Letters from an American - May 6, 2025

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

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May 6, 2025. In a follow-up story to last night's information about the Trump family's cryptocurrency corruption, Mackenzie Sigalos of CNBC reported today that 58 crypto wallets have made more than $10 million each on Trump's meme coin, gathering a total of about $1.1 billion in profits. But 764,000 wallets, mostly owned by smallholders, have lost money. Meanwhile, since January, the meme's creators have pocketed more than $324 million in trading fees.

In other news today, reality is crashing into the ideology of the Trump administration. MAGA ideology was on full display in a meeting of the House Committee on Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee when Secretary of Homeland Security Kristiy Noem, refused to answer a question from the ranking member, that is the highest ranking Democrat, of the committee, Representative Lauren Underwood, a Democrat of Illinois, about whether she believes that the Constitution gives everyone in our country the right to do process. The right to do process is clearly established in that foundational document,

but Trump refused to acknowledge it in an interview that aired Sunday. Now, Noem, too, is refusing to acknowledge it. Later, at a meeting of a task force overseeing the International Federation of Football, or FIFA, 2026 World Cup, Noem said to Trump, Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you so much for dreaming big dreams and doing unprecedented things. Your entire life you have stood for doing things that other people thought they couldn't do and accomplishing unprecedented events and achievements. Trump announced today that Andrew Giuliani, the son of former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani,

will head the task force. But MAGA's adherence to Trump and MAGA ideology is running up against reality. Charlie Savage and Julian E. Barnes of the New York Times reported today that US intelligence agencies did not believe that the administration of Venezuela's president Nicolau Maduro was colluding with the criminal gang Trenda Aragua, or TDA, when the Trump administration used that claim to justify invoking the 1798 Alien

Enemies Act to render Venezuelan migrants to a terrorist prison in El Salvador. A newly declassified memo from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence states, while Venezuela's permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States. Savage and Barnes note that when the New York Times made a similar report in March, the Department of Justice under Trump called that reporting misleading and harmful and opened a criminal investigation. A month later when

the Washington Post published similar coverage, the department redoubled its focus on stopping leaks. Attorney General Pam Bondi used the coverage in the New York Times and the Washington Post as justification to roll back protections for the press in investigations of leaks. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard replied to the New York Times story, It is outrageous that as President Trump and his administration work hard every day to make America safe by deporting these violent criminals, some in the media remain intent on twisting and manipulating intelligence assessments to undermine the president's agenda to keep the American people safe.

At a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee today, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant hemmed and hawed his way through an answer to a question from Representative Mark Pocan, a Democrat of Wisconsin, who pays tariffs, clearly trying to avoid the increasingly obvious answer, consumers. Trump also blustered his way through tariffs at a meeting today with Canada's new Prime Minister, Mark Carney.

After Carney told Trump to his face that Canada is not for sale, the president answered, never say never. Over tariffs, Trump changed his previous claims. When Trump announced his new high tariff regime in April, the administration said it would negotiate new trade deals with the rest of the world, initially claiming it would make 90 deals in 90 days. Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Besant told the House that the administration could announce deals as early as this week.

But today, Trump told reporters, we don't have to sign deals. We could sign 25 deals right now if we wanted. We don't have to sign deals. They have to sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market. We don't want a piece of their market. We don't care about their market.

They want a piece of our market. So we can just sit down, and I'll do this at some point over the next two weeks, and I'll sit with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett and with our great Vice President and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and we're going to sit down and we're going to put very fair numbers down and we're going to say, here's what this country, what we want and congratulations, we have a deal. And they'll either say great and they'll start shopping or they'll say not good, we're not

going to do it. I said, that's okay, you don't have to shop. Now we may think, well, they have a right, you know, that maybe we were a little bit wrong, so we'll adjust it. And then you people will say, oh, it's so chaotic. No, we're flexible. But we'll sit down and we'll, at some point in some cases, we'll sign some deals. It's much less important than what I'm talking about.

For the most part, we're just going to put down a number and say, this is what you're going to pay to shop, and it's going to be a very fair number. It'll be a low number. We're not looking to hurt countries. We want to help countries. In contrast to Trump's insistence, he can simply dictate terms to other nations. After three years of negotiations,

India and the United Kingdom have agreed to a landmark trade deal that will lower tariffs on clothing and footwear, cars, food, and jewelry and gems coming from India, and lower tariffs on gin and whiskey, cosmetics, electricals and medical devices, and cars coming from the UK. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the deal as ambitious and mutually beneficial. The business secretary for the UK, Jonathan Reynolds, said the benefits for the UK would be massive. Also today, President Xi Jinping of China said his country would work to forge closer ties with the European Union.

Although she did not mention Trump by name, at a meeting in Beijing with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of Spain, he said, China and the EU must fulfill their international responsibilities, jointly safeguard the trend of economic globalization and a fair international trade environment and jointly resist unilateral and intimidating practices. Sanchez did not mention Trump either, but the U.S. president was clearly on his mind when he agreed that, the complex global landscape makes it necessary for us to bet on more dialogue, cooperation, and a strengthening of our relations with other countries and regional blocs. On Sunday, Trump's trade

adviser Peter Navarro, who apparently was the brains behind the tariff walls, called Britain a compliant servant of communist China and warned it would have its blood sucked dry. Political editor David Maddox of The Independent reported that after the story broke, a White House advisor told him, Navarro is crazy and most people in the White House see him as a dangerous influence on the president. Trump is still standing behind scandal-plagued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, perhaps because Hegseth both believes in MAGA ideology and, with his emphasis on fighting, appears to

embody it. Yesterday, Haley Britsky and Natasha Bertrand of CNN obtained a memo from Hegseth ordering cuts of at least 20% to the number of four-star generals and admirals in the senior ranks of the military. Hegseth says he wants less generals, more GIs. In a podcast earlier this year, Hegseth claimed that senior officers will, do any social justice, gender, climate, extremism crap because it gets them checked to the next level. In February, Hegseth fired the chairs of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Navy,

as well as the Judge Advocates General, or JAGS, for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Meanwhile, a second $60 million Navy jet was lost today off the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier. The circumstances are unclear. Reuters reported today that earlier this year, Hegseth ordered a pause in military aid to Ukraine without an order from Trump and without telling officials in the State Department or the Pentagon. The White House reversed the pause and hushed the matter up, although resuming the flights cost an additional $2.2 million, according to Reuters.

Also today, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy told Fox News Channel host Martha McCallum that the Pentagon is not responding to his questions about why an Army helicopter was flying above Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last week, forcing two commercial passenger jets to re-route. Finally, perhaps the day's biggest news is that India launched strikes against Pakistan in what it said was retaliation for a militant attack last month in which gunmen killed 26 people at a popular tourist destination in Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan condemned the strikes, which killed eight people, and vowed to answer accordingly. Later, Pakistan said it had shot down two

Indian jets. This kind of a crisis between two nations with nuclear capabilities is one that in the past U.S. diplomacy has been key to defusing. When asked about the conflict today, Trump responded, it's a shame. We just heard about it just as we were walking in the doors of the Oval. I just heard about it. I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past. They've been fighting for a long time. You know, they've been fighting for many, many decades, and centuries actually if you really think about it. No, I just hope it ends very quickly."

Secretary of State Rubio posted on X that he was monitoring the situation closely and echoed Trump's hope that the conflict would end quickly. He said he would engage the leadership of both countries to press for a peaceful resolution. Catherine Long and Alexander Ward of the Wall Street Journal reported today that high-ranking officials who work under Director of National Intelligence Gabbard have ordered intelligence agency heads to gather intelligence about Greenland. In a statement after the story appeared, Gabbard said, The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors

who seek to undermine the president by politicizing and leaking classified information. They are breaking the law and undermining our nation's security and democracy. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. ["Dead in Massachusetts"]

["Soundscape Productions"]