Ben Shapiro won't say, well, this is wrong. He's saying, like, politically, it's a loser. Well, because that's because Ben Shapiro's a loser. If you wish for crypto to actually become a solid part of the financial framework, then what you can't have is the appearance of people selling snake oil out there [00:00:16] on the basis of fame and fortune. You can't do that, especially if those people are connected to the Trump administration who's drawing all the regulations. Well, that is what's happening. And Ben Shapiro, of all people, is calling it out. Yesterday, Shapiro hammered the Trump family [00:00:32] for their latest cryptocurrency venture, and there have been a few of them. It's not like it's one cryptocurrency scheme here. And he didn't stop there. By the way, Shapiro predicted that if the Trumps go too deep on crypto, it could be a huge win for the likes of Bernie Sanders and AOC. [00:00:51] And look, I can see that argument, especially if pump and dump schemes happen. If people are left holding the bag, you get the point. Now we'll get to his arguments in just a minute. But before we get to his arguments, and in order to understand what he's talking about, let's actually delve into the details of these crypto schemes. [00:01:10] So first, you know, Truth Socials parent company, is Trump Media and Technology Group. Okay. That's the parent company. And it's actually the largest shareholder. The largest shareholder of that company is Trump himself. [00:01:27] Now, Trump owns a little over 50% of Trump media's stock, making him roughly $2.7 billion, making his roughly $2.7 billion stake one of his most valuable investments. Now, when Trump was elected, he transferred that stake to a trust [00:01:45] that's controlled by his son, Don Jr. Now, Trump media is now starting to branch out and do things other than social media. Namely, they're doing some ventures with crypto. So on Tuesday, the company announced that it would be raising money from investors [00:02:03] and selling bonds in order to invest $2.5 billion into Bitcoin specifically. And that would make Trump Media one of the largest holders of Bitcoin of any publicly traded company. [00:02:18] Now, Devin Nunes, the CEO of Trump Media, stated, quote, we view Bitcoin as an apex instrument of financial freedom. And now Trump Media will hold cryptocurrency as a crucial part of our assets. [00:02:34] Nunez said it would help protect the company from what he described as ongoing discrimination by financial institutions against conservative businesses. What? What discrimination? What are we talking about, really? [00:02:51] Financiers are discriminating against conservative business financiers have one goal, and one goal only maximize profit. Can you pay your loans back? They will loan money to anyone who can pay the loans back. It's that simple. [00:03:07] There's interest. They want to make money off that interest. We all know how this works. Nonetheless, Trump Media will also be launching a series of ETFs by the end of the year in partnership with Crypto.com. So ETFs these are financial instruments that you can invest in. [00:03:25] And usually an ETF is a financial institute that groups together a bunch of usually fortune 500 companies. And so you're kind of hedging your investment rather than investing in an individual stock. You invest in an ETF. [00:03:40] I guess in this case we're talking about ETFs that are based in cryptocurrency, which don't invest in that. I mean, I personally wouldn't invest in that, but okay, now, The Trump family's entanglements and other cryptocurrency projects [00:03:56] also include Trump's own meme coin, American Bitcoin, which is a crypto firm that Eric Trump co-founded, and a World Liberty Financial. That's the Trump family crypto venture that has received investments from figures [00:04:12] looking to gain influence with Trump. So there is this influence scheme that's happening as well where, you know, foreign leaders and other, you know, business interests want to have influence over Trump, so they'll invest in his crypto schemes. [00:04:27] Now, Trump has presided over a very crypto friendly second term. For example, he has established a strategic bitcoin reserve in the federal government. While the DOJ has also disbanded his DOJ has disbanded its national [00:04:42] cryptocurrency enforcement team. So there are no there are no breaks here when it comes to crypto under the Trump administration. And that's concerning because obviously that opens up a lot of opportunities for abuse. Now, with all that context in mind, here is why Shapiro is worried about Trump [00:04:59] Media's cryptocurrency maneuver. By buying Bitcoin while the Trump administration is simultaneously attempting to set up a national treasury in Bitcoin, increasing the price because, again, higher demand means higher price when the supply remains stable, which it is in Bitcoin. [00:05:16] That's the whole purpose of Bitcoin. When you do that, what you are doing looks a little skeezy. Again, all this sort of sleaziness we talked about with the Qatar jet. This sort of sleaziness is likely to have really bad political effects. [00:05:32] So I actually interviewed someone who voted for Trump today for my Substack. My Substack page called unaligned, and I was kind of surprised when he brought up crypto specifically as something he wanted to criticize Donald Trump on. And I'm noticing more and more conservatives [00:05:49] who are speaking out against the Trump administration's crypto ventures. And that's a good thing, because I don't think conservatives or Trump supporters are going to listen to what I have to say about crypto. Let's just keeping it real. But they might listen to other conservatives who are like, this doesn't look good. [00:06:06] You know what I'm saying? So, now what kind of bad political effect? Here's what Shapiro means. If the economy downturns, the sort of oligarchy play that AOC and Bernie Sanders are making is going to sound a lot more plausible. And if Democrats take Congress in November 2026, thanks to some sort [00:06:22] of economic downturn, I promise you all the people who are pro crypto are going to get it right in the teeth, because Democrats are going to see the entire crypto industry as working closely with the Trump administration. They will see it as an enemy and they will attack it with alacrity. I'm putting these warnings out there because if those warnings are not out there, then if the thing happens, people are going to get taken by surprise. [00:06:43] But they shouldn't be taken by surprise because Democrats are already planning this playbook. Book. Okay, I had not seen that argument or that part of his argument. So the bad thing about what Trump is like, the corrupt schemes [00:06:58] that he's doing with crypto is bad because AOC and Bernie Sanders. Know no concern about pump and dump schemes. No. No concern about no concern about money laundering schemes. [00:07:14] No concern about corruption and influence peddling. Okay. No, it's AOC and Bernie Sanders. They're going to attack crypto if they're ever in power. So crypto bad under Trump. I just I get it. He's a conservative and you can't attack the daddy. [00:07:31] You attack the daddy. You might get, you know, a lot of backlash from Republican voters and members of your own audience. But can you just call balls and strikes when your guy is doing something wrong, I guess. Not that honesty isn't allowed, I guess, but what do you think was. [00:07:51] It's tough. Like, I think the the logic is there in terms of. Yeah, the oligarchy tour is drawing crowds because it's true. It's obviously true. [00:08:07] The stuff Elon Musk cutting his own government checks for his company is true. Donald Trump starting a crypto company and his highest crypto holders getting to have a dinner with him, thereby influence peddling. [00:08:26] It's true. Like investing in Bitcoin with your personal company while you're in charge of crypto legislation, legislation that will largely drive up or down the like. [00:08:41] It's true. It's all happening. Like Ben Shapiro won't say, well, this is wrong. He's saying, like, politically, it's a loser. Well, because that's because Ben Shapiro's a loser. But what he's getting at is it's true. There's no hiding behind it. [00:08:59] Like they announced the 25 highest holders of the coin. The trump coin. Get a person. Get to have a personal, intimate dinner with the freaking president of the United States. Dude. [00:09:14] - This other thing. - They call it quid pro quo. - Continue. - Right. This other crypto thing that they were involved in, $400 million. I just saw. And, one of the Trump kids was like, yeah, this is pretty much the most [00:09:30] successful thing we've ever done. Okay, this little crypto scheme, like, it's so obvious and naked. That's the thing about Trump. Like it's gross, it's disgusting, but it's not hard to see. If you want to know what's happening, Trump will just tell you, like, yeah, I'm [00:09:47] making a bunch of money off of my office. That's it. That's what I'm here to do. No, it's you're absolutely right about that. I think what differentiates Trump from other politicians is other politicians try to do these skeezy things behind closed doors [00:10:03] and then lie to you about it to your face. Trump, like, announces it to the world and is like, proud of it. And for whatever reason, some people go along with these schemes and usually they're the ones who end up getting hurt in the end. But if you're going to call out the corruption, call out the corruption. [00:10:21] Don't in a roundabout way, like don't use Bernie Sanders and AOC as human shields when you want to criticize your boy. - Okay, that's what happened here. - And just one last thing. When it comes to the Democrats. Oh, they're going to line up against crypto. [00:10:36] - No they're not. - No they're not. No Kirsten Gillibrand. Let's just talk about Kirsten Gillibrand for a second. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat from New York. She is so bought by the crypto bros like you wouldn't believe. I mean, she was she was doing like a PR tour for crypto before the election. [00:10:56] So you're right about that I don't know. - Good point. - She was crypto bro. She made sure to make overtures. She was like no guys you guys are good with us. Like the, the people who own the party are down with crypto too. [00:11:13] They're just not as gross as Trump. Like they're just not going to start a Kamala coin, a coconut coin and use it as a way to influence pedal like they're not doing that, but they're down with the program 100%. [00:11:30] Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.