Speaker 1: All right, I want to talk about not one, but two different apparent financial scams
that we've learned about over the last 24 to 48 hours. I've told you now many times it is
going to take months, if not years, to learn the full scope of the grifting and scamming
and and wrongdoing of the former former administration. And the financial aspect
of that are a big piece of it. Let's start with part one, Donald Trump's presidential salary.
We are still learning more and more about the different lies around Trump's finances.
Donald Trump is reportedly worth about two billion dollars. I know there are claims that it's like
four or five. The best guesses, he is worth about two billion dollars. The presidential salary is
about four hundred thousand dollars. OK, we now have reason to believe that Donald Trump, despite
promising to donate his presidential salary, that he did not donate the last six months of salary,
about two hundred thousand dollars. Now, remember, he pledged to donate his full salary.
He said, I don't need the money. I'm doing this for the betterment of the country.
Yeah. So I'm going to be donating my salary to federal agencies. There's a new Washington
Post report which finds that there is no evidence that Donald Trump actually did that
with a salary for the last six months in office as president for the first three and a half years of
his presidency, he donated the money to federal agencies. The Washington Post said it looked
it surveyed all major federal agencies and none of them reported receiving a donation from Trump
from the point starting in July of twenty twenty the last six months of his presidency. The paper
said it was unable to account for that last 200 plus thousand dollars of Trump salary that was
supposedly going to be donated. His last known gift was to the National Park Service in July,
according to government documents. So I think the explanation for what happened here is very,
very simple. We know that as Donald Trump's one term presidency went on, Trump was more and more
agitated about not getting more positive coverage for the fact that he was donating his salary.
I think Trump got sick of the fact that he wasn't getting the coverage he wanted. Trump is both
cheap and greedy. So he said if my salary donation isn't buying me any positive media coverage,
I'll just keep the money. That would be very on brand for Trump. I don't think we have to
look very far for a sensible explanation. Also, by the way, making it extra bizarre
that Trump apparently didn't donate the last six months of salary is that remember,
it wasn't I have enough money, so I'm going to stop making money and do the presidency,
but donate my salary and just make nothing for these four years. Trump kept making money
while he was president. He reportedly made one point six billion dollars over those four years,
meaning that even the salary he donated is like zero point one percent of what he made.
And he still apparently didn't donate the full salary despite his promise. Now, I think it's
important to mention, just to be thorough, The Washington Post clarified, we were unable
to verify Trump's donations and we did not get a response when we asked for comment.
It's theoretically possible that he donated it somewhere and we don't know where and we just
can't track it down. It's possible. But again, the point is he had been doing it to federal agencies,
reporting it. There were disclosures. There was documentation. The paper trail stops with six
months left to go. The paper went to Trump's business and asked about it. They went to the
lawyer who the former lawyer who helped arrange the donations. Nobody responded. OK, now, also,
some may not know. Trump continues to receive a pension of two hundred and twenty thousand dollars
a year as a former president as well. So there are people who wrote to me and said, David, this
is a sign that Trump is broke. I actually doubt it that that would make keeping the money more
logical. Certainly if Trump was broke, it would make sense to keep that last two hundred thousand.
Trump's not likely broke, and that's what actually makes the story even wackier. It's,
you know, Trump, the fact that he is so cheap despite being a billionaire is actually even more
stunning than Trump somehow ending up broke. But no, he made one point six billion during
his four years in the White House. I don't think he's broke, but there is an even bigger scam. OK,
and we're going to talk about this in a moment. Donald Trump has now raised somewhere between 70
and 80 million dollars from his followers on the promise that the money was going to be used to
fight the election results, to fund audits, to to fund recounts, to fund lawsuits and
investigations, to try to overturn the election and put Trump back in power. The latest report
is that none of the money, the 70 or 75 or 80 or 82 million that was donated for that reason,
none of it actually was used by. Trump for the things he claimed he was raising,
raising the money for, and of course, on the tail end of it, his supporters won't actually care.
He could walk up to one of them on Fifth Avenue and shoot them,
and they would cheer and assume that it was secretly antifa or something like that.
And what I want to talk about next is a new report that not only did Donald Trump not use the 70 or
80 million for what he said he was going to use it for, there are new disclosures which show that
Donald Trump funneled those donations into his personal businesses. Let's talk about that next.