Anderson Cooper Shreds ‘Shameful’ Trump for Offering Early Access To Social Media Posts for $100,000 a Month
CNN’s Anderson Cooper unloaded on President Donald Trump and his eldest sons over their various ventures that have netted the Trump family billions of dollars since he took office for a second time.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) joined Friday’s AC360, where the host noted that the president’s social media company, Truth Social, has announced that it will charge $100,000 for early access to Trump’s potentially market-moving posts.
“There’s 10 companies that have signed contracts for this,” Cooper said. “I assume there could be more down the road. We mentioned you’re investigating this as ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. You wrote a letter to the CEO of Trump Media. Have you gotten any response?”
“No response yet, Raskin replied. “Ten is obviously a very early and conservative estimate. We’ve also heard that [it’s] 20. But say it’s just 10. That’s $1 million a month that they’re pulling in. If it’s 20, that’s $2 million a month. And the president owns almost half of the company that’s getting that money; that’s going directly into the president’s pocket. So, it’s a direct conflict of interest. And we believe– we have great reason to believe that this is a violation of the STOCK Act of 2012, which was designed in order to stop the president and other public officials from using their government office for purposes of filling their pockets. And so, it’s really no different than people doing it from Wall Street.”
Cooper took a moment to express his disgust with the self-dealing:
I mean, it’s really– it is just incredible given that they’ve got the crypto company that they were paid hundreds of millions of dollars for, I think a 50% stake by a Middle Eastern regime. I mean, there’s so many ways that they are grabbing money. To do this, it’s so blatant. I mean, it is just– it’s incredible. I mean, it’s kind of– I mean, I know there’s no shame anymore, but it is shameful.
“It reminds me of those games they used to have where you had 10 minutes to take everything you can out of the supermarket,” Raskin responded. “And it just seems like before the election comes, they’re trying to steal everything they can from the taxpayers and from the U.S. government, and to engage in every possible scam. And right now, it’s like watching The Sopranos. You turn the TV on to see, well, what is the new grift of the week they’re going to come up with? And this is just unbelievable.”
Also on Friday, the Trump administration granted preliminary approval to World Liberty Trust to operate as a trust bank. WLT is sponsored by World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency enterprise helmed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who in 2024 helped found the company, which is now valued at roughly $4 billion.
Watch above via CNN.
New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!
Comments
↓ Scroll down for comments ↓