The Chris Cuomo Project - The Jet That BLEW UP Trump's Populist LIE

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Chris Cuomo reacts to Donald Trump’s decision to accept the use of a luxury jet from Qatar, calling it the clearest proof yet that Trump’s populist image is a lie. He explains why this isn’t just about optics or foreign influence—it’s a symbol of how power protects itself, and how the very figure meant to “drain the swamp” is embracing the perks of the establishment. From presidential ethics loopholes to foreign access, Cuomo breaks down how this one gesture reveals everything about who benefits from the system, who gets left behind, and why outrage only flows in one direction depending on whose team you’re on. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump as president of the United States or as just plain old Donald has never done anything worse than what just happened. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. So what did he do? Accepting this plane, it's not about who's giving it to him. It's not even about how much it costs.

It's just such a clear definite statement, not only about what he is, who he is, but on how wrong and deceptive the administration is being. Okay? Now look, this is a no brainer. All you have to do is flip the R and the D and the people who are supporting him right now

and saying that, you know, taking a plane to be used that then goes to his library, checks all the boxes is bullshit. They would be going psycho. Think about how worried they were that Ukraine may have a little bit of leverage over Biden because his son was sitting on the board. But you getting a plane from a place

that is a hub of all kinds of controversy, that has nothing but money to dump in any direction at once, that doesn't pique the same curiosity. Why? Yeah, you can say hypocrisy, but this is about so much more than that, okay? This airplane reveals so much of a huge problem that goes way beyond Trump,

that that's why we have to unpack it. And again, this isn't even really about Trump, okay? Now, sure, on some levels it is. It shows a personal weakness on his place, a lack of authenticity of his purpose as well. He's not a populist, okay? A populist doesn't take something like this, doesn't use something like this,

doesn't like the imagery, doesn't like what it represents in terms of systemic and establishment protocols of the rich getting richer and who gets to have influence and why and in what ways. All of that. Yes, but why? Because Trump has been weighed and measured, all right?

And you can keep going after him for corruption. It will never get you to a better place with the electorate. Why? Everyone who thinks that Donald Trump is corrupt already votes against him, okay? Everybody who thinks he's corrupt and that that corruption is controlling for them and their analysis of what to do with their vote already votes against him. So why keep beating on that door? Sure, you can't ignore a $400 million plane being used, but you need to look at it for what it is, which is a window into a system.

Okay? First of all, those in power justify anything they want. The idea that the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General looked at the idea of a country that's in the middle of a terrorism hub that has nothing but money and arguably conflicts. And again, I'm not anti-cutter or Qatar or gutter or however you want to pronounce their name. Okay? And again, I'm not anti-cutter or Qatar or gutter or however you want to pronounce their name, okay? And again, I'm not mocking the name of the country. I'm saying that we have a lot of problems with our Arabic phonetics.

The point is, this is a foreign country run by a sovereign, a royal sovereign that should not have this kind of influence or access to American government. Nothing to do with the country involved. It wouldn't matter to me if it was Saudi Arabia, if it was Jordan, if it was anywhere. If it were Israel, it wouldn't make any sense.

If Israel wanted to give Trump a plane, I'd have the exact same problem, ish, ish. Are any of those other countries Israel in terms of our alliance and our understanding and our reliance on them? No, not even close. But in fairness to Qatar, the idea that they're a terror hub isn't really fair.

We forced them to house Hamas. We forced them into that position. We wanted them to do that. It's not that they're a natural bedroom for Hamas. It's that we said to Qatar, you're pretty much a fair broker here. We know you guys, you got a ton of money in sway with everybody here. Bring in the Hamas heads. Let's keep them in one place and then you can help us talk to them. Did they want to do it? Clearly they wanted to do it, but it's not like this was an organic thing for them. Now, the window into the system is what matters most. A president and a vice president, in my opinion,

should be the most susceptible to conflict law, to ethics laws. They should have the most that apply to them. Doesn't that seem to make sense? They have the most power. They are the only entities in our government that are exempt from ethics laws. Wait, no, no, that's not true.

They have, I'm telling you, Congress passed real ethics laws. Now whether they get regulated the right way, whether they get enforced the right way, we can talk about all day. But I'm telling you, there are laws on the books that every government employee and members of Congress have strict ethics rules. Now, you have heard from time to time, especially with Trump, but sometimes with other presidents, but almost always with Trump, you know, if anybody else did this, you ever hear that

before? You know, if anybody else did this, they go, blah, blah, blah. You know why that is? Because the president and vice president are cut out of these ethics laws. Why? A very tortured understanding of the checks and balances among the three branches of government.

Here was the thinking, that if the president and vice president were held subject to a congressionally made rule about ethics, that that would be a compromise of the independence of the executive over the legislative branch. I'm telling you, it doesn't work for me, but it worked for those in power and it's never been challenged in the Supreme Court and changed. So that's the rule. The guys that you want the least exposed to conflict, the most adherent to ethics, are not part of them.

So a member of Congress could never take the use of this plan. No way. A judge could never take the use of this plan. No way. Some bureaucrat working in the IRS could never take the use of this plane. No way. Some bureaucrat working in the IRS could never take this plane. But the President of the United States can. Now, why else does it matter? Because Trump is supposed to be a disruptor of norms that we don't like and a big middle finger in your face of a country showing that it has access to your power structure is exactly the root cause of so many of the problems that we have.

That a country can just buy a friend. That's what Qatar is doing. And again, I don't fault them, all right? I don't. It is interesting that like, you know how many, for so many years, presidents have turned down shit from the oil countries because it was like, oh no, I know they wanna give us this,

but no, I can't do it. It's like, you know, Obama, them wanting to give them a university in one of these countries when he was in there, you know, it's just his name on the thing. And he goes, no, no, listen, you can't go there. It's too much. But this we do, why?

That's another level of system. You know, there's a very perverse dynamic in psychology that once you have accepted something as something, and it becomes symbolic to you of something, you are very slow to remove a symbol. Even if your underlying understanding of what it symbolizes changes. So what does that mean?

Trump is a symbol of disrupting the norms and breaking the establishment. That's what he's a symbol of. Now look, you can argue he doesn't deserve that symbology because of this, this, this, and he checks every box of privilege and he's a symbol of. Now look, you can argue he doesn't deserve that symbology because of this, this, this, and he checks every box of privilege and he's an elite about, whatever. He's been weighed and measured.

Okay, this is what he is. And because he is a symbol of breaking, here's the analogy. Your laptop doesn't work. It's not processing the way you want. You did all the antiviral, you did everything that you can, it's not working. And eventually you just slam it shut.

You bang it. You throw it on the ground. Now your goal is to fix, right? Why would you do such destructive things? Fuck it. Let's just do something in the interest of making this what I want it to be, even if I'm breaking it somehow.

When I grew up, it was slapping the TV on the side. Can't get bang, bang, bang. Sometimes you would then get a better signal and think that that's why it was. You're doing something. You're expressing your outrage and you just want this thing to change, okay? That is what Trump is. Trump is the banging on the side of the TV set. We want this stuff to change.

And now he's in there and he's doing all kinds of things, all kinds of ways that I believe are at best counterproductive and more destructive than even basically disruptive in terms of what he's gonna get done from them. I do not believe this China deal is as suggested. I do not believe that the executive order on pharmaceuticals is going to achieve

what he's saying it will. I think that it is to use James Carville's word, vapor. Okay? I don't think it's real. I Carville's word, vapor, okay? I don't think it's real. I think it's feigned action. I think it's running in place. Now, does that really matter? No, not short term because people wanted things done

about things that bother them and that is what he appears to be doing. And you gotta give effort, it's due. And I am a little bit more advanced in my reckoning than just, well, he's trying. What is he trying? What is it calculated to do? What is the likelihood that it does it?

That's where my mind goes immediately. That is a different place and a more advanced place than most people go to because you have such low expectations. I don't have the same low expectations. That's my problem, not yours. So Trump is supposed to be a disruptor of norms. What's norms?

The rich get richer, the powerful benefit, those in power do it for themselves. This plane checks every box in that regard. So why aren't MAGA people upset? Because they can't reject their symbol because that would be sending a message that they were wrong about what they were outraged about. And even though I think you can distinguish the two, right?

And that Trump may have been the wrong choice of a change agent, even though the change that you want is righteous. But that's not how it works. Could work, but not really. Why? Well, quid pro demonstrato. Look at where we are. If Joe Biden had gotten an airplane, MAGO would go fucking crazy. Look at this elitism. Look who he's rubbing elbows with. Look who he's giving access to.

America first, America first, America first. And what does the left have to do with it? They are not in the business of better. Donald Trump has now teed up the two signature democratic issues as his own. You realize that? How to create better outcomes for regular people and drug prices. You know, there is a mistake, and it's a malignant mistake,

that the battle in America is between rich and poor. The battle in America is not between rich and poor. The poor in America are fucked and they're going to stay there. The battle in America is between the rich and the regular. That's the real battle in America, the rich and the regular. What is regular? What is anticipated with regularity? What is allowed to be regular? What are the parameters? What is the access? What is the growth? What are the realities for the regular? That's what Trump's, let's go back to the Gilded Age, is touching on.

I don't like the metaphor, I don't like the destination, but the idea of changing the path of where the regular people are right now, you're not broke and you're not, I work because I want to, okay? There's a huge cut of people in between those two poles. Okay? What are my ambitions? What is my access to those ambitions? What are my dreams? Where is my future? Who is helping it? Who is hurting it? This is the economic set of realities that have to be

addressed, and that's what Trump has teed up with his tariff tactics. Now, do I think that that was the right tool the right way? No and no. But that's secondary. The battle between those two, the battle for drug prices is not gonna be settled with the EO. The EO has no operative effect. He tried this in the first term and it got booted to the side in legal situations.

Biden then took up the mantle of the cause, changed Medicare Part B, and got a couple of diabetic drugs or insulin drugs reduced, and there's some other ones that are going to come online as being reduced in the next year or so. So he actually did more with it than Trump did. You're not going to hear that, but it's the truth. These are two Democratic signature issues, but where are the Democrats? The Democrats cannot get off Trump sucks.

Even this airplane. This airplane is proof that he is disconnected from the regular. If you give a shit about regular people, you don't do this. Why? Because it's so removed from their interests. It's so about you and not them. It's so rewarding the wrong things. It's so rewarding the wrong things. It's so reinforcing the wrong things.

It's so allowing the wrong things and embracing a reality that is destructive to regular people's interests. You don't allow Qatar, Saudi Arabia, who is doing this arms deal with any of these people to deal with you on the basis of where they can impact the few, but where they impact the many. You should make Saudi Arabia stop exporting

Islamic extremism. You should mess with how they deal with fuel pricing. But you know, the elite weapons deal, the plane with Qatar. This is not where the regular live. This is where Trump lives. This is an elite space of toys and optics. Support comes from American financing. Now, debt is the big boogie man in everybody's life, okay?

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two thirds way in to this explanation. Well, it could be bugged. That's the least of my concerns, that they're going to be bugged. So like, what's he going to be talking about that we're not going to hear about anyway? That's not my concern. We get spied on and we spy all the time in so many different ways. And I'm not really that worried that because of this, Qatar is going to...

Qatar is not Hamas. Qatar is not Saudi Arabia, all right? Saudi Arabia is called the head of the snake for a reason when it comes to terror. Qatar is not Mohammed bin Salman, okay? The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who likely had some knowledge or responsibility for an American by citizenship and internationally known journalist getting chopped up.

Okay? So I don't see Qatar as like evidence of the enemy. I see Qatar as evidence of what is inimical to the cause of regular people in America. This should not be in Trump's headspace. It should not be in his bandwidth. It should not be on his radar. Any metaphor you want.

This plane, it's not as simple as what the Democrats want it to be. Trump is corrupt. Trump is corrupt. Look what he did. Trump is corrupt. Trump is corrupt. Look what he did. Trump is corrupt. First of all, here's the cure to corruption, transparency. He told you all this is what he was doing.

He told you about the Gentleman's Club. He told you about the meme coin and the crypto. He told you about all of it. It's all right in your face. And I get why Democrats and a lot of other people hate it. But people aren't gonna go bad on their symbol. They know who and what Trump is. And he gets a pass on opulence

because they believe he's already a billionaire. So the fact that he's throwing a dinner for people who own the most of his crypto, if anybody else did it, it would be cataclysmic. But not him, why? Two reasons. One, he gets this pass as a rich guy so that he can't be influenced by money

when it seems to be all he cares about. And the second thing is, they're not gonna reject their symbol. It doesn't matter what he does. Because for them to reject the symbol, for them to say the plane is wrong in any loud and demonstrable way, is to say they were wrong to pick him. And if they were wrong to pick him,

then they were wrong about what they wanted in terms of disrupting the system and the norms and the establishment. And they are not going to give you that. And I don't think they should. People are right to be frustrated and to be desperate about change. It has been too long in ways that don't work for the regular, for the many, but only the few. They're right. So I get why they feel the way they do.

I think that it has blunted some of my criticism of Trump, if only because I know it's counterproductive. It's not that I don't see the things. It's not that I don't hear the things. It's that I don't value them the way I used to. This airplane, if he had done this in his first term, the first month, it would have been all we talked about for weeks because it would have been so destructive of the things that we know it's supposed to be, and how it's supposed to be done. But the whole point is that nobody wants it done the way it was supposed to be done anymore. They hate that way. That's why this isn't a death knell for Trump

and the transparency of it. Now, how do you think he analyzes it? Here's my understanding from his people. Look how much they like me. Look how much I matter that they're gonna give me this big plane and I don't have to be in that shitty Air Force One anymore and fuck Boeing because they won't get the new one done on time the way I wanted them to.

So this is great and the taxpayers don't even have to pay for it except for gas, which is I'm sure a huge amount of money, but he's going to be flying anyway. So if anything, this is a break to the American people. It shows how great I am and I'm going to have this very cool plane to fly on for the rest of my life when they give it to my library. That's how he's seeing it. Do you notice that he hasn't really considered you and any of it or your interests or what it's about because

it's not who he is. But this is the worst thing that he's been a part of because it reinforces all the problems with our system that you can just rig the rules to make whatever you want, okay, okay. That this system is about the few taking care of the few. That our executive branch is immune from the most obvious ethical standards. That the emoluments clause is bullshit, it has no teeth. And that the rich just get richer, and that countries have undue influence on the basis of opulence.

This checks every box. Drain the swamp. This is the biggest alligator we've ever seen in our lives. Drain the swamp. We want this to be about doing the people's business. What about this is doing the people's business? Now look, you can rationalize it. You can rationalize anything, right? Why do abused women stay in abusive relationships?

Now, a little bit of it is the danger of release, what happens when you try to get away. But a lot of it is just reaction formation and identifying with the oppressor. And that's what we're dealing with here, is that you can rationalize it, but it's you deciding to be exactly what it is that made you vote for him in the first place. What you wanted to reject, you are now embracing.

What does the left do with it? Here's not the answer. The answer is not, Trump is corrupt, Trump is corrupt. Be in the business of better. Test the idea that a president and a vice president can't be held to an ethical conflict standard. Pass a law, pass a law that you guys can't trade stocks while you're in office.

Do the things that show the people that you are about them and their standards. And most of all, be in the business of better, not just showing why Trump is worse. If this airplane can be borrowed with impunity, you will never beat him in the business of what he does being bad. You will win and get people to a better place

and get more votes by showing that you have ways to make things better. And Trump is making it easy for you. He has teed up your two signature issues, and he has bullshit solutions to both of them. I do not blame him for teeing them up. Good for you, President Trump. We should be talking about rich versus regular, and how regular people get more options and more growth and more stability and benefit from the new economy and the jobs that

will be there and the opportunities that are necessary. That's good. How we do it is about who we choose as our leaders and you just tariffing everybody all at once everywhere like that stupid movie, has not proven to be anything other than a roller coaster in the markets that I'm sure a lot of the same rich people benefited from. They caused nothing but angst to all these people who were retiring at the wrong time because they took a dip in their 401k. So he is right to tee it up.

Drug prices, you're right to tee it up. It makes no sense that we pay so much more than everybody else. I mean, it makes sense. They're middlemen, foreign company, countries have gotten away with it. But you're gonna need legislation to fix it. You can't do it through an executive order. So, but at least he's trying. I would disagree with that.

I would say that, look, I'll give you a little credit for effort, but you should be going to Congress and making them pass a law because that's the only way it gets done in any real way. I'm not even mentioning the fact that an EO is temporary. An executive order is only there for the term. So the next person could just come in and erase it. It's different than with legislation. Taking this plane is the worst thing that Trump has done

because it shows what we care about and what we don't and what the realities of the system are. And it also has revealed everybody's agenda. The people around Trump who are supposed to be about law and order or bullshit, and they're just justifying what the boss tells them to. The Democrats are just stuck in the Trump sucks. They're not trying to move the ball forward

in terms of how to get the better. They're trying to just create their own grievance campaign. And it didn't work for them. And I don't think it's gonna work for them in the midterms. And they have things going for them this time instead of against them. Because the president usually doesn't do well in the first midterm cycle of their administration.

Why? Expectations, rejection of norms, the desire for balance that we have, we're savvy enough to know that this binary system is fucked up and the best we can do is to try to keep them checking each other. It's not ideal, it's not the best way for progress, but within this system, it's kind of the best we can do.

And that's why you don't usually like one party being in control of everything. And that's what the midterms reflect. But taking this plane, it's not the spying. It's not being in business with bad guys. I mean, I don't have any real reason to believe that about Qatar. I mean, you can find controversial things about any country in that region, any country, period. But it shows that everything he's supposed to be about, with America first, and draining the swamp and disrupting the establishment is bullshit. And he's putting it right in your face that it's bullshit. A president of the United States

should be a person who looks at a country who offers something like that and says, hey, I don't need your airplane. This is the United States of America. All right, we make planes and sell them to you, not so that you can give them back to me. I don't want your flattery. I want your fidelity to the concepts and values that matter to me in my country. Let me see what you do with the problems that I'm asking you to help me manage. I don't need a freaking airplane. That's what you want in your president. Somebody who puts their integrity

way before their appetites. And that is not what we're getting. This is embarrassing and ugly and obvious. Now you can say it's not a big deal. I bet you wouldn't feel like that if it were Biden. If you're someone who says it's not a big deal, just switch the R and the D and recognize my brother and sister, you are a hypocrite. And you don't deserve the bad feelings that come with that.

You don't deserve the bad feelings that come with that. Because you've been forced to be a hypocrite because you're stuck in this binary system where the other one always has to be worse So it doesn't matter what your side is doing as long as it's not as bad at what you can point the finger at on the other side That's your burden And it makes all of us hypocrites, but sometimes you got to see things for what they are

And accepting a plane from these guys who believe they can buy anything You just prove them right and prove what's wrong with what we have going on here. That's why this is not something to just brush aside. Trump taking this plane is the worst thing that he's done because it is the loudest symbol that he's not really going to change shit about the system in terms of what matters. The battle in America is between what is allowed for the rich and what is allowed for what's supposed to be regular.

And there ain't nothing regular about what Trump is doing right now. That's my take, what's yours? Thank you for subscribing and following here at The Chris Cuomo Project. Thank you for checking me out at News Nation AP and 11 P every weekday night Substack we're gonna start having Political discussions on substack with people who I'm not talking to anywhere else the videos are for everybody hooray But if you want to comment and get me to respond to your questions you must subscribe

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