Democracy Now! 2026-07-02 Thursday

Summary

Democracy Now! 2026-07-02 Thursday: Episode Summary

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Main Theme & Purpose

This Democracy Now! episode dives into the mounting controversy and implications surrounding President Trump's staggering $2.2 billion in profits during his first year back in office—most notably driven by new cryptocurrency ventures. The show also analyzes the Supreme Court’s decision granting the President unprecedented power over independent regulators, and reflects on the significance of the Declaration of Independence ahead of the U.S.’s 250th anniversary, including perspectives from Black radicals. Expert guests include investigative journalist Tom Bergen (Reuters), former FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, and UCLA historian Robin D.G. Kelley.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. President Trump's Financial Windfall & Crypto Ventures (00:26–36:35)

• Explosion in Personal Wealth:

  • Trump's newly released financial disclosures reveal at least $2.2 billion in profits, with $1.4 billion from family-run cryptocurrency schemes.
  • Real estate (legacy business) brought in another $575 million; high-profile licensing deals surged.

• Crypto Business Structure & Impact:

  • Tom Bergen explains the "World Liberty Financial" and meme coin ventures—registered weeks before the 2024 election, "began making real money only after Trump was back in office" (21:43).
  • The coins and tokens have no intrinsic value. Trump’s family leveraged "the best possible marketing tool, namely the presidency" to drive speculation and sell coins.
  • Investors lost heavily: Over 90% drop in token value for most buyers; Trump and his inner circle profited from the losses. "President Trump's gains... mirrored almost identically by the losses on the part of people who have purchased these coins" (23:47 — Tom Bergen).

• Conflicts of Interest & Regulatory Environment:

  • Trump is both the chief policymaker and primary private operator in the crypto space—a profound conflict of interest.
  • Under Trump, regulations that previously targeted "initial coin offerings" during the Biden era were rolled back, making these businesses possible again. "It's quite difficult to see how they would have existed in their current form in a different situation under a different president" (25:49 — Tom Bergen).

• Foreign Deals & Family Entanglements:

  • Trump’s sons are tied to military companies receiving billions in federal funds and to international deals (e.g., a $2.6 billion Kazakhstan mining project, $200+ million from developments in Saudi Arabia and Qatar).
  • The Qatari royal family’s gifting of a luxury Boeing 747 to the President—raising constitutional questions over emoluments.

• Transparency & Accountability Gaps:

  • Bergen points out: "We don't have transparency as to who's buying these crypto tokens and we don't really see where the money's flowing or how much is being paid" (29:31).

• Legal & Constitutional Issues:

  • The setting of “guardrails” for presidential business activity is weak: "So many of the rules that would exist with respect to appointed officials or other elected officials do not apply to the president" (35:47).

Notable Quotes:

• “This is a business that...sells tokens that have no cost to manufacture...the Trump family have the ability to get people’s attention in an unheard-of way...the presidency.” — Tom Bergen (23:14)
• “Trump is both the major crypto industry operator and also its top policymaker.” — Nermeen Shaikh (25:04)
• “There’s no precedent of this in the U.S.—an elected leader’s family launching a new business closely tied to his office and reaping billions.” — Tom Bergen (32:47)

2. Supreme Court Ruling: President's Power Over Independent Agencies (38:15–47:03)

• The Ruling:

  • The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, allows the President to fire and replace independent agency commissioners at will—the Federal Trade Commission was the central case, but the impact is much broader.
  • The Federal Reserve is notably not affected by the ruling.

• Consequences for Regulatory Oversight:

  • Alvaro Bedoya, a former FTC commissioner fired by Trump: The decision entrenches a "two-sided system of justice—Wall Street gets above-the-fray, independent regulators; regular people get loyalists" (39:55).
  • Bedoya warns this removes crucial checks on corporate mergers, consumer protections, and anti-monopoly actions.

• Historical & Structural Commentary:

  • Bedoya draws connections to Citizens United and other Supreme Court decisions, lamenting a court “in love with billionaires.”
  • Calls for bold reform: “We need a Supreme Court that looks like the American people...not having lifetime jobs...all it takes is an act of Congress..." (41:13).

• Populist Movement and Class Analysis:

  • Bedoya talks about a rising class consciousness, with people from many walks of life uniting around the struggle against oligarchy, monopolies, and economic concentration.

Notable Moments:

• “For central bankers, their regulators must remain independent—for everyone else, the President can fill jobs with loyalists and friends.” — Alvaro Bedoya (39:55)
• “We need an amendment to the Bill of Rights banning monopolies, protecting the American people from concentrated corporate power.” — Alvaro Bedoya (43:29)

3. Black Radical Readings of the Declaration of Independence: U.S. at 250 (48:21–58:36)

• Historical Reframing:

  • Robin D.G. Kelley’s essay considers what the Declaration means—and does not mean—for Black Americans, referencing readings by Frederick Douglass and David Walker.
  • Kelley’s annual tradition: making his kids listen to passages from Douglass’s "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"

• Contradictions and Appropriation:

  • Kelley: The declaration's universal language contrasted with the exclusion of Black, Indigenous, and other marginalized groups from the nation's democracy.
  • Black radicals appropriated the Declaration’s language to challenge slavery and the limits of the revolution: “They saw [the Declaration] as a justification for rebellion...as a lever to argue against the conceits of liberty.” (53:20)

• Constitution vs. Declaration:

  • Douglass was “a staunch defender of the Constitution, calling it a 'glorious liberty document opposed to slavery,'” while others pointed out its pro-slavery compromises.

• Erasure, Monuments, and Memory:

  • Kelley highlights ongoing erasures of Black abolitionist history in public memorialization—the closing of museums, the removal of plaques/monuments about slavery and abolition.

Notable Quotes:

• “The Declaration’s language goes beyond its intentions...Black people used it as a weapon against slave owners and rulers of the new republic.” — Robin D.G. Kelley (53:13)
• “The American Revolution was hardly an anti-colonial struggle—it was about creating an empire controlled by settlers rather than the British crown.” — Robin D.G. Kelley (54:18)
• “If we don’t recover that history, we’re going to...not understand the way the 14th Amendment was a response to the denial of citizenship on the part of Black people.” — Robin D.G. Kelley (58:05)

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Additional Global Headlines (Summarized)

• Venezuela: Humanitarian crisis exacerbated by earthquakes; calls to lift U.S. sanctions as over 2,000 deaths reported.
• Sudan: Severe economic crisis and escalating violence, use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, currency collapse.
• Ukraine: Russian missile/drone attacks kill 18+ in Kyiv; CSIS report details staggering casualties since 2022 invasion.
• Gaza: 1,000 days of war, over 73,000 killed by Israeli attacks, new genocide designations by U.S. Presbyterian Church; divestment from companies tied to the Israeli military.
• Climate Crisis: Hottest June for global oceans on record; deadly heatwaves in Europe and U.S., hundreds to thousands of fatalities.
• U.S. Domestic: Surge in ICE arrests; controversial Fourth of July celebrations planned with possible record heat.
• Congress: Landmark bipartisan housing bill, debate over Trump's inaction and new voter ID demands; push for disclosure of sexual misconduct settlements by lawmakers.

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Important Timestamps

• [00:26] — Opening headline on Trump’s $2.2B profit, overview of episode guests
• [17:41–36:35] — In-depth segment with Tom Bergen: Trump finances, crypto schemes, family conflicts
• [38:15–47:03] — Alvaro Bedoya interview: Supreme Court ruling on independent agencies, class/justice implications
• [48:21–58:36] — Robin D.G. Kelley interview: Black radical readings of Declaration of Independence, anniversary reflections

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Memorable Quotes by Segment

Tom Bergen on Trump’s Business Model (23:14):

"This is a business that... sells tokens that have no cost to manufacture... the Trump family have the ability to get people’s attention in an unheard-of way... the presidency."

Alvaro Bedoya on Regulatory Capture (39:55):

"They're making clear that the Wall Street bankers, the central bankers, they deserve an independent, above the fray regulator. The rest of us schmucks get stuck with the loyalists."

Robin D.G. Kelley on Black Radical Traditions (53:13):

"The Declaration’s language goes beyond its intentions... Black people used it as a weapon against slave owners and rulers of the new republic."

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Episode Takeaways

• Unprecedented Presidential Profiteering: Trump’s combination of deregulation, brand leverage, and global influence led to unmatched personal profits and raised new ethical/legal issues.
• Eroded Regulatory Independence: The Supreme Court’s ruling could allow future presidents sweeping control over government oversight—potentially undermining protections for ordinary citizens.
• Fourth of July Reflections: Black radical thought reveals deep contradictions and contested meanings in America’s founding documents, urging continued struggle for true liberty and inclusion.

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For further detail or the full interviews, visit democracynow.org.

Transcript

[Amy Goodman]

From New York. This is Democracy Now.

[Tom Bergen]

You know why I'm profiting? Because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

Thank you, President Trump.

[Amy Goodman]

As President Trump denies profiting off the presidency, new disclosure documents reveal over $2.2 billion in profits since he returned to office, including 1.4 billion from crypto ventures last year alone. We'll speak to reporter Tom Bergen. He studied Trump's finances for decades. His recent report under the Trump crypto playbook, the family wins, investors don't. Then the Supreme Court grants President Trump the power to fire and replace independent regulators. The case focused on the Federal Trade Commission, but could impact dozens of agencies. The Federal Reserve is the exception. We'll talk to former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

The Supreme Court is administering a two sided system of justice. If you're a Wall street banker, you an independent, above the fray regulator. If you are a regular human being, you can get stuck with the loyalists.

[Amy Goodman]

And finally, as we head into the July 4th weekend marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, we'll speak to UCLA historian Robin D.G. kelly. His latest essay, do you understand your own language? Black radicals read the Declaration of Independence. All that and more coming up. Welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. President Trump faces a growing backlash after financial disclosure forms revealed his personal income soared to $2.2 billion in the first year of his second term. That includes $635 million from a licensing agreement for Trump cryptocurrency meme coins and $590 million from the Trump family's World Liberty Financial crypto project. Trump earned another $575 million from his real estate holdings. Trump's financial disclosure report sprawled over 900 pages. By comparison, President Obama's last such disclosure was just eight pages. Editorial boards including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and Fox News have criticized Trump's latest business ventures. On Wednesday, Trump defended his windfall profits.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

Well, you know why I'm profiting? Because the stock market's going up.

[Tom Bergen]

Everybody's profiting.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

If you have a 401, how's your 401 done? It's about up 85%. Thank you, President Trump.

[Amy Goodman]

President Trump was speaking to reporters before boarding the new Air Force one, a Boeing 747 jet donated to the US by the Royal family of Qatar. The Air Force expedited a retrofit of the luxury plane, reportedly at a cost of well over $400 million. Trump plans to keep the jet after leaving office, saying he'll donate it to his presidential library. Democrats have accused him of receiving a foreign emolument or bribe, which is prohibited under the US Constitution. This comes after the New York Times reported Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with Kazakhstan's president last September in New York, where the pair negotiated a deal giving a US company called Kaz Resources access to one of the world's largest untapped reserves of tungsten. Ahead of the deal, the Trump administration greenlighted as much as $1.6 billion in federal financing for the project. Howard Lutnick's sons, Kyle and Brandon Lutnick, as well as Eric and Donald Trump Jr are all tied directly or indirectly to the company. A coalition of human rights and anti war groups are calling on President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to l all US Sanctions on Venezuela as the death toll from last week's devastating twin earthquakes continue to rise and humanitarian aid advocates warn of a widening health and hunger crisis. In a letter obtained by Common Dreams, the groups write, quote, as long as sweeping economic sanctions remain in place and Venezuelan assets remain frozen abroad, reconstruction will be unnecessarily delayed and millions of people will continue to suffer. The letter has been signed by dozens of organizations, including the center for Economic and Policy Research and the Quincy Institute for responsible statecraft. The UN Development Program has estimated the earthquakes have caused $6.7 billion in damage. On Wednesday, the death toll surpassed 2,000, which is believed to be a vast undercount, tens of thousands of people still unaccounted for. In related news, Congressmember Joaquin Castro is condemning ICE officials for attempting to deport more people to Venezuela in the aftermath of back to back earthquakes. In a social media post, Castro said ICE had tried to deport Venezuelan children and families currently detained in Texas Dilly ICE jail. The families were ultimately returned to Dilley after being flown to Arizona. Castro said, quote, it is unthinkable to send children and families who've committed no crimes into a country plunged into chaos by natural disaster, unquote. Last week, hours before the earthquakes, over a hundred Venezuelan immigrants to the United States were deported to Venezuela. It's believed over 100 of them died in the earthquakes. The United nations is once again sounding the alarm over escalating violence and a deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Sudan's North Kordofan region. In a statement, the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, said intensifying drone attacks are disrupting access to life, saving drinking water and electricity. With hundreds of thousands of civilians in El Obeid at risk of paramilitaries with the RAP support forces who've surrounded the city. This comes as a new UN Human rights report documents how widespread sexual violence in Sudan is being used as a weapon of war. Meanwhile, Sudan's rapid support forces have begun circulating new banknotes in territories it controls. As the value of the Sudanese pound continues to plummet, the currency crisis has exacerbated Sudan's economic woes. This is an economist in Port Sudan.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

The war has pushed Sudan into a severe economic crisis.

[Amy Goodman]

Factories are closed in large numbers, farms

[Nermeen Shaikh]

abandoned and production continues to contract with shrinking revenues.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

The government has little choice but to

[Tom Bergen]

hike taxes, which only compounds the burden

[Amy Goodman]

on businesses and households.

[Tom Bergen]

It's a vicious cycle that feeds on itself.

[Amy Goodman]

In Ukraine, at least 18 people were killed and dozens of others injured overnight as Russia launch launched a massive drone and missile attack on Kyiv. The attack set buildings across Ukraine's capital on fire, including six floors of an apartment high rise that partially collapsed after taking a direct hit. The attacks came as a new report by the center for Strategic and International Studies found more than 2 million people have been killed or injured since Russia's full scale invasion in early 2022. Russia's taken the larger share with 1.4 million battlefield casualties and as many as 450,000 deaths. Palestinians are marking the 1,000 days since Israel began its full scale war on the Gaza Strip. According to Gaza's government media office. Israel's scorched earth campaign has killed over 73,000 Palestinians with nearly 10,000 missing, most believed to be buried under the rubble. Israel has dropped nearly a quarter million metric tons of explosives across Gaza, equivalent to 16 atomic bombs like the ones the US dropped on Hiroshima. Meanwhile, the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States has voted overwhelmingly to recognize Israel's war on Gaza as a genocide and to divest from Palantir Technologies and General Electric Aerospace over their ties to Israel's military and intelligence services. A measure approved Tuesday by the General assembly of the Presbyterian Church usa also calls on church members to boycott Israeli products and to lobby Congress for an arms embargo against Israel. This is Reverend Dr. Fahed Abu Akhel, a Palestinian American and former moderator of the Presbyterian Church who survived the 1948 Nakba or mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel's founding. We have been silent on the destruction of most of the schools, universities, hospital, mosques and churches. You know one church was Orthodox, Catholic and also Baptist, all of which were done with our American made weapons on dollars sibling in Christ in the name of the living Christ. We cannot be silent on this matter any longer. The world's oceans experienced their hottest month of June ever. That's according to the European Union's Marine Environment Monitor, which reports the first six months of this year saw marine heat waves affect more than 80% of the global ocean, with hotspots in the Mediterranean, North Atlantic and Equatorial Pacific. Forecasters warn a powerful El Nino paired with record levels of greenhouse gas pollution could see even more temperature records fall in the coming months. Spain's government reports more than 1,000 people died of heat related causes during last month's historic heat wave. Previously, officials in France said heat related Fatalities also topped 1,000 in June, while Germany has so far reported over 800 deaths. Here in the United States, the National Weather Service warns more than 165 million people across Midwestern and eastern states are at risk of either major or extreme heat related health issues over the Fourth of July holiday weekend with triple digit temperatures in many cities. Forecasters warn New York, Philadelphia and other cities could see record highs and their warmest ever overnight low temperatures. Meanwhile, the forecast for Washington, D.C. calls for triple digit heat on the national mall for Saturday's Fourth of July celebrations, marking the 250th signing of the Declaration of Independence. President Trump is planning to speak at 9:45 Eastern Time, delaying fireworks celebrations. Trump has advertised the event as, quote, the most spectacular Trump rally of them all, unquote. ICE arrests have surged nationwide with more than 10,000 immigrants detained in the last five days alone. That's according to the New York Times, which reports the White House has demanded an increase in detentions, ordering ICE officials to make at least 2,000 arrests a day. In related news, a Roman Catholic nun arrested by ICE in Texas has been released from custody. Sister Leticia Uboja, who is originally from Nigeria, was walking to Mass at Our lady of Sorrows Church in McAllen Sunday when she was detained by ICE. She her arrest drew bipartisan anger in Texas, leading to her release. In Texas, seven more people were sentenced to prison on terrorism charges for attending a protest outside the Prairieland Ice Jail last July 4, during which fireworks were set off and a police officer was shot and wounded. All but one of the defendants sentenced Wednesday had pleaded guilty. They were handed down between two and 15 years in prison. The final defendant, Inez Soto, was convicted of providing material support to terrorists and other charges and sentenced to 50 years in prison. This comes just weeks after eight other defendants who were convicted at trial were given unusually harsh decades long prison terms, including former Marine Reservist Benjamin Song, who was sentenced to 100 years behind bars. To see our coverage of this case and others, go to democracynow.org Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson says a bipartisan housing bill approved by the Senate last week will become law with or without President Trump's signature. Johnson told USA TODAY Trump has no plans to veto the bill, which he's refused to sign unless lawmakers first passed the Save America act to rewrite US Election laws while imposing new voter ID requirements. On Monday, Trump called the housing bill a yawn.

[Tom Bergen]

Some people say it's wonderful.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

To me, compared to the Save America

[Amy Goodman]

act, just about everything is a big yawn. Trump takes no action. The housing bill could become law automatically on July 10. On Wednesday, the bill's co sponsor, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, said she still doesn't know Trump's plans one week later.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

We don't know if the president is going to sign into law the biggest

[Amy Goodman]

housing bill in 30 years, a bill that would build more housing, lower costs and for the first time ever, stop private equity from buying up homes. If that sounds ridiculous, it's because it is. The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a resolution that would force the public disclosure of records from Congress members who've used taxpayer money to settle sexual misconduct accusations. The resolution was sponsored by Republican Congressmember Thomas Massie of Kentucky, with 420 lawmakers voting in favor of Massie's effort comes after former Congressmembers Tony Gonzalez and Eric Swolwa were forced to resign earlier this year over serious sexual misconduct allegations. Meanwhile, writer E. Jean Carroll is calling on President Trump to pay her $5.8 million from a jury verdict finding Trump sexually abused her in 1996 and then defamed her after the US Supreme Court this week refused to take up Trump's appeal of the verdict. And the actor, director and activist Danny Glover has revealed he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2023, saying it slowed his speech, movement and memories. In 1968, Danny Glover took part in the longest campus strike in the nation's history, when the Black Students Union and the Third World Liberation Front organized to create the first school of ethnic studies in the country. At his university, San Francis State. He went on to perform in over 250 films while remaining active in movements to end war, end apartheid and in support of working people. To see our many interviews with Danny Glover over the years, including our visit to South Africa, where Danny Glover retrieved President Aristide and Mildred Aristide, the former president of Haiti, and brought them back on a plane to Haiti. I was on that flight. We documented the entire trip. You can see the [e-mail] and those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and Peace Report. I am Amy Goodman.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

And I'm Nermeen Shaikh. Welcome to our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. We begin today's show with the stunning windfall President Trump has made during his first year back in the White House. New filings show that Trump made more than $2.2 billion last year, most of it fueled by cryptocurrency profits, but with a significant rise in profits across his real estate business and other family investments and his legal settlements with media giants like ABC News, Paramount and Metta. The mandatory financial disclosure report released Tuesday shows Trump made at least $1.4 billion from his family's cryptocurrency ventures. That includes $635 million for Trump branded cryptocurrency meme coins and $590 million from the Trump family's World Liberty Financial crypto business.

[Amy Goodman]

Meanwhile, roughly two thirds of investors in the president's meme coin have reportedly lost money as he made a fortune as the backlash grows over Trump's windfall profit, including criticism from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and Fox News. Specifically, Trump's defenders, usually Trump defended how he's profited from the presidency while speaking to reporters Wednesday.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

Well, you know why I'm profiting? Because the stock market's going up.

[Tom Bergen]

Everybody's profiting. If you have, you have a 401,

[Alvaro Bedoya]

how's your 401 done? It's about up 85. Thank you, President Trump.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

President Trump was speaking to reporters before boarding the new Air Force one, a Boeing 747 jet donated to him by the Qatari royal family, reportedly at a cost of $400 million. Trump plans to keep the jet after leaving office, saying he'll donate it to his presidential library. Democrats have accused him of receiving a foreign emolument or bribe, which is prohibited under the Constitution. While the bulk of President Trump's profits in 2020 driven by cryptocurrency, he also earned another $575 million from his real estate holdings. That includes over $200 million from Trump National, Doro and Mar A Lago, as well as earnings from licensing deals overseas, including in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, countries vital to US Foreign policy interests.

[Amy Goodman]

Growing concerns over the president's conflicts of interest come as a new report from msnow finds the president's Two eldest sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr are linked to investments in at least 10 military companies that have drawn about $3.7 billion in federal funds since the start of the second Trump administration. Meanwhile, Presidents Trump's son and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stand to see a big windfall after businesses tied to the families helped secure a 1 $2.6 billion mining deal in Kazakhstan, according to a report in the New York Times. For more on all of this, we're joined in London by Reuters investigative journalist Tom Bergen. He's the author of the book Free Lunch How Economics Ruins the Economy. His most recent investigative piece is headlined Parsing the Trump's Crypto Profits, Investors Losses. Welcome to democracy Now, Tom, why don't parse it out for us and especially for people who don't understand the whole crypto issue, explain what it is and how this family, the Trump family and his allies, has profited so much.

[Tom Bergen]

Thank you, Amy. It's good to be on the show. The first thing I'd say is that the comments from the president aren't really accurate insofar as that he says that he has made money because the stock market has gone up. None of the gains which we reported upon, as others have that are contained in these, in these documents refer to gains from selling stocks or bonds. This is all entirely money, that is cash that has come into the accounts of his businesses from the operating businesses. And as you mentioned, what has become the most strongly performing new business is the cryptocurrency area. And of course, this is an entirely new business. And so what we've seen is that the areas in which Donald Trump has seen an enormous increase in his income, and this is not an increase in his wealth, it's an increase in cash coming in. We looked at this last year, we analyzed how it had gone up, and it was, you know, even before we saw this huge surge of income, it had gone up dramatically. So it's new businesses or businesses that are connected in some way to the presidency, which is to say when we look at the golf clubs that have performed very well, it seems to be ones like Mar a Lago has gone up 50% increase in revenue, West Palm beach up 27%. Places where he spends a lot of time as president have done especially well. But the crypto is really just the blowout one altogether. And in in particular, this business world, Liberty Financial, the business sells digital tokens that have no intrinsic value. They have no real function beyond as a method for speculation. You can buy one in the hope that you can sell it to someone else at a higher price. As such, it's a zero sum game. President Trump's gains from selling these tokens have been mirrored almost identically by the losses on the part of the people who have purchased these, these coins. So it's either if it's the World Liberty Financial token or the Meme Coin people who have bought these, we've seen over 90% drop in the price or 97% drop in the price from the peak there. So this is a business that basically you sell tokens that have no cost to manufacture. In the crypto business, when you want to sell tokens, the high cost tends to be in getting people's attention. That's why in the past, when people have launched cryptocurrencies, they've hired movie stars and sports stars to get people's attention. Of course, the Trump family have the ability to get people's attention in an unheard of way. They've got the best possible marketing tool, namely the presidency. So it's been an incredibly successful period for the Trump family in this new business. This is important to say it's a business that was registered weeks before the 2024 election and which really didn't start to take much revenue in until the election happened. So this is something that has really been a 2025 blowout year for the Trump Organization on the back of businesses that have benefited very much from his links, his position as president.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

And also, Tom, just to put it in the context in relative terms, I mean, in orders of magnitude, he. I mean, these disclosures show that his income more than tripled what it was in the previous year. So if we could talk a little bit more about the conflicts of interest this raises, as the New York Times pointed out, Trump is a major crypto industry operator and also its top policymaker. And also, Trump earlier said that he himself condemned crypto, saying that bitcoin was a scam and saying cryptocurrency was potentially a disaster waiting to happen.

[Tom Bergen]

Yes, I mean, the first thing I just say just is slightly correct, that it's far more than a three times increase in his income. Some of the revenues have gone up in some of the businesses maybe three times. But, but across the piece, it's far more than a 10 times increase in income for the Trump Organization. In terms of, of the regulatory side of things. The White House is very clear. There are no conflicts of interest. President Trump is only concerned about the American public and acts in their interest. Nonetheless, these are businesses that really, well, they didn't exist before this. And it's quite difficult to see how they would have existed in their current form in a different situation under a different president. So, for example, the sale of crypto tokens like the World Liberty Financial token or indeed the Meme coin, this was treated from a regulatory perspective under the Biden regime as being the sale of securities. Consequently, it was quite difficult to engage in that activity, certainly in the United States. And that's why we saw really the end of the coin offering boom in the late 20 teens. So around by 2019, actually under the first Trump administration. It was the first Trump administration that clamped down on the sale of digital tokens for vast sums of money.

[Robin D.G. Kelly]

So we've.

[Tom Bergen]

So yes, so it's definitely the change in regulatory situation has definitely benefited.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

And if we could speak about one of the deals in particular, the deal signed between Eric Trump and the Emirati Tahnun Bin Zayed, soon after this deal was signed, the UAE was granted access to US Artificial intelligence chips. What is the significance of this particular agreement?

[Tom Bergen]

Well, according to World Liberty Financial, there is no significance. This is an entirely commercial transaction unrelated to anything else. I think what we do see is when Eric Trump or his brother travel around the world, or indeed actually just some of the officials of World Liberty Financial travel around the world to places in the Middle East, Pakistan, wherever they do get treated incredibly well by the authorities there, they get meetings with senior people. So as I say, the company said there's no connection. But it is also interesting when we look at that particular deal and you have to look at what was being bought, $500 million being given for a company that really didn't have much by way of an income flow. So it was quite difficult. And that's because what was sold there was not the right to the revenue from selling tokens. It was to a separate business. So it wasn't a business that had a lot of intrinsic value. So it was quite surprising, just for me, as somebody who studied the business model of that business in quite a forensic way, to understand why someone would spend $500 million for that stake. But as I said, there is a denial on the part of the White House and World Liberty Financial that's in any way linked to the decisions with respect to the uae.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

And what about the fact some have said that this disclosure doesn't in fact reveal other sources? In other words, there are some sour of income that Trump has had that are not included in this document, Is that right?

[Tom Bergen]

Well, to be clear, what we're looking at here is, with respect to the cryptocurrency income. Donald Trump has reported cryptocurrency income which he has received into his company's bank accounts. So this is not to say this is not an accrual type accounting mechanism which is recording everything that he is entitled to under the documents governing World Liberty Financial. There are descriptions there of the entitlement that the Trump family have with respect to token sales and they get a significant share of those. So we, and we know that that business continues to hold within its large amounts of funds. So we had estimated that Donald Trump, Trump and his family had made considerably more from World Liberty Financial than has been reported in this. Just over 500 million in proceeds from token sales by World Liberty Financial is disclosed in this document. We estimated that it was considerably more than twice that number. And the truth is, you know, standing here today or sitting here today looking at those documents, I'm not sure that we were wrong. But because we don't know how much else accrued to Donald Trump in 2025 and 2024 from the operations of World Liberty Financial because we've received no accounting for that. So like most things in crypto, we don't really see a lot of what's going on here. We don't have transparency as to who's buying these crypto tokens and we don't really see where the money's flowing or how much is being paid.

[Amy Goodman]

And Tom, go beyond crypto and overall put this in a global context. The idea of an elected leader of a country making billions of dollars along with his family and his close allies and their families like Wyckoff and his sons, Lutnick and his sons. I mean everything from you have msnow report that just came out. Just over a week after US and Israel forces struck Iraq, Iran in February, a publicly traded Florida golf course company announced an unusual plan, a reverse merger to take a barely one year old drone startup public. Donald Trump and Eric Trump, the two sons were part owners of the golf course company. Now they're backers of the drone startup. And then you have, you know, Trump's legal settlements with companies like ABC, CBS, Meta, YouTubemaking $80 million as he sues the media. His Trump National Doral $121 million. Trump Tower Chicago $39 million. And the foreign real estate investments and his sons following in the wake of where the so called peace envoys go and people seeing it from the outside. I mean even you have the conservative Wall Street Journal Journal editorial board, the New York Post editorial board, even Fox raising these issues of the family just raking in a level we have not seen before. Compare it to other countries in history.

[Tom Bergen]

Yeah, I mean, it's difficult to find comparators for anything. I mean, just within the Trump family, it's difficult to find comparators. What I mean by that is the Trump sons did not face constant. They were not being appointed on a repeated basis to the boards of outside companies in the years before the second Trump presidency or indeed the first Trump presidency. So they were not, so far as we could see, they're not, you know, sought out partners. They don't have experience in any of these businesses. It's not entirely clear what they're bringing to this, apart from their brand. You mentioned there. In terms of precedence, obviously in the US there's no precedent of this, but I think that if, you know, you're looking more broadly, there's not a precedent either. So we've seen billionaires before in politics. This has happened in the Czech Republic, it's happened in Ukraine, it's happened in Italy with Silvio Berlusconi. But what we haven't seen before is someone coming in and they're into a leadership position and their family starting a new business, which is intimately impacted by the position of the presidency for regulatory and other reasons, and then making over a billion dollars. That's not something that we've seen in the Western world. I've looked around, I couldn't find any example of that. So whatever way you look at this, it's quite unusual precedent geographically or over time. It's truly quite unusual. And it does obviously, as I said, the Trump Organization say there are no conflicts of interest, that the company has always done deals overseas. Well, you know, the truth is it did do deals overseas, but they'd rather fizzled out. Come about 2016. And after the second presidency, even after they lifted a self imposed moratorium and foreign deals, there wasn't a rush of people to come and do deals in 2021. What we saw was that in 2024, a significant pickup in these deals in the second half of the year as President Trump was nearing the 2024 election. And then we saw a huge explosion in those deals thereafter. So we're seeing a significant increase in income in areas that have some linkage to the presidency if it just be about his brand being lifted. But also we are seeing quite interestingly, the places where his brand attracts the most developer interest seems to be in the Middle East. So we see new deals in Qatar and Dubai yielding tens of millions of dollars in the Middle east that have benefited the president.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

And Tom, very quickly, before we conclude what is unquestionably illegal here and what can Congress do?

[Tom Bergen]

Well, you know, nothing's in question to be illegal until a judge rules in it, I think. You know, I've reported enough complex regulatory laws in the past, but what's interesting is there are so few guardrails here with respect to a president. So you mentioned the foreign emoluments clause. That's not something that's been widely tested, so we don't know about its limits or otherwise. Otherwise. But so many of the rules that would exist with respect to appointed officials or other elected officials do not apply to the president. So it's quite difficult toif there was any desire for anyone to hold him to legal account. There isn't really a legal account. And indeed, that's something that Elizabeth Warren has drawn some attention to, that maybe there should be some revision of the rules there with respect to the guardrails on a president.

[Amy Goodman]

Tom Bergen, want to thank you for being with us. Investigative journalist with Reuters, author of the book Free Lunch How Economics Ruins the Economy. We'll link to your latest piece and your other investigations Parsing the Trump's crypto profits, investors losses. Coming up, the Supreme Court grants President Trump the power to fire and replace independent regulators in a case focused on the Federal Trade Commission. It could impact dozens of what were believed to be independent agencies. We'll talk to former FTC Commissioner Alvar Obedoya. Stay with us.

[Tom Bergen]

I'm just an American boy

[Amy Goodman]

raised on

[Tom Bergen]

MTV I seen all them kids and soda pop ads Nah, none of them look like me

[Amy Goodman]

so I started looking

[Nermeen Shaikh]

around

[Tom Bergen]

for light out of the dim.

[Amy Goodman]

First thing I heard that made sense was the word of Muhammad, Peace be upon him.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

How shall do

[Tom Bergen]

lie?

[Amy Goodman]

John Walker's Blues, performed by Steve Earle in our Democracy now studio. This is Democracy now, democracynow.org, i'm Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

The Supreme Court has granted President Trump the power to fire and replace commissioners at independent government agencies. Monday's 63 ruling overturns more than 90 years of precedent that insulated military agencies set up by Congress from presidential control. The case focused on the Federal Trade Commission, where two commissioners were fired by President Trump in March of 2025. Alvaro Bodoya and Rebecca Slaughter, who was the lead plaintiff in the case. In a separate ruling announced Monday, justices ruled 5 to 4 that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook could remain in her job as she challenges Trump's efforts to fire her as well.

[Amy Goodman]

Writing for the Majority challenging Chief Justice John Roberts argued the Trump administration's efforts to end the Federal Reserve's independence is, quote, an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our nation's tradition of central banking protected from political interference, unquote. Alvaro Bedoya, former FTC commissioner who was fired by Trump, responded to the ruling. Quote, they're making clear that the Wall street bankers, the central bankers, they deserve an independent, above the fray regulator. The rest of us schmucks get stuck with the loyalists. Bedoya said he's now a senior advisor at the American Economic Liberties Project, co host of weekly podcast the Fair Fight with Alvaro and Max. He's joining us now from Maryland. Alvaro Bedoya, welcome to Democracy Now. Your former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, fired by Trump last year, talk about these two Supreme Court rulings.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

I think the key thing here, Amy, is to follow the money. Because on the one hand, on Monday, you had the regulator that's most important to those central bankers, most important to those billionaire Wall street bankers. Why? Because they want a nice, steady ship with interest rates with other interventions in the market. The Supreme Court reaffirmed, surprise, surprise, that those regulators should, at least for now, remain above the fray and independent. But then you have this whole series of other agencies that keep your toys safe, that keep health insurers from robbing people blind, that keep supermarkets from merging to make milk, eggs and beef, even to keep it from being even more expensive. The court said that all those regulators can report directly to the President and be entirely beholden to his whims. And at the end of the day, his donors, his billionaire donors, over his shoulder at the inauguration. That's what this is about.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

And Alvaro, if you could explain what the implications of this might be, well beyond Trump, is it the case now that the President will always have this power?

[Alvaro Bedoya]

Well, this is a really important point because I've started to get questions already. Oh, you know, Alvaro, how do we restore independent agencies? This is a Supreme Court ruling. The only way to change this ruling would be either to change the court or to pass an amendment. And honestly, I think we should consider, consider both of those things. Changing the court and passing an amendment to the Bill of Rights. Let me tell you quickly what I mean here. So this pair of rulings isn't some kind of accident. You need to stack it up on top of Citizens United. The court saying that corporations are people and then they can spend as much as they want to buy our elections. A ruling called Concepcion, which said that corporations can keep actual humans out of court by making them sign fine print arbitration contracts. And then, of course, Trump versus US, where the court said that the CEOs of these corporations can effectively bribe the President by buying his weird crypto coin or, you know, donating to his weird golden ballroom, letting him make billions of dollars, and the president would be immune from bribery charges. We need a Supreme Court that looks like the American people. And I actually mean this less in terms of race or gender and more in terms of, of not being over the age of 70, not having lifetime jobs. No American has, you know, a lifetime job outside of a very few. And lastly, not being in this intractable love affair with billionaires. And so all it takes is an act of Congress to change this court. And I think we need to do that. Otherwise any future Congress, any future administration is going to see their efforts to check corporate power stymied.

[Amy Goodman]

I want to go.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

We're about to celebrate America's. Oh, please, no, go ahead. You know, we're about to celebrate America's, you know, 250th birthday. We made a mistake at our founding. So our founders hated monopolies. That's what the Boston Tea Party was about. It was a protest against a monopoly on the East India Company, on tea, importing tea into the colonies. Thomas Jefferson, for all his faults, actually repeatedly told Madison, we need an amendment against monopolies in the Bill of Rights over and over. 1788, 1789. Madison didn't listen. New York ratified an amendment to do that. Congress blocked it. I think it's time to reconsider adding an amendment to the Bill of Rights banning monopolies and protecting the American people from concentrated corporate power.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

Well, Alvaro, last year you wrote a piece for the New Republic titled How I Became a Populist. The piece is subtitled My Time at the Federal Trade Commission before Donald Trump fired me, totally changed the way I see our political divide. In it, you wrote, quote, I used to think that the defining fight for our country was between the left and the right. Now I'm much more worried about the money at the top crushing everyone underneath.

[Amy Goodman]

And I want to go to following up on Nermeen's point, the speech that you gave, just an excerpt of it. As you join with Senator Sanders, as you join with aoc. This is right after you were fired, this massive rally of tens of thousands of people. Part of the Fighting Oligarchy tour. This is what you said.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

So what is the ftc? We are the independent federal agency that fights fraudster. We take. We take the Martin Shkrelis and Jeff Bezos of the world to court.

[Tom Bergen]

And we win.

[Amy Goodman]

So, Alvaro Bedoya, that was you in Denver. Where are you headed from here? Talk about this movement that is building and even how, how it fits into this latest explosive news of the more than $2 billion President Trump and his family have made in the last year since he came back into office.

[Alvaro Bedoya]

Amy, I think this country is hungry for hope. And when you look at the world less in terms of Democrat versus Republican and more in terms of people's struggles every single day against the money at the top, people look a lot more similar than they do different. I'll give you one quick example. You know, I spend a lot of time talking to farmers in Iowa. You know what's happening to them. They're having to pay $25,000, $50,000 extra booking fertilizer for the next harvest. Meanwhile, you have rideshare drivers in New York City who are paying an extra $10,000 a year for the extra cost of gasoline because of the Iran war. Those drivers wake up in the morning to try to drive the morning commute there in New York City city, and they find they're locked out, out of Uber and Lyft because of these software duopolies. I got farmers in Iowa who are waking up in the morning cannot start their John Deere combine because John Deere has locked that combine, that monopoly has locked the software on that combine so only that billionaire multinational could fix it and therefore make the money off of it. And what I see happening across the country is whether it's rideshare drivers in Iowa, you know, in New York, farmers in Iowa, you know, documentary filmmakers in California, shrimpers in Louisiana, people are starting to recognize that they do have one very powerful thing in common, which is a revulsion at oligarchy and billionaires. And the more we can weave this class based movement together to fight that concentrated corporate power, I think that opens the door for a hopeful future in this country.

[Amy Goodman]

Avera Bedoya, we thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. Former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, fired by President Trump last year. Now a senior adviser at the American Economic Liberties Project, he is co host of the Fair Fight with Alvarone Max, a weekly podcast. Coming up as we head into the July 4th weekend, we speak to UCLA historian Robin D.G. kelly. His latest piece, do you understand your own language? Black radicals. Read the Declaration of independence. Back in 20 seconds.

[Tom Bergen]

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.

[Amy Goodman]

We who believe in freedom. We who believe in freedom. We who believe cannot be Rest until it comes.

[Tom Bergen]

Will you believe?

[Alvaro Bedoya]

We believe.

[Amy Goodman]

Ella's song we who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest Until It Comes by Sweet Honey and the Rock performing at the 2025 Peace Bowl. This is Democracy Now. Democracynow.org I'm Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

As we head into the July 4th weekend marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. United States, we turn now to the relationship between black radicals and one of the nation's most important founding documents, the declaration of independence. UCLA historian Robin D.G. kelly's new essay in Hammer and Hope is titled do youo Understand you'd Own Language Black Radicals read the Declaration of Independence. It begins with Kelly writing that every so called Independence Day, he makes his kids listen to passages from from Frederick Douglass famous speech what to the Slave is the Fourth of July.

[Amy Goodman]

And you can hear that speech tomorrow on Democracy now, read by the late great James Earl Jones. But born into slavery around 1818, Frederick Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, he gave one of his most famous speeches addressing the RA Rochester Ladies Anti Slavery Sewing Society. I want to play a brief excerpt of that reading read by James Earl Jones at a performance of Voices of the People's History of the United States based on the late Howard Zinn's iconic

[Tom Bergen]

book what to the American Slave is

[Alvaro Bedoya]

your Fourth of July? I answer a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty

[Tom Bergen]

to which he is a constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham.

[Amy Goodman]

And you can hear that full speech tomorrow read by James Earl Jones here on Democracy Now. For more on the significance of the this speech, we're joined in Los angeles by Robin D.G. kelly, professor of U.S. history at UCLA, author of many books including Freedom Dreams, the Black Radical Imagination. Professor Kelly, welcome back to Democracy now. Why you had your children read this speech every year and what does it mean to talk about why you say black radicals read the Declaration of Independence?

[Robin D.G. Kelly]

Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Sometimes I make them listen to James Earl Jones version. When I listen to Democracy Now, I never miss it. Yeah, it's interesting because on one hand that speech is very important as a critique of the contradictions between a declaration that's claiming that all men are created equal, that's built on this enlightenment ideology of kind of mass equality on the one hand. But on the other hand, that's not the history of the United States. And so and I don't make them listen to all of it. But I think the part where Douglass goes on to talk about this being a sham, you know, mere bombast, is significant. I also have them or I read to them, David Walker's Appeal, where, you know, the title of my piece comes from David Walker's Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the world, published in 1829, where he basically says, look, your Declaration is a, is hypocrisy, essentially. But then he also warns white readers. He says, look, the part of the Declaration you need to be careful about is the right of people to basically overthrow their government. And, and what we're seeing in the United States is a corrupt government built on slavery. And I guarantee you that these, you know, enslaved people and others who support them will overthrow this government. And of course, it kind of came to pass in the form of the Civil War, the kind of insurrection that he imagined. Right.

[Nermeen Shaikh]

And Professor Robin Kelly, if you could also talk about the fact that Douglass Douglas, despite his criticism of the Declaration, as you point out in your piece, remained a staunch defender of the US Constitution, calling it, quote, a glorious liberty document opposed to slavery. If you can explain why that's the case and your sense of the differences, if any, between the Declaration and the Constitution of. On the question of slavery.

[Robin D.G. Kelly]

Right. Well, abolitionists were divided over the Constitution. People like William Lloyd Garrison took a position that the Constitution was inherently anti slavery. And a case can be made. I think a strong case could be made that, well, I'm sorry that Garrison was saying the Constitution was pro slavery, but a case can be made that is pro slavery. When you look at, at the use of the assumption that there are some people who are held in service, held in bondage. Right. And that so much of even the Organization of Congress was based on this idea of counting three out of five enslaved people, though they don't have any rights. Right. For the purposes of representation. The Declaration of Independence is a little bit different in that it is not a Constitution, it's not law per se, but it does make these claims that go beyond the drafters. When the drafters develop this Declaration and they assumed that human beings were basically white men, they imagined an independent nation that's based on kind of heron vogue republic, that is a white republic. There was no assumption that other people, either native people, black people, would participate in that republic. There might be some exceptions, of course. And so the Declaration, the language goes beyond its intention. And for a lot of black people, both enslaved and free black people during the American Revolution, they saw the Declaration as doing multiple things. It wasn't about American nationalism. It wasn't about American independence. What it was about was a referendum on the definition of the human. It was also justification for rebellion. Right. And then the third thing is that they saw it as a kind of lever to argue against the conceits of liberty. That is to say that the claims that, you know, all people have a right to liberty, no matter who it was intended for, they could use that language against, against their slave owners, against those who ruled the colonies, and against those who ruled the new republic. And so in some ways, they were making a case that their claims of freedom were far more universal than the provincial claims of the colonists fighting for freedom against British colonial rule. You know, and ultimately, the American Revolution was hardly an anti colonial movement because in many ways it was a struggle to take control of this empire, this expanding West. I think one of the most important parts of the argument for independence was a resistance to the British proclamation of 1763 that said that colonists cannot move beyond the Appalachian Mountains. And in the end, they were pushing against British limitations on expansion. In other words, they wanted more empire for themselves. And in the end, what we get is, is a nation that is pro slavery ultimately, or divided on the question of slavery, in which the proceeds and benefits of American capitalism would generate or go flow to those who are settler colonists as opposed to Britain or the Crown.

[Amy Goodman]

Robyn Kelly, I'm wondering if you could finally comment on. On the closure of the ripping down of documents that talk about slavery. More than 80 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the abolitionist John Brown rewrote the Declaration as an abolitionist document. Looking now at the Harpers Ferry Museum that would honor him, that has a wall of remembrance to highlight hundreds of enslaved people. Best known as the place where the raid on the town's armory led to an uprising. That museum has not been opened. The monument that talks about George Washington having slaves on the mall in Philadelphia was ripped down by the Trump administration. We have 20 seconds.

[Robin D.G. Kelly]

Right. Well, in short, John Brown. Brown's Declaration of Liberty was a response to Roger Taney's, Chief Justice Taney's decision on Dred Scott. And so if we don't, you know, recover that history, we're going to basically not understand the way in which the 14th Amendment was a response to the denial of citizenship on the part of black people.

[Amy Goodman]

Robyn DG Kelly, we're going to have to leave it there, but it is a very profound point. Professor of U.S. history at UCLA. We're going to link to your piece and hammer and hope headline. Do you understand your own language? Black radicals read the Declaration of Independence. Professor Kelly is also author of Freedom the Black Radical Imagination. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh. Thanks so much for joining us.