Speaker 1: This is part two of a two part interview with
Speaker 1: tech and power reporter from The Guardian, Nick Robins. Early.
Speaker 1: If you haven't yet, go back and listen to how
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is reshaping the financial system in crypto's favor.
Speaker 1: It's in your feed now. The opening bell of Wall
Speaker 1: Street is about to ring. I'll ask you one last question.
Speaker 1: You don't like bitcoin, You wouldn't invest in bitcoin? Do
Speaker 1: you invest in the stock market at this moment? So?
Speaker 2: Not?
Speaker 1: At this moment, I think it's high. So I have
Speaker 1: not invested in the stock market at this moment. I
Speaker 1: have in the past, but I have not at this moment.
Speaker 3: I think it's high.
Speaker 1: A bitcoin it just seems like a scam. I was surprised, Nick,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has very much changed his tune on crypto.
Speaker 1: He once called these assets scams that were based on
Speaker 1: thin air. So why do you think his views have
Speaker 1: changed so drastically.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that there's a couple reasons. One is
Speaker 4: that he has started making an awful lot of money
Speaker 4: off of crip, which I think helps change somebody's tune,
Speaker 4: but I'll do it. The other is that he has
Speaker 4: really courted crypto investors and crypto lobbyists have been very
Speaker 4: instrumental in getting access to candidates with pro crypto views.
Speaker 4: I think a big part of this has started years ago.
Speaker 4: I think that you can see late twenty twenty three,
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four, as Trump is mounting this reelection campaign,
Speaker 4: that he begins to look at crypto and some of
Speaker 4: its wealthiest investors as assets that he can court, that
Speaker 4: he can become the crypto candidate, and that he can
Speaker 4: get their backing and endorsement and funds. And so you
Speaker 4: have events like him hosting bitcoin miners at mar A
Speaker 4: Lago and twenty twenty four, so the first.
Speaker 3: Time I ever bitcoin minor set I'm former President Donald
Speaker 3: Trump to try.
Speaker 2: To Orge pill him on the world's biggest cryptocurrency.
Speaker 4: Now, this was an intimate setting. He appeared at Bitcoin
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four on stage in Nashville.
Speaker 1: Hello bitcoiners, thank you very much. Hello, it's good to
Speaker 1: be with you.
Speaker 4: I think that there has been this sort of sea
Speaker 4: change for Trump and for the Republican Party overall, of
Speaker 4: really embracing crypto. It's in no small part because the
Speaker 4: Trump Empire is at this point heavily built on crypto.
Speaker 1: Never sell your bitcoin, well tell me about the Trump
Speaker 1: Crypti EMPOI what does he and He's family been doing
Speaker 1: in this space?
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean they've made a tremendous amount, and it
Speaker 4: is from a variety of different enterprises. They have essentially
Speaker 4: lowlaunched a number of different crypto firms. Some have focused
Speaker 4: on bitcoin mining, others have focused on essentially creating crypto
Speaker 4: tokens and other assets.
Speaker 2: Welcome back. World Liberty Financial, officially launching it's WFLI token
Speaker 2: on Monday. Trading is flourishing right out of the gate,
Speaker 2: with value nearly hitting one billion dollars within the first hour.
Speaker 4: The key one to know is World Liberty Financial, which
Speaker 4: in a disclosure recently valued itself at four point five
Speaker 4: billion dollars.
Speaker 2: Were congratulations, This sounds like an incredible moment in time
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it definitely is. We launched the WLFI token on Monday.
Speaker 1: It's trading at I believe twenty three billion dollar FDV
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 4: They are launching essentially a wide swath of enterprises that
Speaker 4: they can then turnaround and profit from. They have released,
Speaker 4: you know, Trump and Millennia meme coins.
Speaker 3: The value of Donald Trump's meme coin soared this week.
Speaker 3: More than sixty percent, after his team announced that some
Speaker 3: holders of the coin would receive an invitation to a
Speaker 3: private dinner with the president himself.
Speaker 4: They have bought into crypto assets through Truth Social and
Speaker 4: Trump's media company. It's a varied and diversified entrance into
Speaker 4: the crypto world, but it's been incredibly lucrative to them.
Speaker 1: Just how much money are we talking about here exactly?
Speaker 4: Well, the math behind crypto is always extremely complicated, So
Speaker 4: it's easiest to say he's made a whole lot of money,
Speaker 4: But if we wanted to break it down a little
Speaker 4: bit more, through crypto, he has made in the billions.
Speaker 4: You know, there are sales of stock which has then
Speaker 4: been turned around into two point three billion in bitcoin.
Speaker 4: When World Liberty Financial released some of its ability to
Speaker 4: sell stock and made money off of that, it then
Speaker 4: turned around and put that into crypto immediately. That's an
Speaker 4: asset which is verifiable and you know has a fluctuating
Speaker 4: but extravagant value. And so you know, how much has
Speaker 4: he made? Like with everything Trump, it's just buried behind
Speaker 4: a lot of smoke and mirrors and potentially false statements,
Speaker 4: I think we can safely say he's made more money
Speaker 4: off of crypto than any US president has made in
Speaker 4: history off of any other asset, off of any business enterprise.
Speaker 4: You know, they have in the past marketed stakes, they've
Speaker 4: marketed real estate, They've done really everything with the Trump
Speaker 4: name on it. But nothing out of the decades and
Speaker 4: decades of Trump's various business enterprises has been as profitable
Speaker 4: as this new crypto endeavor. You know, we are very,
Speaker 4: very far from Jimmy Carter selling his peanut farm.
Speaker 1: Coming up, conflicts of interest around the crypti president being
Speaker 1: a crypti billionaire.
Speaker 5: The top two hundred and twenty Trump meme coin investors
Speaker 5: were invited to a dinner with President Trump at Trump
Speaker 5: National Golf Club in Virginia, just outside Washington, DC tonight.
Speaker 5: NBC News reports that a seat at the dinner costs
Speaker 5: more than one million on average.
Speaker 1: Well, we're talking about he really rises questions about conflicts
Speaker 1: of interest. Trump is engaging with investors inventions that have
Speaker 1: reached him. He's also involved in the industry that his
Speaker 1: administration has been dericulating. So what are people saying about
Speaker 1: the ethics of oldies.
Speaker 4: Well, you have a lot of calls from Democrats, especially
Speaker 4: some soundate Democrats, saying that it needs to be investigated,
Speaker 4: that there needs to be more stringent regulation, that he
Speaker 4: can't do this, essentially, that this is such a clear,
Speaker 4: open and shutcase of conflict of interest that it's really
Speaker 4: beyond the pale. And so you have a lot of pushback,
Speaker 4: but you have pushed back from people who are just
Speaker 4: not in power right now and who don't have the
Speaker 4: ability to shut down his executive orders or shut down
Speaker 4: his companies. Certainly there are people who are calling for
Speaker 4: legal avenues to challenge what he can do, but there's
Speaker 4: so far been a lack of direct ability to stop
Speaker 4: what he has been building in terms of a crypto empire.
Speaker 1: And what has Trump and the Ward House said, if
Speaker 1: anything about these concerns are an ethics, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, they have brought out what is generally the usual
Speaker 4: White House line on conflets, which is that none exist.
Speaker 4: They have said that these are fabricated conflicts, that the
Speaker 4: media is ginning these up, and that the president and
Speaker 4: his family do not engage, will never engage, have never
Speaker 4: engaged in conflicts of interest.
Speaker 3: And I think everybody the American public believe it's absurd
Speaker 3: for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off
Speaker 3: of the presidency.
Speaker 4: This president. They also say that the structure of these
Speaker 4: Trump family crypto enterprises, which to be fair, are extremely convoluted,
Speaker 4: are set up in a way that they do not
Speaker 4: have the president's direct fingerprints on them. Essentially, they're saying
Speaker 4: that his assets are managed in a trust by his children,
Speaker 4: and that you know, for all these reasons that it
Speaker 4: is not actually violating any conflicts.
Speaker 1: So the what extend is Trump's and Trump's families interest
Speaker 1: advantages in this industry, impacting Congress's ability to pursue regulation
Speaker 1: because we're talking about separate branches of government.
Speaker 4: He yeah, you've got a situation where he has a
Speaker 4: sort of chilling effect over the party, which is that
Speaker 4: people don't want to go against Trump. So for the Republicans,
Speaker 4: they're not going to rock the boat. They're not going
Speaker 4: to say that, you know, we need more crypto regulation.
Speaker 4: They want to keep him happy, and whatever he's doing
Speaker 4: tends to be acceptable, legal, and defendable. You also have
Speaker 4: to come into contact with the crypto lobby if you're
Speaker 4: running for Congress these days. They have deep pockets and
Speaker 4: they are very willing to use influence to affect various
Speaker 4: congressional races and for Congress, if you're going to go
Speaker 4: against that, then you're setting yourself up with some pretty
Speaker 4: powerful enemies, and you're setting yourself up as midterms approach
Speaker 4: with a lobby that is very happy with the way
Speaker 4: that this administration is carrying things out and doesn't want
Speaker 4: significant change. It does have an effect on the way
Speaker 4: that Congress thinks about this industry.
Speaker 1: So, Nicky, if Trump is using his office for personal gain,
Speaker 1: is there any question here as to whether it's not
Speaker 1: just unethical but potentially illegal and is there any mechanism
Speaker 1: to investigate that at this point in time?
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, there are questions over whether the setup
Speaker 4: of some of his crypto companies, some of the dealings
Speaker 4: that they are doing, and the way that this whole
Speaker 4: empire has been built could violate any number of either
Speaker 4: government ethics rules or securities and exchange regulations. There are
Speaker 4: broader concerns that people have voiced over whether this is
Speaker 4: potentially violating laws. But you know, these are big questions
Speaker 4: that people should grapple with when the president is you know,
Speaker 4: related to and engaged with very very extensive and very
Speaker 4: very wealthy crypto funds. So that's in the background of
Speaker 4: all of this, and then is there a mechanism to
Speaker 4: investigate that at this point? Well, there are some ways
Speaker 4: that Senate committees and potentially, depending on the jurisdiction, states
Speaker 4: could look into these crypto enterprises. None have really been
Speaker 4: that active yet. That's not something that we have seen have.
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of force behind them so far.
Speaker 1: Fascinating stuff, Nick, Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Also in the news, after years of negotiations, the Victorian
Speaker 1: government has unveiled a new draft bill to implement a
Speaker 1: statewide treaty with First Nations peoples. It's the first treaty
Speaker 1: between First Nations people and any government in Australia. The
Speaker 1: bill proposes that the First People's Assembly be consulted by
Speaker 1: government departments on laws affecting Victoria's Indigenous population, and for
Speaker 1: it to make decisions and rules about specific matters affecting
Speaker 1: First Nations peoples. An Australia Post will resume postal send
Speaker 1: into the US by Thursday, the twenty fifth of September,
Speaker 1: after suspending some services last month amid President Donald Trump's tariff.
Speaker 1: Fragi parcels sent to the US a subject of duties
Speaker 1: equal to the tariffs, which in Australia is the ten
Speaker 1: percent baseline tariff. Australia post as it's working with a
Speaker 1: third party provided to allow business customers a solution. I'm
Speaker 1: Daniel James. Thanks for listening to seven AM. We'll be
Speaker 1: back tomorrow