Trump’s Crypto Grift Is Pissing Off MAGA

Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency scheme is leaving a bad taste in the mouths of some of his biggest supporters.

Speaking on his podcast Monday, far-right influencer and The Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro called on the president to “stop,” openly questioning how Trump’s meme coin grift could be considered good for America, rather than just good for his pockets.

“It just isn’t America first in any conceivable way,” Shapiro said.

Last month, Trump announced a competition to see who could obtain the highest average Trumpcoin balance within a three-week period. That period ended Monday, with the top 220 reportedly winning a private dinner at Trump National Golf Club in Washington with the president.

The top 25 investors in TRUMP tokens are eligible to receive VIP access to the dinner event, opening the opportunity for them to take photos alongside Trump and receive a guided tour of the property the following day. As of last week, 19 of the top 25 holders registered on the meme coin site used foreign exchanges that exclude U.S.-based customers, reported Bloomberg. That means—as Shapiro deduced—that “foreigners are buying a lot of meme coin and then getting meetings with President Trump.

“This raises the question of influence peddling,” Shapiro continued. “If you basically buy a bunch of Trump meme coin and then funnel money to organizations associated with President Trump so you can have dinner with Trump. That doesn’t look great.”

Shapiro also chastised Trump for recently accepting several gifts that could be interpreted as foreign bribes, including a super luxury jumbo jet from Qatar—one of the most lavish gifts ever bestowed to a U.S. president.

“Does any of this help advance the president’s agenda?” Shapiro continued. “You know the agenda that we all voted for, the agenda we want to see implemented. Does this make his presidency stronger or weaker? Now I’m gonna repeat again, I don’t know whether this activity is criminal in any way, but things do not have to be criminal to hurt the agenda.

“Why in the world would President Trump be well served by this sort of vulnerability? Again, more importantly, why would those of us who voted for him, who gave to his campaign, who stumped for him, campaigned for him, be well served by this? The answer is we aren’t, and that’s why it needs to stop,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro isn’t the only MAGA talking head to come down hard on their political leader for accepting the plane. Earlier Monday, Laura Loomer went scorched earth on Trump, damning his acceptance of the jet as a “$400 million ‘gift’ from jihadists in suits.”

Non-MAGA critics of Trump’s cryptocurrency have flagged the investment as a novel way to circumnavigate Federal Election Commission contribution limits, which prevent individuals from donating more than $3,500 per election to their candidate of choice.

Trump has tried to position himself as a pro-crypto president. At a bitcoin conference in Nashville in July, Trump promised to build out a “strategic national bitcoin reserve” if elected, according to CoinDesk.

But others have derided the memecoin as little more than another money-grabbing grift. Trump’s long list of election-year hustles included launching a remarkably ugly sneaker and a limited-edition $60 God Bless the USA Bible co-promoted by “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood. Trump also took the parent company of his social media platform Truth Social public and stamped his name on a new cryptocurrency platform headed by his two sons, Eric and Don Jr., that even the president’s allies have criticized as a “huge mistake.”

The Episcopal Church is refusing to help the Trump administration resettle white South African “refugees,” ending a decades-long collaboration with the U.S. government on refugee resettlement.

The church’s Episcopal Migration Ministries have historically worked with the government via grants to resettle refugees fleeing persecution.

“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step. Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government,” said Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, in a statement on Monday.

This comes as 49 Afrikaners arrived in the United States on Monday as “refugees.” President Trump gave them priority status, which means they waited no more than three months for their resettlement. Many refugees from other countries are forced to wait 18 to 24 months, and sometimes even years, for their resettlement assignment. Trump banned virtually all other refugees on his first day in office, including people fleeing active war zones like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and others.

White South Africans have made unsubstantiated claims of reverse racism and genocide, which have been echoed by Trump.

“It’s a genocide that’s taking place. Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white,” he said on Monday.

House Republicans are already opposing House Speaker Mike Johnson’s budget proposal stripping health care coverage from millions of Americans—but not for the reason you think.

Texas Representative Chip Roy was outraged Monday by the House Republicans’ new budget proposal, which included $880 million in cuts largely to Medicaid, not because they were too big but because they weren’t big enough.

“I sure hope House & Senate leadership are coming up with a backup plan …. because I’m not here to rack up an additional $20 trillion in debt over 10 years or to subsidize healthy, able-bodied adults, corrupt blue states, and monopoly hospital ceos …” he wrote on X. Roy is policy chair of the House Freedom Caucus, which has been vocal in advocating massive cuts.

Utah Senator Mike Lee replied to Roy in agreement:. “🎯” he wrote.

The budget proposal would strip Medicaid from an estimated 8.6 million people over the next decade, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The cuts would come primarily due to work requirements—a minimum of 80 hours per month for able-bodied adults—as well as a requirement to verify eligibility twice a year, rather than once.

But not every Republican is pushing for more significant cuts to Medicaid. Earlier this month, 12 GOP lawmakers wrote a letter to Johnson writing that they would “not support a final reconciliation bill that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations,” according to Axios.

Roy had pushed for large cuts to Medicaid while supporting the White House budget proposal released earlier this month, which would cut a whopping $163 billion in federal spending next fiscal year by eliminating programs on climate, education, health, and housing.

“Combined with our joint efforts to rescind additional wasteful spending, and deliver a reconciliation bill that will extend and expand the Trump tax cuts while reforming Medicaid and other programs to reduce deficits, we are poised to deliver prosperity, freedom, and strength to the American people,” Roy said in a statement at the time.

Crucially, it may not actually matter if Republicans approve of Donald Trump’s proposed budget. The administration isn’t ruling out using impoundment to override Congress’s decision, one official in the Office of Management and Budget told Politico. If the administration goes the route of impoundment, the president will be intruding on Congress’s power of the purse, in violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. While Trump and his allies may claim the rule is unconstitutional, it’s not clear that the courts will agree.

The Trump administration’s decision to deport immigrants to the U.S. base on Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, cost taxpayers at least $21 million between January 20 and April 8.

Right now, the base only holds 32 immigrants, making the whole effort look like a massive waste. Close to 500 people in total have been held there since January, with no more than 200 at a time. Many immigrants held there have been returned back to the United States, as was the case with 40 people briefly held at the prison in March.

Flying immigrants to Cuba also carries a steep price: $26,277 is the average cost per flight hour for the military aircraft the Trump administration used. The drain of taxpayer dollars has drawn criticism from Democrats in Congress.

“Every American should be outraged by Donald Trump wasting military resources to pay for his political stunts that do not make us safer,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “U.S. service members did not sign up for this abuse of power.”

The military flew 46 flights this year between Trump’s inauguration and the beginning of April, lasting 802.5 hours and costing $21,087,300, according to Department of Defense data shared with Warren. So far, though, the total effort is far below Trump’s January promise to hold 30,000 immigrants at the Cuba facility.

But even if the Guantánamo Bay base was holding as many immigrants as Trump promised, it would still be a bad idea to use the detention center in this way, or even at all. A relic of the Cold War days when Cuba’s Communist regime was aligned with the Soviet Union, Guantánamo Bay became notorious after the September 11 attacks for holding terrorism suspects under the questionable legal designation of “enemy combatants.”

And Trump wants more immigrants held there: U.S. Transportation Command has ordered that a new additional weekly flight to Guantánamo begin. It’s part of a mission named Operation Southern Guard and involves the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the military. The base should have been closed years ago, but thanks to the inaction of previous Congresses and presidents, it continues serving a dubious purpose.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, an early contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, is doubling down on his war against his state’s homeless population.

Newsom on Monday called on cities across California—which accounts for a third of the country’s entire homeless population—to clear out and ban homeless encampments. There are 187,000 homeless people in California.

His administration has penned legislation that allows towns, cities, and counties to adopt their own spin on his order. He has also made $3.3 billion in funds available for expanded housing and treatment.

Newsom has cracked down on homelessness since he took office in 2019, but his strategy has yielded little aside from taking homeless people and moving them to different areas in the state, which is not a permanent solution. An audit from 2024 found that the state spent $24 billion over five years with not much to show for it.

This is another notable rightward shift for a man who is seen as a legitimate front-runner for the presidency in 2028.

“Gavin Newsom isn’t fighting homelessness, he’s fighting homeless people,” Current Affairs wrote on X. “Banning encampments won’t fix the housing crisis, but it will make life more miserable for those with nowhere to go.”

This move also comes as Los Angeles prepares to host the Summer Olympics in 2028.