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“Donald Trump’s foray into cryptocurrency”
00:41:54
July 6, 2026; 5pm: Antonia Hylton is in for Nicolle Wallace. Antonia and friends discuss Donald Trump’s recent interest in cryptocurrency during his second term, an interest which has resulted in a staggering amount of profit for the Trump family.
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- [00:00]
Podcast Host
Listen to your favorite Ms. Now shows anytime as a podcast. Enjoy new episodes of Morning Joe, Deadline, White House and the Rachel Maddow Show.
- [00:09]
Antonia Hylton
Every small D Democratic muscle that we have is flexing.
- [00:14]
Podcast Host
Plus the Last Word with Lawrence o', Donnell, the Beat with Ari Melber, the Weeknight and more on the go wherever you get your podcasts for ad free listening to all of your favorite shows. Subscribe to Ms. Now Premium on Apple Podcasts.
- [00:35]
Donald Trump
I'm a big crypto. I've become a big crypto guy. I wasn't initially I didn't know much about it, but for some of my first term I wasn't really. I wasn't much involved, but I'd watch and I watched it grow and it's a huge industry and I got involved in a little bit for politics, you know, because I realized there are a lot of people love crypto and even me as a businessman, I see a lot of money starting to come in with bitcoin and, you know, the different forms. And I said, this thing's got a lot of life.
- [01:05]
Antonia Hylton
Hi again everyone. It's five o' clock in New York. I'm Antonia Hilton in for my friend Nicole Wallace today. Once upon a time, you know, presidents would try very hard to avoid any conflicts of interest while in office, or even just the appearance of one. Which is why Donald Trump's foray into cryptocurrency during his second term is so unnerving. Trump only recently got interested in crypto thanks to his sons, and yet he has already made a staggering amount of money from it. The New York Times details a stunning new report that shows how Trump has profited mightily from the digital currency, all while his supporters have lost big time. From that new report, nearly 1 million people who bought President Trump's Meme Coin have lost money through the end of June, according to a report by the cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen. Their losses total $3.81 billion. The analytics firm's assessment was calculated this week after Mr. Trump signed an annual financial disclosure showing that he walked away with a $636 million payout on the same crypto bet, part of a haul of at least 2.2 billion from all of his business ventures in 2025. The Times writes how this was a fail safe investment for Trump that essentially took advantage of those who bought his coin. The odds were always in his favor. Mr. Trump profited whether the price of his Meme Coin went up or down. He collected returns whenever anyone traded the tokens, as he repeatedly pushed his followers to do, using his Truth Social account to promote the coin. Trump, while in office, has deregulated the crypto market. He signed an executive order his first week in office to help the crypto industry. He had the Justice Department disband its cryptocurrency enforcement team. And he has put people in regulatory positions that are friendly to crypto. Meanwhile, those who follow him and support him in this, they're losing. The Times spoke with a man named Nicholas Pinto, a frequent crypto trader who voted for Mr. Trump in 2024. Mr. Pinto said he invested a total of roughly $500,000 in the Trump coin and has now lost about half that investment. He is leveraging the power of being president to launch currencies when he seems trustworthy in the public's eye, Mr. Pinto said. It is kind of incredible. It is almost a legal scam. The White House responded to the Times reporting saying all actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people. I have heard that exact statement from this administration before. And that is going to be where we begin this hour with business analyst and author of the Message of the Markets on Substack, Ron Insana. Also joining us, Mississippi, now, political analyst and Bloomberg Opinion senior executive editor Tim o'. Brien. And with me here at the table, executive editor and New York bureau chief of the Economist, Charlotte Howard. It's great to have all of you, but Ron, I'm going to start with you. So break down this, quote, legal scam for me. How Trump was able to make money while so many people who care about him, who like him, lost so much.
- [04:13]
Ron Insana
So, as you stated, Antonio, you know, it doesn't really matter what the coin does. The president gets money that comes into his wallet. And if there's trading activity that takes place in, in the meme coin that is named after him, he profits from that whether the price goes up or down, and has gone down more than 90% since it was first introduced. So those who have purchased the coin effectively at its peak when it first came out are down substantially. As you mentioned, $3.8 billion lost among a million different investors. But in the crypto world, if you launch a, a meme coin, there are a variety of different ways to profit from it. Now, listen, if for any of us in the real world, something like this would be, I think, by regulators in another administration be considered something akin to a pump and dump scam where you profit and the investors lose and would probably be investigated by regulators if indeed they were inclined to do so. So this is a tricky one, since they deregulated crypto, since there's very little oversight from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees the crypto industry, there'll be no investigation. There'll be no discussion of this. It'll just be a massive loss for investors. And typically, too, you would also see civil lawsuits alleging some sort of investment fraud if it were anyone other than the President of the United States.
- [05:32]
Antonia Hylton
You know, Charlotte, everything Ron just said there is incredibly distressing and depressing to me. I mean, you would think that there's a bit of a higher ethical obligation here, actually, because this is the president. Many of these people who have bought these coins, you know, they're not necessarily people who believe or know a whole lot about the block, but they do believe in Donald Trump.
- [05:52]
Charlotte Howard
Yeah. I think this is a fascinating political test for the president, because core to his appeal to his base since 2016 has been that the Democrats are taking advantage of you. They're treating you for suckers. They don't understand your plight. And this is, I think, the clearest case we've had yet where there's a possibility for Trump supporters to feel like they have been taken advantage of by the president, whom they've been supporting so faithfully. So if you look at issue after issue, there are all kinds of constituencies within Trump's base who have been remarkably loyal. You know, farmers haven't really complained about the effects of tariffs. They've really stuck with the president as one example. But I think this is so stark. You know, I wonder whether there'll be a political impact within his base. I think more likely you'll have a political impact beyond his base. Where Americans look at this president and think, this is not how it's supposed to be.
- [06:41]
Antonia Hylton
Do you think some of that is? There's an element of sort of shame. Like a fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, or three times or four times or five times, I'm embarrassed now.
- [06:53]
Charlotte Howard
I think there will be some indignation. And you've started to see a few fractures within his party. But generally, people who've rebelled against this president have suffered and been punished. You look at Marjorie Taylor Greene, you look at the candidates within different Republican primaries who've tried to push back against the president. And the Trump endorsed candidate has defeated those who tried to. To push back against the president. So one of the things that has been so fascinating about his time so far is that he has resisted, I think, all conventional political logic where you think that voters will act in their own self Interest. Most of the time, he has this real magnetism. And I think that this is the one issue that I'm very curious. Does this break that pattern, Tim?
- [07:31]
Antonia Hylton
Is there any sort of modern precedent for this in a Western democracy?
- [07:37]
Tim O'Brien
Absolutely not. And it goes well beyond a conflict of interest. You know, the questions that have been rolling up each time from the media to Trump when he talks about this is, is there a conflict of interest? And either he or his proxies, the White House, say, no, no, no, of course there isn't. Well, of course there is. And the larger issue is, what's the impact of having a president who is using every lever of government and has access to regulation, relationships domestically and internationally to simply pad his wallet on a daily basis along with the wallets of his two eldest sons? And it's worth putting this in context. You know, when Trump left the White House after his first term in 2020, involuntarily left the White House, most of his wealth was tied up in a handful of urban office buildings in New York and Los Angeles. And they were all getting pounded by Covid. They had very high, very low occupancy rates and a lot of debt. And I think when he came into his second term, making a ton of money wasn't just a byproduct of his campaign, it was one of the purposes for it. And he went since. And as soon as he got into office, he went about trying to harvest money off of crypto. And the amounts of money are so massive. On crypto alone, he earned $1.4 billion last year. That is well above anything he ever earned in any single year in the 60 or so years he's been a businessman in other fields, and he knows it. And he didn't earn this money because he was working hard. He did not earn this money because he's talented. Two conventional ways we honor people getting rich in the United States. He earned it because he's sitting in the Oval Office and he makes the regulations that govern this industry. And the very fact that he went about deregulating a poker chip, essentially because there's no demonstrated yet widespread commercial or consumer use for crypto right now, it is an incredibly speculative endeavor. And the fact that he went about harvesting that much money off of it, and no one is standing his way, not the regulatory agencies, not his own party, and to date, not voters, only emboldens him to do more of it.
- [10:01]
Antonia Hylton
Charlotte, I want to read a little bit from your latest piece for the Economist. He could do well to recall that history remembers Jefferson not for his debts, but for the writing, but for writing the Declaration of Independence and Grant, not for being a lousy businessman, but for winning the Civil War and helping America recover from its wounds. History honors Truman for being scrupulous about his personal gain, as well as for ending the most devastating war the world has ever known and rebuilding it after. Mr. Trump's legacy is still taking shape. In the end, he may be best known for reaping riches from the office only 45 men have had the honor to hold. Where do you think his legacy is heading?
- [10:44]
Charlotte Howard
I think that each day with the type of behavior that we saw articulated in this devastating, almost thousand page report, he is himself writing that legacy. He is in not just crypto. You look at a few other areas of investment, particularly in mining, which he has identified as a strategic interest for the United States, and also, as disclosed in his finances, a strategic interest for the Trump Organization that he is in multiple areas of American life, really blurring the line between public interest and, and personal financial gain. And it's demeaning to the office, it's demeaning to the presidency. And I think the American people look at this as just patently not what the founders intended this role to be.
- [11:30]
Antonia Hylton
Ron, what do you think, big picture are the consequences for our social fabric, our democracy, also our economy, if you have political families like Trump and his sons operating like investment groups, basically?
- [11:45]
Ron Insana
Well, I mean, I think it, what it really calls into question is what the future looks like. If it's okay for the President and his family to profit from a wide variety of business endeavors, some of which, as Tim pointed out, and I agree with him on crypto, it has no commercial or consumer use in most cases, particularly since there are about 13 million meme coins floating out there right now. On top of that, his stock trading, which has been, at least through whoever his representatives are, has been, you know, taking place on a minute by minute basis throughout his presidency. It means that effectively it's okay for anyone to behave this way if the President can do it. I mean, going back to what President Nixon said errantly, you know, if the President does it, it can't be illegal or in this case, maybe unethical. It raises a lot of questions about the future behavior of presidents. If you go back to at least his four predecessors, if not farther back, none of them traded stocks while they were in office. They had blind trust. They didn't know effectively what their investment advisors were buying and selling, if they were doing any of that at all. And it's really raised a lot of ethical questions as how a president should behave in office when the precedent has already been established that this type of behavior has been and arguably, and I think should be unacceptable.
- [13:06]
Antonia Hylton
Tim, even if every transaction is technically legal, technically above board, do you think we're now in territory where it's going to be impossible to separate the president's personal financial interests and goals from public policy, national security, and everything else?
- [13:26]
Tim O'Brien
Only if Congress sits on its hands, and only if laws aren't passed in the wake of. Of Trump's exit from the White House, whenever that happens, to simply make it unacceptable for a president to be engaged in the kind of business activities and conflicts of interest and grift that Donald Trump and his children are engaging in right now, that can be put on the books legally. You can make it a requirement that presidents cannot run for the presidency and then occupy the White House unless they've separated themselves from those assets. There is. There's wishful thinking in the Constitution around this and in certain federal ethical guidelines, but they simply aren't enforceable, and no one's really taken Trump to task for that. And what you're left with now, and you know, I share Charlotte's sentiment and admire her writing. It is important that Trump be cognizant of his legacy. The anomaly here is that he is a profoundly damaged person who doesn't care about what the history books think of him. Donald Trump sees a bag of money on the desk in front of him, and that motivates him in the minute and in the instance, far longer than anything like thinking about his legacy does. And to prevent ourselves from getting harmed by other presidents who come into the office and lean in that same direction, we have to get laws on the books that prevent it. Because right now, it's not only an issue that the president can enrich himself or herself in that office, it's that they're vulnerable to bribes, and it damages the national interest and it damages domestic policymaking.
- [15:04]
Antonia Hylton
Yeah. And it's not just Trump who sees that bag of money on the table. His whole family. His kids do. Ron, I want you to take a listen to some. Yeah. Yes. I want you to take a listen, Ron, to some sound from Trump's interview with your former colleague at cnbc, Joe Kernan, last week, where he talks about his sons and their businesses.
- [15:24]
Donald Trump
I feel badly in a way for my kids, because every time my kids do, if they invest in a stock or if they go and do a bill, anything they do, because the presidency is so powerful, so big, everything if they buy a cupcake company, well, the energy to make the cupcakes is, you know, sort of like, how's my energy policy? So therefore you have a conflict. Almost anything they do, if they want to buy a truck, if they want to buy, you know, if they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information. So it's pretty tough in that sense. I tell my kids, stay away from as much as you can stay away from. But they also have a life, you know.
- [16:10]
Antonia Hylton
Ron, was any of that compelling to you around cupcakes and energy? Do you get the sense that Trump's sons are doing their best to stay away from what they can stay away from?
- [16:19]
Ron Insana
No, not in the least. I mean, one, they're involved in a mining project in which the United States now has an interest in one of the former Soviet republics. Number two, I think that if you go back and look at history, Billy Carter, who embarrassed President Jimmy Carter by launching Billy Beer, or Roger Clinton, who had some questionable behavior activities when President Clinton was in office, relatives of the president are at least have been constrained to a certain degree in their own activities because they are so close to the presidency, because they are so close to information, if indeed they're, they're close to the president himself. And so no, they should be constrained and particularly when they're on the boards of companies that are being regulated or deregulated by the federal government, when they're involved with companies that do business with the federal government, as is the case with the president's sons, all three of them for that matter. There is no justification, and this is incredibly tortured logic to suggest that they have lives and they should be able to do what they want, when in fact, they still appear to be, at least from my vantage point, deeply involved with this presidency. And this would include Jared Kushner as well, and foreign business dealings.
- [17:30]
Antonia Hylton
All right. Entire panel is sticking around with me. When we return, Donald Trump getting rich off crypto is just one example of how his economy is benefiting a select few while the vast majority of Americans struggle. The real state of the Trump economy after a short break. Also ahead, chilling scenes this weekend in Washington where groups of white nationalists descended upon the American July 4th celebrations while Donald Trump is criticized for yet another racist post about the Obamas. That conversation later in the hour. Deadline White House continues after a very quick break.
- [18:09]
Podcast Host
The Genesis GV70 with all its award winning tech and performance is built to thrill. So you can hit the road, hit the turns and hit Sport plus mode for serious acceleration and handling. Inside, you'll Find intuitive tech that elevates every driving experience. And wherever you go, the GV70 will have you on the edge of your seat. It's luxury that's built to thrill. Learn more@genesis.com and feel the GV70 listen to your favorite Ms. Now shows anytime As a podcast Enjoy new episodes of Morning Joe, Deadline, White House and the Rachel Maddow Show.
- [18:47]
Antonia Hylton
Every small D Democratic muscle that we have is flexing.
- [18:52]
Podcast Host
Plus the Last Word with Lawrence o', Donnell, the Beat with Ari Melber, the Weeknight and more on the Go wherever you get your podcasts for ad free listening to all of your favorite shows. Subs subscribe to Ms. Now Premium on Apple Podcasts.
- [19:10]
Antonia Hylton
Three times in five months, that's how many times Dell stockholder Donald Trump has told the American public to buy a Dell computer, the most recent of which was this morning in the Oval Office, when Trump remotely rang the opening bell for the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq. He did so to mark the start of Trump investment accounts for children born during his second term, which Dell CEO Michael Dell and his wife are contributing to. Dell stock then rose after Trump's remarks. Yahoo notes that according to Trump's financial disclosures, the president bought at least 1 million in Dell stock during the first quarter of 2026. But it does point out that Trump says his assets are managed through blind and semi blind trusts. We're back with Ron, Tim and Charlotte. So, Charlotte, I guess just like as was the case with the crypto business, it doesn't seem like Trump really even wants to try to hide or maintain any sort of sense of discretion here to try to convince the American public there's nothing shady going on. It's almost like he's thrown all this stuff out of the window and he believes that by being so brazen about it that the rest of us will just sort of forget. And maybe he's right.
- [20:23]
Charlotte Howard
Yeah, I mean, it's a play that's worked for him pretty well right. In the past. If you look at other activities, you know he's pretty he doesn't pretend to be someone who was always faithful to one woman as an example, which would have been a test for politicians in the past. He has this pitch, which is that, you know, everyone else has been lying to you. Basically, I'm going to tell you the truth. And yes, that means that I'm playing to a more open set of rules than you might have been accustomed to hearing from politicians, but I'm actually the one who's being honest with you And I think in this instance, you're really, again, really pushing the boundaries of that logic, because I think to most ordinary Americans, there's something about this that just doesn't smell right. I mean, you can look at example after example within those financial disclosures. Ron, in the earlier segment referred to the government taking a stake, or it was actually one of his sons hadn't been a venture firm that invested in a mining company that then received a government loan. You know, the president disclosed in that report last week that there was a company in which the government took a stake, and then after that, the president sold his shares in the company for financial gain. So, I mean, there are just many, many examples of this. And I think Trump is betting, one, that Americans have always assumed their politicians are corrupt, and so he's just being more open about the gains that he can reap from the presidency. And two, that voters have a short memory and they love him. You know, going back to the earliest stages of campaign, he said, I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. I mean, he's really. I think he believes that, you know, he thinks he can get away with a lot. And so far he has.
- [21:57]
Antonia Hylton
Yeah. And we have colleagues who go out on the road every week, and in fact, they do essentially hear that sentiment from people. Tim, you know, I want to get your sort of big picture thoughts on that image earlier today of the president talking about everything from crypto to what's going on with FIFA, with Dell and other key figures standing behind him. This isn't the first time where Trump has sort of rambled about his own personal interests and political goals with sort of titans of industry standing behind him. And it seems not that those relationships are new between the White House and these key figures, but the way in which they sometimes end up standing there, nodding along and backing him up in his sort of explicitly partisan goals and rants. That part does feel new to me.
- [22:46]
Tim O'Brien
Well, I mean, I think they know, Antonia, that in order to get Trump's blessing, regulatorily or otherwise, they need to bend the knee and they need to show up at the White House. I think foreign diplomats have learned the same lesson. I think there was a variety of European leaders who were doing it until it didn't work out for them anymore. And despite everything they did, Trump said he was going to invade Greenland. And I think particularly the tech community in the United States adopted the same strategy, which was, go to Washington, bring him trinkets, praise him, and then hope that he changes policy to benefit them. And you can See in his stock trades that there certainly is a pattern of apparent quid pro quos in Dell stock, in Nvidia stock, in Palantir stock. In all of those, you can either trace Trump making an investment in the stock and policy changes within a short time period, or he goes on social media and touts the stock. The same thing happened with crypto, by the way. The UAE spymaster invests $500 million in Trump's crypto business and a few months later, Trump lifts chip exports to the uae. In all of these cases, it's not just Donald Trump praising the American economy and saying the stock market's good. It's Donald Trump brow beating members of the elite business class in the United States to sing his praises. And in return, he makes money off of that relationship and they get lighter regulation. And at the end of the day, where does that leave average Americans in a time when they're struggling with affordability issues and the middle class, which has always been the bulwark of the American economy, is fraying.
- [24:33]
Antonia Hylton
Yeah, I mean all of America, all across the country, people are struggling financially. Ron, we also saw those less than expected jobs numbers last week. And just consumer sentiment is at historic lows. And then even as you listen to the President talk about how good the stock market is doing, he was talking to a reporter the other day basically saying, well, how's your 401k? When they were trying to ask the President questions. You have to remember, correct me if I'm wrong, but something like almost half of Americans do not even have a 401k. Those, those gains kind of mean nothing for them.
- [25:04]
Ron Insana
Well, let me flip that just a little bit, Antonio, because we now have household ownership of equities at an all time high exceeding that of the year 2000 at the height of the Internet bubble, which sometimes can be a sign of a late stage market development. Now having said that, the concentration of ownership in the stock market is also at an all time high among the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans. And so there is this enormous disparity between who holds the wealth versus how much exposure there is and how Americans feel. It's the widest gap we've seen between the stock market, The Dow crossed 53,000 for the first time ever today, and consumer sentiment which is hovering near the lowest level since the 1950s. People feel worse about the economy than they did after the pandemic, the great financial crisis, even after 9 11. And so there's this enormous disparity between the lived of middle and lower income individuals and those at the very top who own a great chunk of this stock market wealth that has accumulated over time, not just in the Trump administration, but over the last several years as well.
- [26:08]
Antonia Hylton
Ron and Sana Tim o', Brien Charlotte Howard so good to see all of you. Thank you so much for joining me today and when we return. It was a weekend celebrating America's 250th birthday, but the White nationalist Patriot Front tried to make it something very different and Trump administration officials had a very hard time condemning all of it. We're going to bring you that story after a short break.
- [26:32]
Podcast Host
The Genesis GV70 with all its award winning tech and performance is built to thrill. So you can hit the road, hit the turns and hit Sport plus mode for serious acceleration and handling. Inside you'll find intuitive tech that elevates every driving experience experience and wherever you go, the GV70 will have you on the edge of your seat. It's luxury that's built to thrill. Learn more@genesis.com and feel the GV70 listen to your favorite Ms. Now shows anytime as a podcast. Enjoy new episodes of Morning Joe, Deadline, White House and the Rachel Maddow Show.
- [27:10]
Antonia Hylton
Every small D Democratic muscle that we have is of full flexing.
- [27:15]
Podcast Host
Plus the Last Word with Lawrence o', Donnell, the Beat with Ari Melber, the Weeknight and more on the go wherever you get your podcasts for ad free listening to all of your favorite shows, subscribe to Ms. Now Premium on Apple Podcasts.
- [27:34]
Antonia Hylton
As America celebrated its 250th birthday, the centuries old fight over who we are and who this country is for was on full display as Neo Nazis with the group Patriot Front marched through the streets of Washington D.C. the members, always hiding their identities behind matching masks, hats and polos, walk through the nation's capital chanting Reclaim America. Leading to indelible images of terrified residents. What was supposed to be a day of national celebration, including this image captured by Reuters that will no doubt end up in our history textbooks one day of a black woman on the train surrounded by by white nationalists and a black man forced to stand next to masked men donning the traitorous Confederate flag. The group was founded in the aftermath of 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. According to the Southern Poverty Law center, the founder, Thomas Rousseau, quote, led Vanguard America members, a neo Nazi group that participated in the rally during Unite the Right, including James Alex Fields Jr. The young man accused of murdering anti racist protester Heather Heyer that day after fatally driving his vehicle into a crowd of protesters. The Rally where Donald Trump said there were, quote, very fine people on both sides. Trump's Secretary of the Interior was asked for comment on the appearance of the white nationalists marching in broad daylight just hours before Trump's speech. Here's how he responded.
- [29:03]
Tim O'Brien
Certainly what they stand for is nothing
- [29:05]
Ron Insana
that I could possibly agree with, but one of the foundational principles of the United States which makes democracy messy is free speech.
- [29:12]
Charlotte Howard
Do you, as Interior Secretary, will you recommend to the president that he condemn
- [29:17]
Antonia Hylton
this group and what they were trying
- [29:19]
Charlotte Howard
to message, what they did try to message here in Washington?
- [29:23]
Ron Insana
Well, there have been.
- [29:24]
Tim O'Brien
Dan, A part of my response to that is that there are protests on
- [29:29]
Ron Insana
the Mall, that people say things that I think are irreprensible about President Trump, and yet they're allowed to go on because of free speech in our country.
- [29:41]
Antonia Hylton
I want to bring in two great friends, NYU law professor and legal analyst Melissa Murray, and also with me, Princeton University professor and political analyst Eddie Glaude. He is the author of the fitting book, America How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries. Eddie, I want your reaction to Burgum there. The secretary, I mean, you know, basically saying democracy is messy. Equating people protesting in D.C. who've said some mean words about Donald Trump to Nazis marching in the streets.
- [30:14]
Eddie Glaude
Well, first of all, it's great to see you and Melissa. First of all, he's lying on two fronts. He's lying. One, he's lying about the administration's commitment to free speech. We know what just happened with protesters against ICE in Texas 30 to 100 years. We know their position with regards to BLM and others. There's a way in which they're lumping everybody into antifa, domestic terrorist organization and the like. So we know he's lying in terms of the consistency in his application of free speech. The second thing, he's lying principally about what he could not condone. What is the substantive difference between the Patriot Front and the policies of the Trump administration? The Patriot Front says it wants a white ethnostate. Sounds like Stephen Miller to me. It says that multiculturalism, immigration and diversity pose an existential threat to the country. Sounds like Trump's immigration policies to me. Sounds like his attack on DEI to me. So I want us to name the devil that has us by the throat. There's a reason why the Interior Secretary will not condemn the Patriot Front because in so many ways, at the level of substance, they are easily aligned.
- [31:20]
Antonia Hylton
You know, Melissa, I've been thinking a lot about what Eddie has spelled out so well, there the way in which to since the United States, the right rally back in 2017, that these concepts, these phrases, these movements, they've gone from being on the fringe genuinely, I think shocking many Americans that day to sort of being something that's just in the dialogue in our political fabric on a day to day basis. And one of the words that I think sort of connects the threads here is the word remigration. This is something that not only have we heard members of this administration use, but in fact Trump's DHS posted this on social media back in November. The stakes have never been higher and the goal has never been more clear. Remigration. Now, remigration. I know you two know this, but for anyone listening or watching right now, remigration has its roots in neo Nazi rhetoric and strategizing in the United States. It is about the forced expulsion of all non white immigrants from this country. Melissa, when you see DHS posting language like that and then you see Patriot Front feeling comfortable coming out in public in this way, when Trump has made so much of America 250 in our Capitol about himself, what does that tell you?
- [32:40]
Melissa Murray
I think Eddie said it best, Antonia. Like this is a mission that's aligned with much of the work of this administration. And it's not just what has been happening with regard to this anniversary. And anniversaries are always fraught with nations reflecting on who they are and who they want to be. And our nation, I think, is having a real sort of inflection point where we're looking back, we're looking ahead, and we are becoming a different kind of country. And I think this is part of the anxiety that a group like Patriot Front is trying to harness. We are becoming more multi ethnic, more multiracial. And that for many is frightening. It's part of the anxiety around this new migration. Making America great again is also about returning America to a particular demographic character that hasn't existed at least since the 1970s and 1980s and will not exist if current patterns continue in the way that they have. I think it's also behind some of the more quotidian policies around this administration that we're not talking about the efforts to roll back DEI in schools and in the workplace and employment. These are the places where most Americans come into contact with people who are not like them. For the most part, we've lived relatively segregated in terms of our homes, our neighborhoods, our churches, where we worship. It's when we go to college, it's when we go to work that we see people who are not like us, who have had different experiences. And that is what this administration is trying to break down at the most fundamental level. Making sure that we can remain cloistered in our silos and never reach out to the other, never have empathy for the other. And that is what allows them to fracture and break us and return America to what they want it to be.
- [34:20]
Antonia Hylton
Eddie, why do you think they dress like that? We just showed everyone on their screen a moment ago the way that Patriot Front presents itself. I mean, they're always cowardly. They always want to hide their identities, but they also dress in this very particular, well studied, uniform manner. What message are they trying to send?
- [34:37]
Eddie Glaude
Well, I mean, it's an echo of the Brown Shirts, of course, and the like, but it's also a sense that they are worried about some form of social sanction. Even though the permission structures allow them to come out in public to do what they're doing, they're still worried that, you know, that they will somehow, you know, bear cost for this. And this is very important for us to understand. There's no substantive difference between, say, the KKK and White Citizens Council, except for class, perhaps. Right? I mean, we. We tend to think of the KKK as being a working class institution, as it were, but it was filled with people who were on chambers of commerce, people who were sheriffs, people who were firefighters and the like. So what would be revealed if those masks were taken down is that it wasn't just simply the folks on the margins. It could be folk in our own community. And I want to say this too, really quickly, Antonia. This is an echo. August 8, 1925, over 30,000 Klansmen and women marched down the street of Pennsylvania Avenue. They claimed that Calvin Coolidge would not have been elected if it wasn't for the KKK. In 1924, at the Democratic National Convention, they claimed that their seminal piece of legislation was the Johnson Reed Immigration act of 1924. There has been a synergy between these forces before. And here we are in the 250th year of the country seeing that synergy once again.
- [35:59]
Antonia Hylton
Melissa, I want to quote for you at the Southern Poverty Law center, they have this quote from the Patriot Front manifesto. The American identity was something uniquely forged in the struggle that our ancestors waged to survive in this new continent. To be an American is to realize this identity and take up the national struggle. Upon one's shoulders. Not simply by birth is one granted this title, but by the degree to which he works and fulfills the potential of his birth. Talk to us about the parallels between this kind of hateful and exclusionary rhetoric and the way that the Trump administration has tried to change and limit who gets to be legally an American.
- [36:41]
Melissa Murray
This is an administration that has just been very upfront about its America first attitude. And America first is for, quote, unquote, heritage Americans. If you are someone from somewhere else, if you're an immigrant, I'm not even sure if African Americans, who are the descendants of those who were brought here in chains would be considered truly American for purposes of this. I mean, we've seen this the way the President talks about those who hate America and their efforts to rebrand patriotism as something that's all about at least allegiance to their vision of America. But all of this is deeply coded. All of this is about exclusion and ensuring that we are separate from one another. Because I think the thing that they feared most, the thing that they saw in 2020, in the aftermath of George Floyd, is students and young people of all stripes, all colors, coming together in support of this movement against state violence. And I think it was deeply threatening the idea that everyone would be coming together and against the use of force in this way. This one man, George Floyd, had united all of these people. I think it's something they have not gotten over, that they are deeply shaken by, and they're working overtime to try and counteract that. And to Eddie's point, why does the Patriot Front look like this? Why do they dress like this? They're dressed in quotidian gear. They look like the geek squad, like the guy who could fix your computer. That is by design. This could be anyone. And the masks just amplify that. You don't know who they are, but they are in your community. You don't know who you can trust if you are a person of color, if you are an immigrant, because they are hiding in plain sight. That is the point. That is the fear they are stoking.
- [38:23]
Antonia Hylton
Melissa and Eddie, you're both staying with me because when we return, just last week, former President Barack Obama marveled about how he lives rent free in Donald Trump's head. Trump proved it once again with yet another racist post about the Obamas. That story after a short break.
- [38:46]
Ron Insana
You gotta ask him what it is that. The obsession. The obsession.
- [38:51]
Melissa Murray
I know what it is.
- [38:52]
Ron Insana
Yeah. I obviously have a room in his head rent free. You do everything with grace.
- [38:57]
Antonia Hylton
A suite
- [39:00]
Donald Trump
in his head.
- [39:00]
Ron Insana
But the thing about it is, that was always clear to me.
- [39:04]
Tim O'Brien
Look, first of all, when I was
- [39:06]
Ron Insana
president, the last thing I had time to do was worry about what somebody said somebody said or what my predecessor did.
- [39:15]
Tim O'Brien
They're gone.
- [39:16]
Antonia Hylton
I've got work to do. That was former President Barack Obama last month on Donald Trump's continuing obsession with him. Donald Trump over the weekend doing nothing to dispel the notion that President Obama lives in his head rent free. The AP reports that Trump quote, posted a falsified image of former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama waving before boarding an Air Force One that had been spray painted with graffiti. The latest image shows the Obamas smiling and waving at the top of stairs alongside a baby blue and white presidential plane with graffiti painted on it that included the Democrats campaign slogan yes we can Obama and BLM short of course, for Black Lives Matter. The post also shows graffiti in Arabic on the plane that says the phrase which means praise be to God or Thank God. It comes just months after Trump posted another racist image of the Obamas as apes in a jungle. We're back with Melissa and Eddie. Eddie, I see you shaking your head so I'm just going to let you, you tell me what's going on up there.
- [40:22]
Eddie Glaude
Well, obviously he lives rent free in Trump's head. There's nothing inherently racist about graffiti. It's a vernacular art form that's powerful in so many ways. But what he's trying to do is to conjure up images of the ghetto, of how black folk will depreciate the value of wherever place they occupy. But you know, we can talk about him being in the head of Barack Obama's being in his head. But you know, I'm thinking, Antonia, I'm thinking about Nolan Wells, 18 year old kid who goes out on a boating trip with a group of white kids on the coast of Mississippi and he doesn't return. They come back and now there's all of this question, what happened to him. I'm thinking about all of the violence that follows from this stuff. See the thing is is that we can talk about it at a certain level of abstraction, but we have to raise our babies in this mess. And this man gives a permission structure where downstream the violence that follows from what he triggers we have to endure. So yes, Obama lives rent free, but we have to deal with the consequences, we have to pay the cost downstream. And so I'm grieving for Nolan Wells parents who's now trying to ask some questions or answer some questions why their baby didn't return home and all his white friends did with his telephone.
- [41:38]
Antonia Hylton
Thank you Eddie for shouting out that story that I don't think has gotten enough national Attention Nolan Wells and his disappearance. Melissa, I want your reaction to this image, too, and what you think it represents about where we are, but I also want to take the opportunity to show this poll that I know that the president must hate right now because 57% of Americans view Obama positively, making him the most popular living president. And right now, only 34% view Donald Trump positively. I mean, despite the rhetoric, the environment that he puts out there, I mean, the Obamas, and I would say the Obamas sort of as like an avatar for actually all black people still moving forward and doing their thing. In spite of what so many have tried to do to us in this moment, here they are still at 57%.
- [42:28]
Melissa Murray
I mean, it's gotta hurt a little. Antonia, not only do you think about this man 247 when you have to look at him, he is younger than you, he's smarter than you, more attractive than you, and 57% of Americans think they'd rather have him as president right now than you. And that's gotta hurt. And, yeah, I don't know what else to say about it, but Eddie is exactly right. I think very few people have actually covered the story of this tweet in large part because it's become so commonplace. I mean, it's almost not even newsworthy. Like the President of the United States said something racist about his predecessor. Not really a news story anymore because it happens so often. But Eddie is right. We've become anesthetized to this in some respects. But everyday people have to live their lives in the climate that is cultivated by this kind of nonsense. They have to raise their children. They have to live, lead dignified lives. Because the president has this obsession with his predecessor, who happens to be a black man. I mean, I don't know what else to say about this.
- [43:33]
Charlotte Howard
We're here.
- [43:33]
Melissa Murray
It's 250 years into the United States. Black people have been here for the whole time. And we've helped build this country. We're a part of this country. And I don't know who needs to hear this, but we are Americans, too.
- [43:48]
Antonia Hylton
Black people have been here for the whole time and for hundreds of years before it.
- [43:52]
Melissa Murray
We're in that one.
- [43:53]
Antonia Hylton
Look at that. Not by any.
- [43:55]
Melissa Murray
But we're there.
- [43:57]
Antonia Hylton
Melissa, look at Eddie's promoting your book. You gotta have a copy of Eddie's next time to.
- [44:03]
Melissa Murray
I do have a copy of Eddie's on the way. I have a Kindle copy, but I do have a hard copy that I need to get.
- [44:09]
Tim O'Brien
Sign.
- [44:09]
Antonia Hylton
I love it. We're going to work on that. Melissa Murray, Eddie, glad it's always so fun to talk to the two of you. Thank you both so much. A quick break for us and we're going to be right back as we reflect on the country's 250th birthday. Nicole's comp, your phone is your lifeline. Calling your kid to say goodnight, waiting on a job call back or just
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Eddie Glaude
sending a meme to your best friend
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Antonia Hylton
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Tim O'Brien
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Eddie Glaude
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Antonia Hylton
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