ridiculous and appalling yesterday and obviously so much of what he said wasn't true. But in the Ukraine situation, like we really are in a life or death moment right now. And every signal since that White House meeting has been that they're ready to just wash their hands of this. I mean, Jimmy Vance at a press conference the other day where basically said, look, if Putin doesn't want to come to the table, then we're just been that they're ready to just wash their hands of this. I mean, Jimmy Vance at a press conference the other day

where basically he said, look, if Putin doesn't want to come to the table, then we're just going to have to, you know, let Putin and Zelensky figure it out without us. I mean, that's an invitation to Putin to not come to the table. He's basically saying, look, if you stall, we're about sick of this, we're about tired of this. So, you know, that is either actively trying to send a positive message to Putin

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