Just when you thought he couldn’t possibly come up with yet another way to grift the nation out of even more of its taxpayer dollars. He never disappoints. As discussed along with a whole lotta breaking news and more on today’s BradCast. [Audio to complete show follows below this summary.]
Before we get to my guest today, and Trump’s latest Crime of the Century, a few news items of note, both local and otherwise…
- Over the weekend, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency “of international concern” after more than 300 suspected cases of Ebola were confirmed in Congo and Uganda. “Nearly 120” people have now reportedly died and the CDC has announced that an American is now confirmed to have been infected with the rare but extremely deadly and infectious virus while working in Congo.
- Two pieces of breaking news here in Southern California just before airtime: At least 24,000 people in Simi Valley are under mandatory evacuation orders due to a quickly spreading wildfire that has destroyed and is threatening multiple structures. And, down in northern San Diego, a mass shooting at a major mosque has reportedly killed three victims. Two teenagers were found dead from self-inflicted wounds in a nearby car. They are believed to be the suspects in the shooting that is now being investigated as a hate crime.
- In Louisiana over the weekend, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy was turfed out by Trump supporters, after the two-term Senator voted with the bi-partisan majority of the U.S. Senate to convict Donald Trump after his second impeachment trial for inciting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Cassidy came in third place on Saturday, so won’t even make the upcoming runoff for the nomination between Trump-endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming. On the Democratic side, state party-backed farmer Jamie Davis came in first, but didn’t break the 50% mark. He will face either Nick Albares or Gary Crockett in the state’s June runoff, as the race between the two runners-up is still “too close to call”. And, while Dems don’t currently view LA as a potential Senate pickup, perhaps they should rethink that. All five statewide Constitutional Amendments endorsed by the GOP-controlled Legislature and Governor on Saturday were rejected by voters on Saturday. Something to ponder for Dems in what is likely to be a Blue Wave election. Maybe even in Louisiana. The state’s U.S. House primaries were cancelled before Saturday by the Republican Governor following the recent ruling by the rightwing activist SCOTUS in Louisiana v. Callais, in order to allow the Republican state legislature to redraw the state’s Black majority districts out of existence.
- Alabama, which holds its primary tomorrow (Tuesday), along with Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon and Pennsylvania, also saw its House elections suspended in four Districts to allow Republicans to rig that state’s U.S. House map as well. Thousands of voting rights activists turned out to protest the return of Jim Crow in Selma and Montgomery on Saturday, the sites of 1965’s Bloody Sunday march for voting rights that resulted in that year’s passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act…which was finally all but killed by SCOTUS just over two weeks ago in Callais.
Then, on Monday morning, Donald Trump‘s corrupted Dept. of Justice announced that Donald Trump was dropping his $10 billion lawsuit against his own IRS. The suit was supposedly in response to the release by an IRS sub-contractor of some of his tax returns during his first Presidency (revealing, at the time, he paid just $750 dollars in federal taxes the year he first announced his run for President, and paid nothing at all in other years.)
In exchange for dismissing the suit against his own government, Trump’s DOJ “agreed” to create a “victim” compensation fund run by Trump himself allowing him to distribute $1.776 BILLION dollars to those Trump chooses to declare as “victims” of “weaponization” during the Biden Presidency. That is believed to include the more than 1,600 Trump supporters convicted of violently storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 in a failed effort to steal the 2020 election for Trump. (They were all previously pardoned and released from prison by Trump.)
In hope of making some sense of this unspeakably corrupt, massive, taxpayer funded Trump heist, we are joined today by ROBERT WEISSMAN, Co-President of the great government watchdog, Public Citizen.
What exactly is this “agreement”? Why is it being made right now? What can be done about it? And can it possibly be stopped by Congress or anyone else? Those are among the topics discussed with Weissman today, who described the Trump/DOJ scheme as the creation of “slush fund to make pay outs to Trump supporters and cronies.” In a statement issued this morning by Public Citizen, they call it “a monstrous theft of taxpayer resources” and vow to open an investigation through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests to the IRS, Dept. of Treasury, and Dept. of Justice.
“The English language doesn’t give us adequate words to characterize this,” Weissman tells me as he tries to explain what Trump is hoping to do. “Donald Trump was President of the United States when his tax returns were released. It was illegal, but it was under Donald Trump’s IRS,” he charges. And now, Trump has mad a deal with the DOJ “which, he is clear, works specifically and directly for him.”
“‘Laughable’ doesn’t quite get to it,” says Weissman, as he joins me in trying to adequately describe what is playing out in front of all of us. “It’s entirely possible for Donald Trump to take some or all of this money that’s being paid out by this preposterous fund. The terms of the fund itself — ‘There should be no appeal, arbitration or judicial review of claims, offers or other determinations’ — meaning no one can do anything about what this made-up committee does, including giving all of the money to Donald Trump.”
“It’s not one of the most corrupt things that this administration has done,” explains Weissman, challenging a quote I shared earlier from Colorado’s Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse. “It’s the most corrupt thing, at least in terms of this kind of personal corruption. It’s almost for sure the most corrupt thing in all of American history.”
Before we wrap up, I also ask Weissman about reports late last week that Trump has made thousands of financial transactions totaling hundreds of millions of dollars in the first three months of 2026 alone. The more than 3,700 transactions are said to have been valued between $220 and $750 million dollars, and are for the sale or purchase of huge tech companies just days before the public disclosure of massive new deals, such as the Commerce Dept.’s approval of the sale of chips to China by NVidia.
“‘Every grift possible’,” quips Weissman. “That’s Donald Trump’s slogan.”
Much more on today’s program. Please listen below…
