Dem
51
GOP
49
While Donald Trump struggles to shape voters' perceptions of Kamala Harris, he's not helping himself when it comes to the perception that he's a grifter who wants to be president again for fun and profit.
To start, Mar-a-Lago announced yesterday that it would be accepting four new members. The price tag for this "honor"? A cool $1 million. That's an increase of 43% from the previous fee of $700,000, which itself was seen as wildly inflated. There are few private clubs that are, in and of themselves, worth that kind of outlay. And to the extent that such clubs exist, Mar-a-Lago is not one of them. However, Mar-a-Lago does offer one thing that no other club can: The potential to hobnob with the sitting President of the United States. For, say, the CEO of a billion-dollar conglomerate, $1 million is a bargain for the chance at regular presidential face time.
In other words, it looks like Trump is selling presidential access, and before he actually has that commodity in stock. If he is reelected, one can only imagine what the price of a Mar-a-Lago membership will be. Maybe $3 million? $5 million? $10 million?
And that's not all. Trump Media and Technology Group (which lost 7% of its value in yesterday's sell-off) just made its first big purchase. It's buying software and hardware from a firm (Perception Group, Inc.) that will help with "Truth" Social's video streaming. In the TMTG press release, the identity of a major shareholder in Perception Group, Inc. was somehow, some way, omitted. It's JedTec LLC, which is owned by billionaire James E. Davison. Davison won a $17 million road-building contract from the Trump administration. More importantly, Davison's main holdings are in petroleum, and so he constantly has business before the federal government. Might be nice to have a friendly face—say, a business partner—in the Oval Office.
And wait, there's more. During the same rally where J.D. Vance ranted about Kamala Harris' weirdness (see above), Trump announced that he's apparently no longer opposed to electric vehicles. Why the change of heart? Well, per The Donald: "I am for electric cars. I have to because Elon Musk endorsed me very strongly. So, I have no choice."
We appreciate that the remark might not have been meant literally, and might have been tongue-in-cheek, at some level. However, that's far from certain, since Trump ISN'T funny, and since he IS transactional in everything he does. Certainly, given that Musk has seemingly offered big bucks to help elect Trump, and given how egregiously Trump has blurred the lines between his business interests and his political career, it is a remark he should not have made.
Oh, and there is this. The government of Egypt loves to give money to American politicians (see: Menendez, Bob). But not just to senators. A Washington Post investigative reporter, Carol Leonnig and her colleague Aaron Davis, has uncovered evidence that the Egyptian government withdrew $10 million in cash from a bank account linked with Egypt's intelligence agency (say, Egypt's CIA) in Jan. 2017. It was carried away from the bank by four men as it weighed over 200 pounds. This was most of Egypt's foreign currency reserve, so the order had to have come from President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi. No one else would have had that authority.
Was this compensation for the $10 million of his own money that Trump put into his 2016 campaign close to the end? Was there some kind of deal here? Inquiring minds want to know.
So did the DoJ. To make a long story short, the DoJ had lots of evidence of what was basically a bribe to Trump but when the DoJ investigators brought this information to then-AG William Barr in 2019, he killed the whole investigation. If you would prefer to watch Leonnig tell the story rather than read it in print, here it is.
In short, to paraphrase Sonny and Cher, the grift goes on. And some voters might not be pleased when they learn about that. (Z)