The unprecedented corrupt self-enrichment of this President has never been in question, particularly during his second term. But, as we detail on today’s BradCast, with some of the real numbers now coming into view — even while Americans struggle to survive his horrible inflationary policies and massive cuts to critical social services such as healthcare — the mind-blowing amount of in-your-face corruption, profiteering and criminality of it all becomes simply staggering. [Audio to full shows follows this summary.]
FIRST UP… A quick follow-up to yesterday’s breaking news coverage of a sexual assault allegation against Maine‘s Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner. While we went to air on Monday just minutes after the news about the progressive combat vet and first-time political candidate initially broke, and callers rang in to call for Platner to stay in the race against the state’s Republican Sen. Susan Collins, that position became seemingly untenable as the hours after our Monday show and in to today wore on.
As of Tuesday afternoon, a huge number of both progressive and Democratic establishment supporters, elected officials and organizations have now called for Platner to drop out before next Monday’s replacement deadline. With the news on Tuesday that Sen. Bernie Sanders — who helped recruit Platner into the race — is now calling for him to “step aside”, it now just seems to be a matter of time.
Presuming Platner drops out by 5pm next Monday, July 13th, the Maine Democratic Party would then have two weeks, until Monday, July 27, to put forward an official replacement for the November ballot. How the Party will carry out a process to make that determination and somehow improve their odds of flipping the state’s Senate seat from “red” to “blue” remains to be seen. Stay tuned.
THEN… As noted above, the personal corruption and self-dealing by Donald Trump during his second term — for himself and his family, particularly his two eldest sons — is both far too staggering to summarize in a single show, and far worse than previously understood. It’s also likely far more grotesque than we even now understand. But some of the details that have emerged over the past week, while we were on a break, are virtually unfathomable on their own.
Among just some of the jaw-dropping details pulled together for today’s program…
- The watch-sized diamond, sapphire, emerald and ruby-encrusted gold ring (with 321 diamonds), featuring giant Ts, stars and stripes, “1776” and “2026”, with “45” and “47” in Superman crests, a diamond-winged eagle, the phrase “250 YEARS USA” and “Crafted…for Donald John Trump” engraved on the inside has been appraised to be worth about $35,000. It’s a gift given to Donald Trump on Friday by Belgium‘s centuries-old diamond industry in return for his lifting of all tariffs against the nation’s polished stone trade. Kash Patel‘s girlfriend sang the U.S. national anthem at the star-spangled gifting ceremony in Brussels. Sure, the watch isn’t as impressive as the $400 million jet given to Trump by Qatar (or the nearly $1 billion in money that taxpayers gave to him to make it usable as Air Force One.) But apparently, the industry in Antwerp also made a contribution to Trump’s Freedom 250 corporation. What is Freedom 250?…
- Last Friday, the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources published a 55-page report detailing how the bipartisan America250 organization, created by Congress in 2016 to organize celebrations in honor of America’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this year, was hijacked and big-footed by a private, Trump-run company named Freedom 250 LLC. The company trashed or otherwise locked out years of planning by America250 for celebrations around the country, replaced it with its own partisan, Christian Nationalist themed events (such as the disastrous and still-ongoing “Great American State Fair” on the National Mall), while carrying out apparent wire fraud by giving its own bank account and routing numbers to those seeking to donate to what many thought was the bipartisan America250. Aside from the criming, among the things that Americans lost in the bargain on our 250th birthday is somewhat heart-wrenching.
- Trump’s personal income increased by at least $1.6 billion during the first year of his second term in office, according to his newly-filed financial disclosures. That’s more than he’s ever made in any prior single year. Most of the money was from his cut of his, Don Jr. and Eric‘s $2.3 billion profit from investors in their cryptocurrency and digital tokens businesses setup just before he took office again last year. While the Trump Family saw at least $2.3 billion in profits, more than a million duped Trump supporters who bought into their crypto scams lost almost exactly that same $3.2 billion according to a recent analysis. A more recent separate analysis pegs the losses at $3.8 billion.
- Just six days after Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick‘s sons sealed a deal to become partners in an American mining company now named Kaz Resources, President Trump signed an agreement with the President of Kazakhstan to mine one of the world’s largest untapped reserves of tungsten, a critical metal used in warheads, batteries, computer chips and much more. The Trump Administration approved $1.6 billion in federal financing for the Trump/Lutnick kids’ new mining company, from which they stand to make millions if not billions. Fourteen other mining companies in which the sons are also involved have reportedly benefited directly in both U.S. financial assistance and Commerce Dept. permit application approval to the tune of nearly $9 billion.
- Don Jr. is set to make millions more from his father’s Administration’s upcoming relaxation of gun regulations, which will allow for the direct mail sale of firearms for the first time. That, as Little Donny is a board member and consultant to a company named GrabAGun, which is seeking to become “the Amazon of guns” once his dad’s new rollback of regulations becomes official. Don Jr. also serves as a board member on the company offering “Shoot Now Pay Later” financing to GrabAGun’s customers and a separate venture capital firm which helped GrabAGun go public.
- While the above is just the tip of the iceberg of both our coverage today and what we know (so far) about the massive, ongoing Trump Crime Family corruption and fleecing of America and its taxpayers, it’s both sad and ironic that Hunter Biden, of all people, is the one found tallying up just some of the massive grift over the weekend on Twitter. (Anyone remember that laptop of his that was supposed to reveal the evidence of huge “Biden Crime Family” corruption? Yeah, apparently Republicans don’t either.)
- FINALLY… Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, the first since our holiday break, as deadly heat records were being shattered in both the U.S. and Europe; while Trump’s Dept. of Energy was deleting thousands of pages on energy efficiency; and while Australia now has so much clean, renewable solar energy they are literally able to give it away for free to everybody…
