The following is a lightly edited transcript of the December 12 episode of the
Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
In recent days, Eric Trump has really stepped out into the international limelight as the new face of the Trump oligarchy. At a conference in the Middle East this week, Eric Trump told an audience that he and his father, Donald Trump, are basically working together to push crypto, which the Trump family is invested in. And Eric, who’s the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, has been very prominently involved in negotiating the ethics policy—or lack thereof—that Donald Trump and his businesses will subject themselves to when he’s president. Have we ever seen an incoming president this prone to self-dealing in U.S. history? According to Casey Michel, a journalist and author of several books on kleptocracy, the answer is an emphatic no. Today, we’re talking to Casey about how bad this is likely to get and what it will look like. Thanks for coming on, Casey.
Michel: Great to be here, Greg. Thanks so much.
Sargent: Let’s start with what Eric Trump said this week. It was at a cryptocurrency conference in the United Arab Emirates. He said, “You’re going to have the most pro-crypto president in the history of America.” And he added, “The president won’t allow Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to be overregulated and stifled.” Casey, Trump and his sons are invested in crypto. So here, Eric is openly declaring that his father will govern in the financial interests of something his family is invested in. Can you talk about what this means?
Michel: Absolutely, Greg. This is part and parcel of the Trump Organization, certainly the Trump family’s approach to mixing business and politics. It’s not limited to crypto, but that’s certainly been in the news, especially recently. By all appearances, the family, and of course Donald Trump himself, appear to be using Trump’s presidency, both his first term and now his incoming second term, as a means simply of enriching themselves and enriching those who are close to them.
Part of that is on the regulatory side of things, making sure there is no oversight, no investigation, and of course, no actual prosecution of things like white-collar crimes or what are potentially crimes or criminal elements themselves. And the other end are the actual brand-new investments in new industries like crypto, but also things like real estate. We have seen the Trump Organization even before Trump has returned to the White House announcing brand-new details of new deals in dictatorships around the world, opening up brand-new avenues for foreign influence right in the United States.
Sargent: I want to ask you about that. The New York Times recently reported that Eric Trump, as part of this supposed ethics arrangement that they’re thinking about anyway, probably won’t make big deals directly with foreign governments, but they are going to keep up other foreign deals with companies and investors in foreign countries where the U.S. has big things at stake. Eric is working on projects with Trump branding in a number of countries: Oman, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. Can you walk us through how this poses an ethics problem, and why?
Michel: Greg, I never thought I would long for the days of the first Trump administration and their ethics pledge, but this new supposed ethics pledge makes that first Trump administration one appear pretty watertight. This is an absolutely laughable approach to any ethics pledge or, of course, trying to prevent any undue foreign influence. Basically, what they have said is they won’t have any new arrangements with foreign governments directly, but we know in country after country that they are operating, in Saudi, in the UAE, in Indonesia, and in India: These are either authoritarian or trending authoritarian governments where all they have to do is set up some proxy company or proxy oligarch to arrange the deals themselves. They are not technically on paper with the foreign governments—it is still nonetheless those foreign governments that are directly benefiting and of course getting direct access to the White House.
Sargent: Right, just to be clear, the way this would be working is these foreign governments would set up some phony outfit that would become the company that makes the deal with the Trump Organization. That way, they would be currying favor and influencing directly the president of the United States, potentially, right?
Michel: Yeah, absolutely. This is exactly what we are seeing in Saudi. It is technically an independent organization that is technically not part of the Saudi government, but in a dictatorship like this, there is no such thing as an independent actor or independent company. That is who the Trump Organization is partnering with. That is who the Trump Organization is profiting from.
Sargent: You brought up earlier that there’s also a regulatory side to all of this. One obvious problem here would be that if Eric Trump and the Trump Organization are going to continue investing in crypto, and Donald Trump is going to continue profiting off of the family business, then how do we trust any regulatory decision he makes that’s directly relevant in one way or another to his interests to not be tainted by that?
Michel: It will be extremely difficult to trust any regulatory process. And now with who they are placing in the FBI and the Department of Justice, it’ll also be difficult to trust any prosecutorial approach as well. Again, this is across the board. This isn’t limited to any one industry. This isn’t limited to any one area of regulation. This is a top-to-bottom approach for demolishing the regulatory oversight, the transparency, and the cracking down on any white-collar criminals or criminal networks that we actually saw progress on over the past few years. This is going to roll back so much on the regulatory and on the prosecutorial side.
Sargent: Can I ask you to expand a little bit on that? What are we seeing on the white-collar crime front that has encouraged you during the Biden years? Why is that now in danger?
Michel: There are a few things that I focus on in particular: I’ve written about the world of kleptocracy, international money laundering. My first book, American Kleptocracy, looked at how the United States of America had developed into the global center of offshore finance, hidden finance, and illicit money laundering. That was certainly true up through the early 2020s, but under the Biden administration and thanks to congressional allies as well as some bipartisan support, we’ve seen a few primary areas of progress. One, we have a brand-new shell company registry, which means you can no longer form an anonymous shell company in the U.S. Two, we saw new regulations coming down the pipeline for things like real estate transparency and private equity transparency. With a new administration coming in, we’re going to see all that progress either stopped or rolled back entirely and it is going to set things back considerably right here in the U.S.
Sargent: And you’ve got Elon Musk in the picture, right? He’s overseeing this new DOGE thing that’s supposed to recommend enormous spending and regulatory cuts. He personally is known to hate very specific regulations that operate directly on his own companies, like SpaceX for instance. We’re told that it’ll only be advisory and so forth, but he has the ear of the president and he can tell the president in subtle terms, or not so subtle terms, If you do this for me, I will do X for you. He’s now in control of the sprawling disinformation machine that helped Trump win the election. So there is another locus of immense potential corruption, no?
Michel: No, it absolutely is. And I should say, another locus of potential foreign influence for all the dictatorships that Musk himself has financial interests in. His Tesla factories are in places like China, and he has reportedly had the conversations with Vladimir Putin over and, again, to the extent of preventing Musk from helping Ukrainians more. Those are the only ones that have been reported thus far.
Pulling back, this is how democracy transitions into oligarchy. It is when these actors, these nominal businessmen, these nominal private actors, grab the levers of power in government and begin bending it to their own will without any transparency, without any public scrutiny, and only for the benefit of themselves and their companies.
Sargent: Is there any real reason to suspect that Trump wouldn’t facilitate calls between Elon Musk and foreign leaders?
Michel: The only reason that I can see is if there is, for some reason (and we haven’t gotten there yet), some clash of egos, and Trump sees Musk as “big-stepping” him or being a little too big for his britches. That’s the only way that I can foresee Trump ever preventing Musk from frankly doing what he wants in his new position of power, his new relationship with the president himself. Other than that, I don’t know why Trump would say no to Musk.
Sargent: Right. There are immense favors that each one can do for the other, and they have direct implications for U.S. interests.
Michel: They absolutely do. Again, at the end of the day, this is basic Corruption 101. It is the usage of public office for the benefit of private purse, and the usage of those public positions to bend regulations for the benefit of the bottom line of these oligarchs, of these businessmen, of these billionaires. I don’t think it’s any surprise that Trump has been staffing out his administration with more billionaires than we have ever seen in American history. Of course, each one of those would be a scandal unto itself in terms of the regulatory output. Taken together, it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
Sargent: How many billionaires are we up to? At last count on this show, we had nine billionaires that Trump had picked for positions in this administration. Has it gone higher since?
Michel: I believe it’s double digits now. I’d have to get back to you, Greg, on that, but it certainly seems like it’s a new one every single day. And this is only within his immediate cabinet, to say nothing of the other ambassadorial picks that he’s sending around the world on behalf of the U.S.
Sargent: Then there’s this other avenue through Truth Social. We had ethics expert Noah Bookbinder on the show recently, and he pointed out that Trump’s Truth Social, which is now publicly traded, is an invitation for people to curry favor with Trump by buying shares. That move could directly affect Trump’s net worth, couldn’t it? Does that also create new avenues for influence seeking?
Michel: One thousand percent it does. In a similar way to the real estate ventures, the traditional money-making approach of the Trump Organization, this is absolutely a new venture for actors, both domestic and foreign, to directly bankroll a sitting American president. Again, I know you and I and plenty of others are inured to just how staggeringly unprecedented this all is, but it is absolutely shocking to see that we are now in a position where actors, domestic or foreign, dictators, whatever they may be, now have a direct line to the pocket of the American president. And as far as anyone can tell, no one’s going to do anything about it.
Sargent: Well, certainly not Republicans in Congress, which brings me to another angle on all this: the Senate. Senate Democrats—Senate is now controlled by them—actually had investigations going into Trump’s potential corruption and also Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner’s potential corruption. One thing that the Senate Democrats were looking at is that during the campaign, Trump reportedly openly promised big oil executives to fulfill their wish list while soliciting $1 billion in campaign contributions.
The Senate Democrats were looking at that. They’ve been trying to get documents from big energy companies and they’ve had some limited success, but they really are doing it. Now with the Republican Senate, all that stuff gets turned off. There’s no accountability of any kind, no transparency, no congressional oversight. That, I would expect, would make it much easier for the stuff to flourish.
Michel: It will. This is, again, part and parcel with the first Trump administration in the lack of any congressional interest in investigating some of these networks. What we are set to see in the second Trump administration is going to blow the first one out of the water in terms of the ways that foreign regimes and foreign governments can directly bankroll the president. The implication on policy in the U.S. really is starting to feel like the first Trump administration was just a warm up for what we are set to see. And Trump’s still not even in the White House yet. We still have six weeks or so to go, but we’re already getting a flavor of what we can expect in terms of the lack of transparency and in terms of who is going to be taking advantage.
Sargent: One thing that strikes me about this moment is that Trump’s self-dealing is really openly advertised. During the campaign, Trump had his billion-dollar shakedown with big oil executives. This was reportedly almost a direct promise of policy for money campaign contributions, right? He also promised rich donors that he’d keep their taxes low—again, pretty much a direct promise of policy for campaign contributions. Now there’s this Bitcoin thing similarly out in the open. What does it mean that Trump won the election after expressly promising to govern in the interests of specific industries, specific wealthy investors, etc., provided that they help him? You’ve been covering this stuff a long time. There was a time when things would be scandalous, and now they’re not. Is there a bigger deterioration underway?
Michel: Yes, it is. Trump is, of course, a symptom of so many of the things that preceded him and that will postdate him whenever he does finally leave office. Certainly, what it indicates is his election and his approach to all of these deep pocketed constituents is that American policy, both domestic and foreign policy, is open and available to the highest bidder. And Greg, foreign regimes are taking note and finding out all the ways that they can best bankroll the president himself for the benefit.
Sargent: You can look at Trump’s first term as a test run. In it, his hotels were magnets for influence seeking, with foreign entities spending millions of dollars at the hotels and other Trump businesses. Now, they’re really going for a much bigger potential invitation to seek influence with this type of expenditure. Where do you see this going? What’s the worst case scenario in terms of the corruption we’re going to see? What will the impact of it be on the U.S.?
Michel: The worst case scenario in a theoretical approach—I don’t even want to think about what this would look like on the ground—is that Americans no longer have any say in their supposed democracy whatsoever. Of course, it is available to the deepest-pocketed donors, both domestically but also some of the kleptocratic regimes—the Russians, the Chinas of the world, the Hungarians, the Turkeys—that have access to even deeper pockets. Any semblance of American democracy or democratic or transparent oversight is completely obliterated. That is the direction we are going in. That is the direction we are barreling toward and Trump is certainly helping that every single day.
I don’t want to put myself in too deep of a funk by thinking about what that would actually look like on the ground, let alone what that would mean for the state of democracy around the world, but it is a very, very dark place that is approaching.
Sargent: To step back and go big picture a little bit more, Trump during his first campaign basically advertised this corruption. He said, “Not paying taxes makes me smart.” At the same time, what he was saying to voters was, I have seen how elite inside corruption works, and I will put that knowledge to work for you. That was the message of the first campaign. The message of the second one is he doesn’t even actually try to make a case that the self-dealing that he’s essentially openly advertising will be in the interests of the country. He no longer says he’s going to put this knowledge to work for anyone. He just says, When I win, you win.
Michel: Yeah. And look, it was a winning message in November of 2024. It ended up being something that the voters didn’t seem to care about one way or another. I would love for some of these networks of corruption, some of these policies, some of these loopholes to be the things that move voters to the polls. I am disappointed to report that at the end of the day, for voters across the U.S. by and large, that doesn’t seem to be their number one concern. Now that could certainly change, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it does change, given some of the scandals I have no doubt are going to be coming in the offing; but those scandals are going to have to emerge first. Without the transparency and oversight that congressional Democrats could have brought to some of this, I don’t know when or necessarily how we’re going to get the actual details on it, which is just one more disappointment among many. I’m sorry I’m so pessimistic today, Greg.
Sargent: I understand, I want to try to end on an optimistic note because you brought up the possibility that there will be these big scandals during the Trump years, which I think is true. Here’s where the optimistic note comes from: Voters do seem to care about corruption.
If you think back to the 2004 days, George W. Bush, after he won reelection and won a majority, he appeared invulnerable. He had really won a sizable reelection victory and seemed to be in absolute command of the information environment, how the electorate saw his presidency, how the electorate saw the Iraq war. Then Republican corruption really started to gain some steam, and it became a major issue only two years later. That, plus George W Bush’s incompetence with Katrina and the Iraq war going south, created this impression that things had gone off the rails. And in 2006, Democrats won both chambers in smashing midterm victory; part of it was that corruption had really taken hold with the Republican Party.
I do think there’s this possibility that right now voters see Trump still as this disruptive outside figure. They shouldn’t see him that way. He was already president, it was a disaster, but never mind: He’s an outsider again, I guess. They could see him that way and then before you know it, the stories start flowing, the incompetence starts flowing, and corruption works against them. Am I being overly optimistic?
Michel: No. If history can be a guide for any of this, whether it’s 2004 and the Bush reelection ... You could even go back to 1972 with the Nixon reelection which was just as smashing, just as dominant as anything we’ve seen in modern American history. Of course, that ended up in tatters. That ended up as a disaster for Nixon with the Watergate scandal. I’m not saying that there’s going be anything of the magnitude. Of all the potential scenarios moving forward, Trump resigning office is probably at the very lowest end of that rung. Not only was he, of course, voted or resigned, and then Democrats voted in ’76 but what we saw as well was a whole suite of pro-transparency regulatory reforms, anti-bribery, anti-corruption reforms that came through congressional leadership in the immediate aftermath of that, some of which is still in the books and some of which has been among the most progressive legislation we’ve ever seen in American history. That is certainly something I am, I suppose, hopeful for. It’s just a matter of getting there first.
Sargent: Really important point you raised there, which is that we really are ripe for a new set of anti-corruption reforms major overhauls. We’re still operating in the post-Watergate architecture. It’s in pretty rough shape, and Trump is a big reason for that. Maybe the way to think about this is we’re going to see something really terrible, but on the other side is something like the post-Watergate reforms, only the twenty-first-century version.
Michel: That is exactly right, and certainly is something I’m clinging to these days. I’ve been accused of being too optimistic in the past on some of these things, but sometimes optimism is all you have. I’m happy to carry that forward.
Sargent: Casey Michel, thanks so much for coming on.
Michel: Thanks so much, Greg.
Sargent: Folks, if you enjoyed that discussion with Casey Michel, also make sure to check out his good new piece at tnr.com on McKinsey consulting firm’s dealings with despots that are more extensive than we ever knew. Also, check out the latest episode of Deep State Radio, where Middle East expert Steven Heydemann joins Kori Schake, Rosa Brooks, and David Rothkopf to break down current events in Syria. We’ll see you all tomorrow.
Sargent: You’ve been listening to The Daily Blast with me, your host, Greg Sargent. The Daily Blast is a New Republic podcast and is produced by Riley Fessler and the DSR Network.