Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-07-02 Thursday

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

Democracy Now! Thursday, July 2, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. You know why I'm profiting because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting. Thank you, President Trump. As President Trump denies profiting off the presidency, new disclosure documents reveal over $2.2 billion in profits since he returned to office, including $1.4 billion from crypto venture, last year alone. We'll speak to reporter Tom Bergen. He studied Trump's finances for decades.

His recent report under the Trump crypto playbook, the family always wins. Investors don't. Then the Supreme Court grants President Trump the power to fire and replace independent regulators. The case focused on the Federal Trade Commission, but could impact does. of agencies. The Federal Reserve is the exception. We'll talk to former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Badoia. The Supreme Court is administering a two-sided system of justice. If you're a Wall Street banker, you get an independent above the fray regulator. If you are a regular human being, you can get stuck with the loyalists. And finally, as we head into the July 4th weekend, marking the 200,000, 50th anniversary of the founding of the United States will speak to UCLA historian Robin DG. Kelly.

His latest essay, Do you understand your own language? Black radicals read the Declaration of Independence. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. President Trump faces a growing backlash after financial disclosure forms revealed his personal income soared to $2.2 billion in the first year of his second term. That includes $635 million from a licensing agreement for Trump-branded cryptocurrency meme coins and $590 million from the Trump family's World Liberty Financial Crypto project. Trump earned another $575 million from his real estate holdings. Trump's financial disclosure report sprawled over 900 pages by comparison President Obama's last such disclosure was

just eight pages. Editorial boards including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and Fox News have criticized Trump's latest business ventures. On Wednesday, Trump, Trump's defended his windfall profits. You're profiting off the president. Well, you know why I'm profiting because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting. If you have a 401k, how's your 401k done? It's about up 85%.

Thank you, President Trump. President Trump was speaking to reporters before boarding the new Air Force One, a Boeing 747 jet donated to the U.S. by the royal family of Qatar. The Air Force expedited a retrofit of the luxury plane, reportedly at a cost of well over $400 million. Trump plans to keep the jet after leaving office, saying he'll donate it to his presidential library. Democrats have accused him of receiving a foreign emolument or bribe, which is prohibited under the U.S. Constitution. This comes after the New York Times reported Commerce Secretary Howard Lutton, met with Kazakhstan's president last September in New York,

where the pair negotiated a deal giving a U.S. company called Kha's resources, access to one of the world's largest untapped reserves of Tungsten. Ahead of the deal, the Trump administration greenlighted as much as $1.6 billion in federal financing for the project. Howard Lutnik's sons, Kyle, and Brandon Lutnik, as well as Eric and Donald Trump, Jr. are all tied directly or indirectly to the company. A coalition of human rights and anti-war groups are calling on President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to lift all U.S. sanctions on Venezuela as the death toll from last week's devastating twin earthquakes continue to rise and humanitarian aid advocates warn about a widening health and hunger crisis. In a letter

obtained by common dreams. The groups write, quote, as long as sweeping economic sanctions remain in place and Venezuelan assets remain frozen abroad, reconstruction will be unnecessarily delayed and millions of people will continue to suffer. The letter has been signed by dozens of organizations, including the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The U.N. Development, program has estimated the earthquakes have caused $6.7 billion in damage. On Wednesday, the death toll surpassed 2000, which is believed to be a vast undercount, with tens of thousands of people still unaccounted for. In related news, Congressmember Joaquin Castro is condemning ICE officials

for attempting to deport more people to Venezuela in the aftermath of back-to-back earthquakes. In a social media post, Castro said ICE had tried to deport Venezuelan children and families currently detained in Texas's Dilley ICE jail. The families were ultimately returned to Dilley after being flown to Arizona. Castro said, quote, it is unthinkable to send children and families who've committed no crimes into a country plunged into chaos by natural disaster, unquote. Last week, hours before the earthquakes, over a hundred Venezuelan immigrants to the United States were deported to Venezuela. It's believed over a hundred of them died in the earthquakes. The United Nations is once again sounding the alarm over escalating violence and a deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Sudan's North Kordafan region. In a statement, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, Tom Fletcher,

that intensifying drone attacks are disrupting access to life-saving, drinking water, and electricity, with hundreds of thousands of civilians in El-Obeyed at risk of paramilitaries with the rapid support forces, RSF, who've surrounded the city. This comes as a new UN Human Rights Report documents how widespread sexual violence in Sudan is being used as a weapon of war. Meanwhile, Sudan's rapid support forces have begun circulating new banknotes and territories and controls as the value of the Sudanese pound continues to plummet. The currency crisis has exacerbated Sudan's economic woes. This is Obushari Ali, an economist in Port Sudan.

The war has pushed Sudan into a severe economic crisis. Factories are closed in large numbers, farms abandoned, and production. continues to contract. With shrinking revenues, the government has little choice but to hide taxes, which only compounds the burden on businesses and households. It's a vicious cycle that feeds on itself. In Ukraine, at least 18 people were killed and dozens of others injured overnight as Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack on Kiev. The attacks set buildings across Ukraine's capital on fire, including six floors of an apartment high-rise, that partially collapsed after taking a direct hit. The attacks came as a new report by the Center for Strategic

and International Studies found more than 2 million people have been killed or injured since Russia's full-scale invasion in early 2022. Russia has taken the larger share with 1.4 million battlefield casualties and as many as 450,000 deaths. Palestinians are marking the 1,000 days since Israel began its full-scale war on the Gaza Strip. According to Gaza's government media office, Israel's scorched Earth campaign has killed over 73,000 Palestinians with nearly 10,000 missing, most believed to be buried under the rubble. Israel's dropped nearly a quarter million metric tons of explosives across Gaza, equivalent to 16 atomic bombs like the ones the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima.

Meanwhile, the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States has voted overwhelmingly to recognize Israel's war on Gaza as a genocide and to divest from Palantir Technologies and General Electric Aerospace over their ties to Israel's military and intelligence services. A measure approved Tuesday by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA also calls on church members to boycott Israeli products and to lobby Congress. for an arms embargo against Israel. This is Reverend Dr. Fahed Abu Akit, a Palestinian-American and former moderator of the Presbyterian Church who survived the 1948 Nakba or mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel's founding. We have been silent on the destruction of most of the schools,

universities, hospital, mosque, and churches. You know, one church was Orthodox, Catholic, and also Baptist. all of which were done with our American-made weapons on dollars, sibling in Christ, in the name of the living Christ, we cannot be silent on this matter any longer. The world's oceans experience their hottest month of June ever. That's according to the European Union's Marine Environment Monitor, which reports the first six months of this year, so marine heat waves affect more than 80% of the global ocean with hotspots in the Mediterranean, North Atlantic, and Equatorial Pacific. Forecasters warn a powerful El Niño, paired with record levels of greenhouse gas pollution,

could see even more temperature records fall in the coming months. Spain's government reports, more than 1,000 people died of heat-related causes during last month's historic heat wave. Previously, officials in France said heat-related fatalities also topped 1,000 in June, while Germany has so far reported over 800 deaths. Here in the United States,

the National Weather Service warns more than 165 million people across Midwestern and eastern states are at risk of either major or extreme heat-related health issues over the 4th of July holiday weekend with triple-digit temperatures in many cities. Forecasters warn New York, Philadelphia, and other cities could see record highs and their warmest ever overnight low temperatures. Meanwhile, the forecast for Washington, D.C. calls for triple-digit heat on the National Mall for Saturday's 4th of July celebrations, marking the 250th signing of the Declaration of Independence. President Trump is planning to speak at 9.45 Eastern Time delaying fireworks celebrations.

Trump has advertised the event as, quote, the most spectacular Trump rally of them all, unquote. ICE arrests have surge nationwide with more than 10,000 immigrants detained in the last five days alone. That's according to the New York Times, which reports the White House has demanded an increase in detentions, ordering ICE officials to make at least 2,000 arrests a day. In related news, a Roman Catholic nun arrested by ICE in Texas has been released from custody. Sister Leticia Ubauga, who is originally from Nigeria, was walking to mass at Our Lady of Soros Church in McAllen Sunday, when she was detained by ICE. Her arrest drew bipartisan anger in Texas, leading to her release. In Texas, seven more people were sentenced to prison on terrorism charges for attending a protest outside.

The Prairieland Ice Jail last July 4th, during which fireworks were set off, and a police officer was shot and wounded. All but one of the defendants sentenced Wednesday had pleaded guilty. They were handed down between two and 15 years in prison, the final defendant, Ines Soto, was convicted of providing material support to terrorists and other charges and sentenced to 50 years in prison. This comes just weeks after eight other defendants who were convicted at trial were given unusually harsh decades-long prison terms, including former Marine Reservist Benjamin Song, who was sentenced to 100 years behind bars to see our coverage of this case and others go to Democracy Now. dot org. Republican House Speaker, Mike Johnson, says a bipartisan housing bill approved by the Senate last week will become law with or without President Trump's signature. Johnson told USA Today

Trump has no plans to veto the bill, which he's refused to sign unless lawmakers first pass the Save America Act to rewrite U.S. election laws while imposing new voter ID requirements. On Monday, Trump called the housing bill a yawn. Trump people say it's wonderful. To me, compared to the Save America Act, just about everything is a big yawn. Trump takes no action. The housing bill could become law automatically on July 10th. On Wednesday, the bill's co-sponsor, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, said she still doesn't know Trump's plans.

One week later, we don't know if the president is going to sign. into law the biggest housing bill in 30 years, a bill that would build more housing, lower costs, and for the first time ever stop private equity from buying up homes. If that sounds ridiculous, it's because it is. The U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a resolution that would force the public disclosure of records from Congress members who've used taxpayer money to settle sexual misconduct accusations. The resolution was sponsored by Republican Congress member Thomas Massey of Kentucky with 420 lawmakers voting in favor.

Massey's effort comes after former Congress members Tony Gonzalez and Eric Swalwell were forced to resign earlier this year over serious sexual misconduct allegations. Meanwhile, writer E. Jean Carroll is calling on President Trump to pay her $5.8 million from a jury verdict finding Trump sexually abused her in 1996 and then defamed her. After the U.S. Supreme Court this week refused to take up Trump's appeal of the verdict. And the actor, director, and activist Danny Glover has revealed he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2023, saying it slowed his speech, movement, and memories. In 1968, Danny Glover took part in the longest campus strike in the nation's history when the Black Students' Union

and the Third World Liberation Front organized to create the first school of ethnic studies in the country at his university, San Francisco State. He went on to perform in over 250 films while remaining active in movements to end war, end apartheid, and in support of working people. to see our many interviews with Danny Glover over the years, including our visit to South Africa, where Danny Glover retrieved President Aristide and Mildred Aristide, the former president of Haiti, and brought them back on a plane to Haiti. I was on that flight. We documented the entire trip. You can see the story at DemocracyNow.org.

And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. And I'm Nareem Sheikh. Welcome to our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. We begin today's show with the stunning windfall President Trump has made during his first year back in the White House. New filings show that Trump made more than $2.2 billion last year, most of it fueled by cryptocurrency profits, but with a significant rise in profit.

across his real estate business and other family investments and his legal settlements with media giants like ABC News, Paramount and Meta. The Mandatory Financial Disclosure Report released Tuesday shows Trump made at least $1.4 billion from his family's cryptocurrency ventures. That includes $635 million for Trump-branded cryptocurrency meme coins and $590 million from the Trump family's world, Liberty Financial Crypto Business. Meanwhile, roughly two-thirds of investors and the president's meme coin have reportedly lost money as he made a fortune. As the backlash grows over Trump's

windfall profits, including criticism from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and Fox News, specifically Trump's defenders, usually, Trump defended, Trump defended how he's profited for, from the presidency while speaking to reporters Wednesday. Well, you know why I'm profiting because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting. If you have a 401k, how's your 401k done? It's about up 85%. Thank you, President Trump.

President Trump was speaking to reporters before boarding the new Air Force One. A Boeing 747 jet donated to him by the Qatari royal family, reportedly at a cost of $400 million. Trump plans to keep the jet after leaving office, saying he'll donate it to his presidential library. Democrats have accused him of receiving a foreign emolument or bribe, which is prohibited under the Constitution. While the bulk of President Trump's profits in 2025 were driven by cryptocurrency,

he also earned another $575 million from his real estate holdings. That includes over $200 million. from Trump National Doral and Maralago, as well as earnings from licensing deals overseas, including in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, countries vital to U.S. foreign policy interests. Growing concerns over the president's conflicts of interest come as a new report from MS. Now finds the president's two eldest sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., are linked to investments in at least 10 military companies that have drawn about $3.7 billion in federal funds since the start of the second Trump administration. Meanwhile, President's Trump son and Commerce Secretary Howard

Lutniks stand to see a big windfall after businesses tied to the families helped secure a $1.6 billion mining deal in Kazakhstan, according to a report in the New York Times. For more on all of this were joined in London by Reuters investigative journalist Tom Bergen. He's the author of the book Free Lunch Thinking, How Economics Ruins the Economy. His most recent investigative pieces headlined parsing the Trump's crypto profits, investors' losses. Welcome to Democracy Now, Tom. Why don't you parse it out for us? And especially for people who don't understand the whole, crypto issue. Explain what it is and how this family, the Trump family and his allies, have

profits, has profited so much. Thank you, Amy. It's good to be on the show. The first thing I'd say is that the comments from the president aren't really accurate insofar as that he says that he has made money because the stock market has gone up. None of the gains, which we reported upon, and as others have, that are contained in these documents, refer to gains from selling stocks or bonds. This is all entirely money that is cash, that has come into the accounts of his businesses from the operating businesses.

And as you mentioned, what has become the most strongly performing new business is the cryptocurrency area. And of course, this is an entirely new business. And so what we've seen is that the areas in which Donald Trump has seen an enormous increase in his income. And this is not an increase in his wealth. It's an increase in cash coming in. We looked at this last year. We analyzed how it had gone up.

And it was, you know, even before we saw this huge surge of income, it had gone up dramatically. So it's new businesses or businesses that are connected in some way to the presidency, which is to say when we look at the golf clubs that have performed, very well. It seems to be ones like Maralago has gone up 50% increase in revenue at West Palm Beach up 27%. Places where he spends a lot of time as president have done especially well. But the crypto is really just a blowout one altogether. And in particular, this business world liberty financial. The business sells digital tokens that have no intrinsic value. They have no real function beyond as a method for speculation. You can buy one in the hope that you. You can buy one in the

hope that you can sell it to someone else at a higher price. As such, it's a zero-sum gain. President Trump's gains from selling these tokens have been mirrored almost identically by the losses on the part of the people who have purchased these coins. So it's either if it's the World Liberty Financial token or the meme coin, the people who've bought these, we've seen a over 90% drop in the price or 97% drop in the price from the peak there. So, this is a business that basically you sell tokens that have no cost to manufacture. In the crypto business, when you want to sell tokens, the high cost tends to be in getting people's attention. That's why in the past, when people have launched cryptocurrencies, they've hired movie stars and sports stars to get people's attention.

Of course, the Trump family have the ability to get people's attention in an unheard of way. They've got the best possible marketing tool, namely the presidency. So it's been an incredibly successful period for the Trump family in this new business. This is important to say it's a business that was registered weeks before the 2024 election, and which really didn't start to take much revenue in until the election happened. So this is something that has really been a 2025 blowout, year for the Trump organization on the back of businesses that have benefited very much from his links, his position as president.

And also, Tom, just to put it in the context in relative terms, I mean, in orders of magnitude, he declared, I mean, these disclosures show that his income more than tripled what it was in the previous year. So if we could talk a little bit more about the conflicts of interest this raises, As the New York Times pointed out, Trump is a major crypto industry operator and also its top policymaker and also Trump earlier said that he himself condemned crypto saying that Bitcoin was a scam and saying cryptocurrency was potentially a disaster waiting to happen. Yes, I mean, the first thing I just say, just to slightly correct that, it's far more than a three times increase in his income.

Some of the revenues have gone up. in some of the businesses maybe three times. But across the piece, it's far more than a 10 times increase in income for the Trump organization. In terms of the regulatory side of things, the White House is very clear. There are no conflicts of interest.

President Trump is only concerned about the American public and acts in their interest. Nonetheless, these are businesses that really, well, they didn't exist before this, and it's quite difficult to see how they would have existed in their current form

in a different situation under a different president. So, for example, the sale of crypto tokens like the World Liberty Financial token or indeed the meme coin. This was treated from a regulatory perspective under the Biden regime

as being the sale of securities. Consequently, it was quite difficult to engage in that activity, certainly in the United States. And that's why we saw really the end of the the coin offering boom in the late 20 teens, so rounded by 2019, actually under the first Trump administration,

it was the first Trump administration that clamped down on the sale of digital tokens for vast sums of money. So it's definitely the change in regulatory situation is definitely benefited. And if we could speak about one of the deals in particular, the deal signed between Eric Trump and the Emirati, Tahanun bin Zaid. Soon after this deal was signed, the UAE was granted access to U.S. artificial intelligence chips. What is the significance of this particular agreement? Well, according to World Liberty Financial, there is no significance. This is an entirely commercial transaction unrelated to anything else.

I think what we do see is when Eric Trump or his brother travel around the world or indeed actually just some of the officials of World Liberty Financial travel around the world of places in the Middle East, Pakistan, wherever. They do get treated incredibly well by the authorities there. They get meetings with senior people. So the company said there's no connection. But it is also interesting when we look at that particular deal and you have to look at what was being bought, $500 million being given for a company that really didn't have much by way of an income flow. So it was quite difficult.

And that's because what was sold there was not the right to the revenue from selling tokens. It was to a separate business. So it wasn't a business that had a lot of intrinsic value. So it was quite surprising, just for me as somebody who studied the business model of that business in quite a forensic way, to understand why someone would spend $500 million for that stake. But as I said, there's a denial on the part of the White House and World Liberty Financial that that's in any way linked to the decisions with respect to the UAE. And what about the fact some have said that this disclosure doesn't in fact reveal other sorts? In other words, there are some sources of income that Trump has had that are not included in this document.

Is that right? Well, to be clear, what we're looking at here is with respect to the cryptocurrency income. Donald Trump has reported cryptocurrency income, which he has received into his company's bank accounts. So this is not to say, this is not an accrual type accounting mechanism, which is recording everything that he is entitled to. Under the documents governing World Liberty Financial, there are descriptions there of the entitlement that the Trump family have with respect to token sales, and they get a significant share of those. So we know that that business continues to hold within its large amounts of funds. So we had estimated that Donald Trump and his family had made considerably more. from World Liberty Financial that has been reported in this.

The just over 500 million in proceeds from token sales by World Liberty Financial is disclosed in this document. We estimated that it was considerably more than twice that number. And the truth is, you know, standing here today or sitting here today looking at those documents, I'm not sure that we were wrong because we don't know how much else accrued to Donald Trump in 2025 and 2024 from the operations of World Liberty Financial, because we've received no accounting for that.

So like most things in crypto, we don't really see a lot of what's going on here. We don't have transparency as to who's buying these crypto tokens, and we don't really see where the money's flowing or how much has been paid. And Tom, go beyond crypto, and overall, put this in a global context. the idea of an elected leader of a country, making billions of dollars along with his family and his close allies and their families, like Whitkoff and his sons, Lutnik and his sons.

I mean, everything from you have MS now, a report that just came out just over a week after U.S. and Israel forces struck Iran in February. A publicly traded Florida golf course company announced unusual plan, a reverse merger to. to take a barely one-year-old drone startup public. Donald Trump and Eric Trump, the two sons, were part owners of the golf course company. Now they're backers of the drone startup. And then you have, you know, Trump's legal settlements with companies like ABC, CBS, META, YouTube, making $80 million as he sues the media. His Trump National Doral, $121 million, Trump Tower, Chicago.

Chicago, $39 million, and the foreign real estate investments and his sons following in the wake of where the so-called peace envoys go and people seeing it from the outside. I mean, even you have the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board, the New York Post editorial board, even Fox raising these issues of the family just raking in a level we have not seen before. compare it to other countries in history? Yeah, I mean, it's difficult to find comparators for anything. I mean, just within the Trump family, it's difficult to find comparators. What I mean by that is the Trump sons did not face constant, they were not being appointed on a repeated basis to the boards of outside companies in the years before the second Trump presidency,

or indeed the first Trump presidency. So they were not, so far as we could see, they're not, you know, sought out partners. They don't have experience in any of these businesses. It's not entirely clear what they're bringing to this apart from their brand. You mentioned there in terms of precedence. Obviously, in the U.S., there's no precedent of this. But I think that if, you know, you're looking more broadly,

there's not a precedent either. So we've seen billionaires before in politics. This has happened in Czech Republic. It's happened in Ukraine. It's happened in Italy with Silvio Berlusconi. But what we haven't seen before is someone coming in and they're into a leadership position and their family starting a new business, which is intimately impacted by the position of the presidency for regulatory and other reasons. And then making over a billion dollars.

That's not something that we've seen in the Western world. I've looked around. I couldn't find any example of that. So whatever way you look at this, it's quite unusual. You know, precedent geographically or over time. It's truly quite unusual. And it does, obviously, as I said, the Trump organization say there are no conflicts of interest that the company has always done deals overseas.

Well, you know, the truth is it did do deals overseas, but they'd rather fizzled out come about 2016. And after the second presidency, even after they lifted the self-imposed moratorium on foreign deals, there wasn't a rush of people to come and do deals in 2021. What we saw was that in 2024, a significant pickup in these deals in the second half of the year as President Trump was nearing the 2024 election. And then we saw a huge explosion in those deals thereafter. So we're seeing a significant increase.

in income in areas that have some linkage to the presidency if it just be about his brand being lifted. But also we are seeing quite interestingly, the places where his brand attracts the most developer interest seems to be in the Middle East. So we see new deals in Qatar and Dubai yielding tens of millions of dollars in the Middle East, so that have benefited the president. And Tom, very quickly, before we conclude, what is unquestionably illegal here and what can Congress do? Well, you know, nothing's unquestionably illegal until the judge rules. And I think, you know, I've reported enough complex regulatory laws in the past.

But what's interesting is there are so few guardrails here with respect to a president. So you mentioned the foreign emoluments clause. That's not something that's been widely tested. So we don't know about its limits or otherwise. but so many of the rules that would exist with respect to appointed officials or other elected officials do not apply to the president. So it's quite difficult to, if there was any desire for anyone to hold them to legal account, there isn't really a legal account. And indeed, that's something that Elizabeth Warren has drawn some attention to that maybe there should be some revision of the rules there with respect to the guardrails on a president. Tom Bergen, want to thank you for being with us, investigative journalists with

Reuters, author of the book, Free Lunch Thinking, How Economics Ruins the Economy. We'll link to your latest piece on your other investigations, parsing the Trump's crypto profits' investors' losses. Coming up, the Supreme Court grants President Trump the power to fire and replace independent regulators. In a case focused on the Federal Trade Commission, it could impact dozens of what were believed to be independent agencies. We'll talk to former FTC Commissioner Alvar Obadoia. Stay with us. Steve Earle in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org.

I'm Amy Goodman with Nermin-Shea. The Supreme Court has granted President Trump the power to fire and replace commissioners at independent government agencies. Monday, 63 ruling overturns more than 90 years of precedent that insulated regulatory agencies set up by Congress from presidential control. The case focused on the Federal Trade Commission, where two commissioners were fired by President Trump in March of 2025. Alvaro Bodooya and Rebecca Slaughter, who was the lead plaintiff in the case. In a separate ruling announced Monday, justices ruled five to four that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook could remain in her job as she challenges Trump's efforts to fire her as well. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued the Trump administration's efforts to end the Federal Reserve's

independence is, quote, an interpretive leap out of step with a statute, Congress, acted in our nation's tradition of central banking protected from political interference, unquote. Avro Bedoya, former FTC commissioner, who was fired by Trump, responded to the ruling, quote, they're making clear that the Wall Street bankers, the central bankers, they deserve an independent above the fray regulator. The rest of us schmucks get stuck with the loyalists, Badoia said. He's now a senior advisor at the American Economic Liberties Project, co-host of a weekly podcast, the fair fight with Alvaro and Max.

He's joining us now from Maryland. Alvaro Badoia, welcome to Democracy Now, your former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, fired by Trump last year. Talk about these two Supreme Court rulings. I think the key thing here, Amy, is to follow the money. Because on the one hand on Monday, you had the regulator that's most important to those central bankers, most important to those billionaire Wall Street bankers. Why?

Because they want a nice steady ship with interest rates, with other interventions in the market. The Supreme Court reaffirmed, surprise, surprise, that those regulators should, at least for now, remain above the fray and independent. But then you have this whole series of other agencies that keep your toys safe, that keep health insurers from robbing people blind, that keep supermarkets from merging to make milk, eggs and beef, even to keep it from being even more expensive. The court said that all those regulators can report directly to the president and be entirely beholden to his whims, and at the end of the day, his donors, his billionaire donors

over his shoulder at the inauguration. That's what this is about. And Alvaro, if you could explain what the implications of this might be well beyond Trump. Is it the case now that the president will always have this power? Well, this is a really important point because I've started to get questions already. Oh, you know, Alvaro, how do we restore independent agencies? This is a Supreme Court ruling. The only way to change this ruling would be either to change the. court or to pass an amendment. And honestly, I think we should consider both of those things,

changing the court and passing an amendment to the bill of rights. Let me tell you quickly what I mean here. So this pair of rulings isn't some kind of accident. You need to stack it up on top of Citizens United, the court saying that corporations are people and then they can spend as much as they want to buy our elections, a ruling called Concepcion, which said that corporations can keep actual humans out of court by making them sign fine print arbitration contracts. And then, of course, Trump versus U.S., where the court said that the CEOs of these corporations can effectively bribe the president by buying his weird crypto coin or donating to his weird golden ballroom, letting them make billions of dollars, and the president would be immune from bribery charges.

We need a Supreme Court that looks like the American people. And I actually mean this less in terms of race or gender and more in terms of not being over the age of 70, not having lifetime jobs. No American has, you know, a lifetime job outside of a very few. And lastly, not being in this intractable love affair with billionaires. And so all it takes is an act of Congress to change this court. And I think we need to do that. Otherwise, any future Congress, any future administration is going to see their efforts to check corporate power stymied. I want to go to.

We're about to celebrate America's... Oh, please. No, go ahead. You know, we're about to celebrate America's, you know, 250th birthday. We made a mistake at our founding. So our founders hated monopolies. That's what the Boston Tea Party was about. It was a protest against a monopoly on the East India Company,

on tea, importing tea into the colonies. Thomas Jefferson, for all his faults, actually repeatedly told Madison, we need an amendment against monopolies in the Bill of Rights. over and over, 1788, 1789, Madison didn't listen. New York ratified an amendment to do that. Congress blocked it. I think it's time to reconsider adding an amendment to the Bill of Rights,

banning monopolies and protecting the American people from concentrated corporate power. Well, Alvaro, last year you wrote a piece for the New Republic titled How I Became a Populist. The piece is subtitled My Time at the Federal Trade Commission before Donald Trump fired me, totally changed the way I see our political divide. In it, you wrote, quote, I used to think that the defining fight for our country was between the left and the right. Now I'm much more worried about the money at the top

crushing everyone underneath. And I want to go to following up on Nermin's point, the speech that you gave, just an excerpt of it. As you join with Senator Sanders, as you join with AOC, this is right after you were fired, this massive rally of tens of thousands of people, part of the fighting oligarchy tour. This is what you said. So what is the FTC?

We are the independent federal agency that fights fraudsters and monopolists. We take, we take the Morton Screlli's and Jeff Bezos of the world to court. And we win. So Alvar Obadoia, that was you in Denver. Where are you headed from here? Talk about this movement that is building. And even how it fits into this latest explosive news of the more than $2 billion President Trump and his family have made in the last year since he came back into office.

Amy, I think this country is hungry for hope. and when you look at the world, less in terms of Democrat versus Republican, and more in terms of people's struggles every single day against the money at the top, people look a lot more similar than they do different. I'll give you one quick example. You know, I spend a lot of time talking to farmers in Iowa. You know what's happening to them? They're having to pay $25, $50,000 extra booking fertilizer for the next harvest. Meanwhile, you have ride-chair drivers in New York City who are paying an extra $10,000 a year for the extra cost of gasoline because of the Iran war. Those drivers wake up in the morning to try to drive the morning commute there in New York City, and they find they're

locked out out of Uber and Lyft because of these software duopolys. I got farmers in Iowa who are waking up in the morning cannot start their John Deere Combine because John Deere has locked that combine, that monopoly has locked the software on that combine so only that billionaire multinational could fix it. therefore make the money off of it. And what I see happening across the country is whether it's ride your drivers in Iowa, you know, in New York, farmers in Iowa, you know, documentary filmmakers in California, shrimpers in Louisiana, people are starting to recognize that they do have one very powerful thing in common, which is a revulsion at oligarchy and billionaires. And the more

we can weave this class-based movement together to fight that concentrated corporate power. I think that opens the door for a hopeful future in this country. Avaro Badoia, we thank you so much for being with us. Former Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission fired by President Trump last year, now a senior advisor at the American Economic Liberties Project. He is co-host of the Fair Fight with Alvarone Max, a weekly podcast. Coming up, as we head into the July 4th weekend, we speak to UCLA historian Robin D.G. Kelly, his latest piece, do you understand your own?

language, black radicals read the Declaration of Independence. Back in 20 seconds. We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. Ella's song, We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes by Sweet Honey and the Rot performing at the 2025 Peace Bowl. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermine Shea. As we head into the July 4th weekend, marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, we turn now to the relationship between Black Radicals and one of the nation's most important founding documents, the Declaration of Independence. UCLA historian Robin D.G. Kelly's new essay in Hammer and Hope is titled, Do you understand your own language? Black radicals read the Declaration of Independence.

It begins with Kelly writing that every so-called independent, Independence Day, he makes his kids listen to passages from Frederick Douglass's famous speech, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? And you can hear that speech tomorrow on Democracy Now, read by the late great James Earl Jones. But born into slavery around 1818, Frederick Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852 in Rochester, New York, he gave one of his most famous speeches addressing the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Sewing Society. I want to play a brief excerpt of that reading read by James Earl Jones at a performance of voices of

the people's history of the United States based on the late Howard Zinn's iconic book. What to the American slave is your 4th of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham. And you can hear that full speech tomorrow read by James Earl Jones here on Democracy Now. For more on the significance of this speech, we're joined in Los Angeles by Robin D.G. Kelly, Professor of U.S. history at UCLA, author of many books, including Freedom Dreams, the black radical imagination. Professor Kelly, welcome back to democracy now. Why you had your

children read this speech every year. And what does it mean to talk about why you say black radicals read the Declaration of Independence? Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Yeah, sometimes I make them listen to James O. Jones's version when I listen to Democracy Now, I never miss it. Yeah, it's interesting because on one hand, that speech is very important as a critique of the contradictions between a declaration that's claiming that all men are created equal that's built on this enlightenment ideology of kind of mass equality. On the one hand, but on the other hand, that's not the history of the United States. And I don't make them listen to all of it. But I think the part where Douglas goes on to talk about this being a sham,

you know, mere bombast is significant. I also have them or read to them David Walker's appeal, where, you know, the title of my piece comes from David Walker's appeal to the colored citizens of the world published in 1829, where he basically says, look, your declaration, is hypocrisy, essentially. But then he also warns white readers. He says, look, the part of the Declaration

you need to be careful about is the right of people to basically overthrow their government. And what we're seeing in the United States is a corrupt government built on slavery. And I guarantee you that these enslaved people and others who support them will overthrow this government. And of course, it kind of came to pass in the form of the Civil War,

the kind of insurrection that he imagined, right? And Professor Robin Kelly, if you could also talk about the fact that Douglas, despite his criticism of the declaration, as you point out in your piece, remained a staunch defender of the U.S. Constitution, calling it, quote, a glorious liberty document opposed to slavery. If you can explain why that's the case and your sense of the differences, if any, between the declaration and the Constitution on the question of slavery. Right.

Well, abolitionists were divided over the Constitution. People like William Lord Garrison took a position that the Constitution was inherently anti-slavery. And a case can be made, I think, a strong. case could be made that, well, I'm sorry, that Garrison was saying the Constitution was pro-slavery. But a case can be made that it is pro-slavery when you look at the use of the assumption that there's some people who are held in service, held in bondage, right? and that so much of even the organization of Congress was based on this idea of counting three out of five enslaved people, though they don't have any rights, right, for the purposes of representation. The Declaration of Independence is a little bit different in that it is not a constitution. It's not law, per se, but it does make these claims that go beyond the,

the drafters. When the drafters developed this declaration, they assumed that human beings were basically white men. They imagined an independent nation that's based on a kind of heronvoke republic, that is a white republic. There was no assumption that other people, either native people, black people, would participate in that republic. There might be some exceptions, of course. And so the declaration, the language goes beyond its intention. And for a lot of black people, both enslaved and free black people during American Revolution, they saw the declaration as doing multiple things. It wasn't about American nationalism.

It wasn't about American independence. What it was about was a referendum on the definition of the human. it was also justification for rebellion right and then the third thing is that they saw it as a kind of lever to argue against the conceits of liberty that is to say that

the claims that you know all people have a right to liberty no matter who it was intended for they could use that language against their slave owners against those who ruled the colonies, right, and against those who ruled the new republic. And so in some ways, they were making a case that their claims of freedom were far more universal than the provincial claims of the colonists fighting for freedom against British colonial rule.

And ultimately, the American Revolution was hard to, sadly an anti-colonial movement because in many ways it was a struggle to take control of this empire, this expanding West. I think one of the most important parts of the argument for independence was a resistance to British proclamation of 1763 that said that colonists cannot move beyond the Appalachian Mountains. And in the end, they were pushing against British limitations on expansion. In other words, they wanted more empire for themselves.

And in the end, what we get is a nation that is pro-slavery, ultimately, or divided on the question of slavery, in which the proceeds and benefits of American capitalism would generate or go flow to the to those who are settled colonial, who are settler colonists as opposed to Britain or the crown. Robin Kelly, I'm wondering if you could finally comment on the closure of the ripping down of documents that talk about slavery. More than 80 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the abolitionist John Brown rewrote the declaration as an abolitionist document. looking now at the Harper's Ferry Museum that would honor him that has a wall of remembrance

to highlight hundreds of enslaved people, best known as the place where the raid on the town's armory led to an uprising. That museum has not been opened. The monument that talks about George Washington having slaves on the mall in Philadelphia was ripped down by the Trump administration. We have 20 seconds. Right. Well, in short, John Brown's Declaration of Liberty

was a response to Roger Taney's Chief Justice Taney's decision on Dred Scott. And so if we don't recover that history, we're going to basically not understand the way in which the 14th Amendment was in response. to the denial of citizenship and the part of black people.

Robin D.G. Kelly, we're going to have to leave it there, but it is a very profound point. Professor of U.S. history at UCLA. We're going to link to your piece and hammer and hope headline, do you understand your own language? Black radicals read the Declaration of Independence. Professor Kelly is also author of Freedom Dreams,

the Black Radical Imagination. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermin Shea. Thanks so much for joining. Thank you.