What A Day - Trump's Grift Goes Global

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

From $400 million planes to $300 million ballrooms, from cryptocurrency to just plain… currency, President Donald Trump and his family have profited massively from his return to the White House. According to the Center for American Progress, the Trump family has received nearly $2 billion in cash and gifts since President Trump won the 2024 presidential election. This week, during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to the White House, the president downplayed his family's dealings in Saudi Arabia, but the reality is that those business ties have grown significantly during his second term. For more on just how much money Trump and his family are making from his return to the Oval Office, we spoke to Andrea Bernstein, podcast host and author of "American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power."And in headlines, President Trump threatens Congressional Democrats with violent rhetoric, Customs and Border Patrol prepares more immigration crackdowns in Louisiana and Mississippi, and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is set to meet with President Trump at the White House.Show Notes:Check out Andrea's book – wwnorton.com/books/american-oligarchsCall Congress – 202-224-3121Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's Friday, November 21st. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day. The show that has learned that Elon Musk's AI assistant bot, Grock, has been programmed to say exceedingly nice things about Elon Musk. When I say exceedingly, I mean, quote, more fit than LeBron, a better quarterback than retired NFL Hall of Fame or Peyton Manning, a better supermodel than Naomi Campbell, and some achievements I really cannot describe on this show. On today's show, President Donald Trump threatens violence against Democrats. Shocker. And New York City mayor-elect, Zeran Bamdani, gears up for an Oval Office meeting. But let's start with a word that, weirdly, isn't one of Trump's favorites. Corruption.

You probably heard a lot, like on this show, about Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman's visit to the United States this week. complete with pomp, circumstance, and some murder rationalizing. But you may have missed another story about a foreign country with some fancy gift-giving habits. Switzerland! See, the United States set tariffs on Switzerland at 39% back in April, which, understandably, made Switzerland very, very upset. So companies from Switzerland and Liechtenstein pledged to invest $200 billion in the U.S. over the next five years. But like every foreign country now, Switzerland knew what it really needed to do. Give Trump fancy gifts. During a visit by the Swiss delegation on November 4th, Trump received a one kilogram

gold bar stamped with 45 and 47, with an estimated value of $130,000, as well as a special Rolex desktop clock. According to the White House, Trump accepted these gifts on behalf of his library, making them totally legal. Sure. And voila! Last week, the U.S. lowered tariffs on Switzerland from 39 percent, to 15%. I'm sure in no part related to a gold bar weighing 2.2 pounds. If we've learned anything about this administration, it's that it is perpetually for sale. From $400 million planes to $300 million ballrooms, from cryptocurrency to just a plain currency, Donald Trump and his family have profited massively from his return to the White House. According to the Center for American Progress, the Trump family has received nearly $2 billion in cash and gifts since President

Trump won the 2024 presidential election. Here's Delaware Democratic Senator Chris Coon speaking to MS Now's Katie Turr on Wednesday in response to Crown Prince bin Salman's visit to the United States and the money Trump's family stands to make in Saudi Arabia. The amount of public corruption that we are seeing from this administration is unprecedented in our history. They're doing it right out in the open. The first time he ran for president, Donald Trump promised to drain the swamp.

Now he's swimming in it. So for more on just how much money Trump and his family are making from his return to the Oval Office, I spoke to journalist Andrea Bernstein. She's a writer, podcast host, and author of American oligarchs, the Kushners, the Trumps, and the marriage of money and power. Andrea, welcome to what today. Great to be back. Thanks. So at the start of President Trump's first term, many moons ago, in 2017, the Trump organization agreed not to enter into any. any new foreign business deals. Did they abide by that pledge?

I mean, broadly, yes. I mean, it sort of depends what you mean by deals. So during Donald Trump's first term, there were many foreign leaders who stayed in Trump properties, who otherwise put money into the Trump organization. But in terms of new, for example, real estate deals, licensing deals, he didn't really do them.

with foreign countries. And he largely stuck by that. What were some of the more glaring conflicts of interest that you reported on during the first Trump administration? Yeah. So, I mean, one of the things that, you know, Trump was sued by a number of different parties for violating the emoluments clause, which sounds like an extremely obscure part of the Constitution. And it pretty much was a very obscure part of the Constitution. Nobody had ever invoked it really in any kind of serious way. Now, just to back up. So the founders were very, very concerned about corruption. They were as concerned about corruption as a threat to the new republic as they were about war.

So they put in this clause that said, if you were the president of the United States, you cannot accept a gift from a foreign leader unless Congress approves it. And the idea behind that was that everybody understands that if somebody gives you a very nice gift, for example, Benjamin Franklin had been given a snuff box with some 400 diamonds. And the founders understood that if you took something like that, an hour later, you probably wouldn't be voting against that person's interest. So that was the idea. So there were a number of lawsuits during the first Trump administration against his taking gifts from foreign leaders in the form of their patronizing Trump properties for the most part. So that came up.

The other thing that happened quite a bit is that Trump promoted his brands for. the White House. He would go to his golf courses. He would talk about how great they were. He would talk about his properties all the time. And he would use the White House to promote his business in a way that he hadn't promised to do. And also, he would bring these large entourages to his properties. And then they would pay him money. I mean, the so-called perfect phone call where Trump called Ukrainian President Zelensky and said, do a investigation of Joe Biden and I'll take care of the rest. In that phone call, Zelensky said, oh, by the way, I stayed in one of your hotels, and it was great because foreign leaders understood that the way to Trump's heart was to patronize

his businesses. So true. And while Donald Trump was out of office, he was very busy selling Trump branded products, including Bible, sneakers, watches, and way more. He was basically like QVC, but for himself. Is his family still profiting from all of these items, or is that died down now that Trump can't hawk them as directly? I mean, he probably would, but but he doesn't. The Trump's family business, according to various estimates, has made anywhere from a billion to $6 billion, at least on paper, during the presidency.

And this comes from all kinds of things. I mean, it comes from things like the meme coin, the Trump meme coin, which he announced just days before he took office. He started a crypto company, World Liberty Financial, which is run by essentially, His sons, all three of them, Eric Don Jr. and Barron Trump, who is still in college. And that is also making money through various foreign deals that it's doing. And including with people who Trump is doing foreign policy deals with, with someone who wanted a pardon from Trump.

There are all these avenues to do business with the president's family business in a way that Trump, although he's not running the family business. in a day-to-day way, he still can make money off of it. And this time around, the gloves are totally off, basically non-existent when it comes to foreign deals. How are Trump sons justifying that reversal if they're even doing that at all? Yes. So I was at a Bitcoin conference with Don Jr. and Eric, and they were very clear. They said, we were punished during the first Trump administration for whatever we said,

and you can't win. So we are going to go ahead and be busy. people and make money as we are entitled to do it. And they have really done that. I mean, they have sold real estate around the globe, including a deal that they are working on right now with Saudi Arabia. They have other property deals going. They have investments coming from the Middle East. There are a myriad of ways in which foreign investors and some U.S. investors are involving themselves in the Trump family business while Donald Trump is president. And we've never seen anything like it. It's interesting you brought up Saudi Arabia because Trump during

his meeting was Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman earlier this week. He said that the Trump organization has done very little business in Saudi Arabia, which to your point sounds not very true. But he also said, quote, I have nothing to do with the family business. Is that true? Like I know that that's what I'm seems obviously false, but also I'm like, does he have any plausible deniability there? Well, the family business is named Trump. Yeah. So I think I think everybody understands what that means. You know, this is somebody who bestows favors on his friends and punishes his enemies, and everyone understands the way to Trump's hearts is to give him money.

He's had foreign leaders from Switzerland come and give him watches. He's had huge media organizations who want things from the Trump presidency to settle lawsuits and donate to all kinds of, you know, sort of intangible things like the, the new ballroom or the Trump library. The Qatari government gave him a $400 million plane, which is going to replace airport one, which needs to be properly retrofitted. And then after Trump is president,

it won't be the property of the U.S. government. It will go to the Trump museum slash foundation, which Trump will then control. So there are lots of ways to give, to Trump and to get his attention, which don't mean that he's sitting in a desk signing loan documents. But people understand that he is the head of the company. Yes, I do think that getting a giant plane from a Middle Eastern government does constitute doing business. But you mentioned the Trump family launched World Liberty Financially a cryptocurrency company. How successful has

World Liberty Financial been since Trump took office? I mean, so again, like this is something, you know, crypto is a business where part of the way you make money is by hanging on to it and getting more people to buy it. And World Liberty Financial has gotten this huge infusion of money this spring from the United Arab Emirates that was, in fact, brokered by a crypto company named Binance. whose CEO was at the time seeking a pardon from the president. Would that be a crypto billionaire Shangping Zhao?

Exactly, or CZ, as people call them. So the company is sort of, you know, drawn a lot of attention and a lot of money. And I think it's, you know, quite obvious what happens when people understand that Trump is associated with this company. Now, if you go to the company's website, you will see that Donald Trump and his co-founder, Steve Whitkoff, if that name sounds familiar to people, it's because Steve Whitkoff is Trump's envoy to the Middle East, now negotiating possibly a Ukraine deal with Russia, and they are listed on the website as founders emeritus.

And then there's a little asterisk that said, well, you know, they're not running the company anymore. But their pictures are on the website. And Donald Trump is nothing, if not a master of branding. And I think it's pretty clear to him how to get people's attention. and how to get people's investment. And I think in some ways it's kind of the perfect Trump business because it depends on gaining the confidence of consumers and getting people to place their money in this pool of money where the Trump family, broadly speaking, can figure out ways to make money from it.

And Donald Trump, if we, you know, he says, okay, I'm just own this. I'm not involved with it. But he, too, is in a position to profit. Now, I knew a lot of this, but you putting it all together is like it's the amount of obvious to me corruption is astronomical. Is there any work being done to try to rein any of this in or apply more oversight towards President Trump's apparent conflicts of interest? Or are we just like, have we just blown past that highway exit? To the question of oversight, what happened this time around is not only did Donald Trump surgery, take over the presidency and make this announcement, but he also, very early on, fired the

inspectors general, the corruptions, watchdogs. So the people internally who might blow the whistle are gone. The other entity that can really blow the whistle is Congress. There are some Democrats in Congress who've been very actively protesting this, but I think until we see the Republican-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House decide to blow a whistle on it, The control mediums or the ways to control what Donald Trump is doing are blunted. On top of that, you have a Supreme Court which ruled in Trump v. The United States, which was the case that arose out of the January 6th case, that Trump had extremely broad immunity and could be prosecuted for very little, almost nothing that he did while in office. I mean, there are some exceptions, but it gave him immunity to use his government office.

office to do many things. So he feels very empowered. And that enables him to do things that not only promote his ideology and his philosophy and his principles, but also things that can help his company with a lot more impunity. Great. Andrea, thank you so much for joining me. It's great to talk to you. That was my conversation with Andrea Bernstein, podcast host and author of American oligarchs, the Kushners, the Trumps, and their marriage of money and power. We'll get to more of the news in the moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads.

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against American citizens. Like us, you all swore an oath. To protect and defend this constitution. In a video posted Tuesday, six Democratic lawmakers with military and national security backgrounds told service members that they not only can refuse unlawful commands, but that they must. Trump, very normally, replied on true social by calling the video, quote, seditious behavior, punishable by death. He then amplified posts claiming the video was an insurrection. Some even called for the lawmakers to be hanged, something Trump typically reserves only for his former vice president. Michigan Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin responded on Thursday. I would hope that people of all backgrounds,

Democrats, Republican, independent would agree that threatening death for people you disagree with is beyond the pale of who we are as Americans. At a briefing Thursday, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt defended Trump's post saying, quote, to suggest and encourage that active duty service members defy the chain of command is a very dangerous thing for city members of Congress to do. Colorado Democratic Representative Jason Crowe, one of the veterans in the video, spoke with Crooked media's Matt Berg, who asked Crowe about Levitt's statement. What they do is they literally say the exact opposite of what we said.

What we said was the oath and the constitution and the law require that people only obey lawful orders. Because there is actually a law that says you can't violate the law if you are in uniform. That's what we stated. They are trying to say the opposite and accuses of things that we did not say, which, you know, is par for the course with them. The government finally released its September job numbers. You know, the ones that would have been released in early October if it wasn't delayed by the longest government shutdown ever. The Department of Labor said 119,000 jobs were added. An unexpectedly strong number given the 50,000 jobs economists had predicted.

But unfortunately for Trump, the good news ends there. The delayed report offered revisions on August job numbers, citing the loss of 4,000 jobs instead of the 22,000 added jobs reported originally. not great. And more bad news for Mr. The Economy is booming. The economy also lost jobs in June, which marked the first time since the 2020 pandemic have the monthly jobs report turned negative twice in a single year. We'll also have to wait even longer to get more real job numbers, since the Department

of Labor said Wednesday that a full October job report won't be coming because the government shutdown prevented it from calculating the unemployment rate. It was reported that Customs and Border Patrol, was winding down its immigration enforcement operation in Charlotte, North Carolina, nearly a week after agents were first deployed to the city, according to the local sheriff's office. But Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Trisha McLaughlin, told news outlets, quote, the operation is not over and it is not ending anytime soon. Ruining both lives in a classic children's book in one fell swoop,

Operation Charlotte's Web has resulted in the arrest of more than 250 people by immigration officers in North Carolina. though federal officials have offered few details about those arrested. And because CBP is an equal opportunity terrifier, the Associated Press reported earlier this week that it is preparing a new enforcement operation focused on Louisiana and Mississippi. According to internal documents obtained by the AP and people familiar with the plan,

agents could begin staging in the region as early as today ahead of a December 1st launch. Operation Swamp Sweep aims to arrest up to 5,000 people who are in the U.S. illegally over the coming weeks. There's slightly better news coming out of Chicago, though. On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered the release of more than 300 people detained during federal immigration enforcement operations in the city.

Attorneys argued the arrest violated a standing court order because they were carried out without warrants. It speaks volumes that tomorrow we have a communist coming to the White House because that's who the Democrat Party elected as the mayor of the largest city. in the country. White House press secretary in top of the worst Americans list, Caroline Leavitt, said Thursday President Trump is willing to meet with anyone on behalf of Americans. And by anyone, she means New York City mayor-elect Zeran Mamdani. How kind of the president. For what it's worth, Mamdani has been very vocal about being a democratic socialist, not a communist. Not that I would

expect Caroline Levitt to know the difference. Trump said in a true social post this week that Mamdani asked to meet and confirm day sit-down would take place in the Oval Office today. Mamdani told reporters ahead of his trip to D.C. that the meeting gives him a chance to make his case. It's more critical than ever, given the national crisis of affordability, one that New Yorkers know very well across these five boroughs, and the specific challenge many cities are facing with balancing public safety against steps taken by this administration. But don't worry, Momdani hasn't blown its principles to Curry favor. I have many disagreements with the president, and I believe that we should be relentless

and pursue all avenues and all meetings that could make our city affordable for every single New Yorker. Mamdani won New York City's mayoral race earlier this month with a campaign heavily focused on the affordability crisis. Trump watched the race closely with a particular disdain for Mamdani. The president had threatened to punish New York City, his hometown that now hates him, by withholding federal funds if Mandani won. Nothing like a hometown feud to get you in the spirit of Thanksgiving.

And that's the news. One more thing. It's Friday, so let's end our show with some positive news. Everyone kind of hates this presidency. Trump's approval rating has fallen to 38% according to Reuters. He's dropped 17 points with independents. And Fox News reported on Wednesday that his approval rating on the economy is the lowest of either of his terms in office. Though Fox and Friends host, Lawrence Jones,

argue that maybe the American people are being too mean to poor old Donald Trump. I'm not going to tell the American people how to feel because I think Joe Biden made that mistake of saying, hey, you know, it's transitory, you're not feeling it. but it has only been nine months. And the bill, the big, beautiful bill, has not, it was passed, but it's not been implemented just yet. There's still some time for that.

So he's given people, and then when it comes to some of the energy policy, all of that has not been implemented just yet. So I'm not saying, hold on a little bit, but I am saying it's kind of unfair when someone has been there nine months to put it all on them. It definitely sounds like he's trying to tell the American people what to feel and to hold on a little bit, it, but I digress.

Trump's approval has plummeted with pretty much everyone. According to UGov, his net approval with white Americans has fallen by 17 points, and his net approval with black Americans has dropped 36 points, though it's worth noting that his approval with black Americans was already negative

at the start of his second term. And with Latino voters, it's very bad. CNN's Harry Enton on Tuesday took a deep dive on the numbers. You know, back a year ago, what did we see on the issue of immigration? Latino voters trusted Kamala Harris more than Donald Trump, but by just two points. One, two.

Look now at Donald Trump's net approval rating on immigration among Latinos. He is 38 points underwater. That is a 36 point shift, essentially, from where we were a year ago on immigration. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are basically tied on the issue of immigration, and now on the issue of immigration. Latinos despise hate Donald Trump, 38 points underwater, in their mind, he is doing something absolutely wrong when it comes to immigration. Looking at all of this, perhaps Trump's election did not mark a vibe shift or a golden age or a reason for financial professionals to start using slurs again.

Maybe, just maybe, voters thought that Donald Trump would make the economy like it was in 2019. And he hasn't. Instead, he's destroyed the east wing of the White House, apparently given the keys to the Twitter feed for the Department of Homeland Security to white nationalist shit posters, and made lots and lots of money for himself and his family. Maybe that's why voters are mad? Just a theory. Before we go, hey, Watt Squad, you know that here at Crooked Media,

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plus subscriber-exclusive bonus content like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer. And if you need an extra reason to subscribe, this holiday season, we're offering 25% off annual subscriptions through November 30th. Hit over to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe now. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. Say, Tootaloo to Larry Summers at Harvard and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about the first.

former president of Harvard University, whose chummy emails with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were exposed by the House Oversight Committee earlier this month, and who, after saying earlier this week that he'd keep teaching at Harvard, decided to step aside while Harvard completes a review of his ties to Epstein, like me, but today is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and I've already seen some pundits arguing that this is a witch hunt. But honestly, this was a man who asked Jeffrey have seen how to seduce a student he was mentoring while married. So it's more of

an idiot hunt. What a day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Four and Chris Allport. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had a production help today from

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