đ¸ Trumpâs Slush Fund Is an Even Bigger Disaster for Republicans Than They Feared
Administration insiders panic over private data that shows the public souring fast on the sheer corruption of Trump's second term, while in Texas, an incumbent GOP senator takes a MAGA mauling.
On this day in 1939, the St. Louis, a ship carrying 937 refugees from Nazi Germany, almost all of them Jewish, was turned away by Cuba. The U.S. and Canada turned the ship away too, forcing it back to Europe, where 254 of the passengers would be killed in the Holocaust.
Happy Wednesday, everyone. Itâs Swin, again. For those in the U.S., we hope you spent the first day after the Memorial Day weekend doing something more productive than publicly raging at the âDumocrats,â an insult âThe Simpsonsâ did decades ago.
If you managed to do better, Zeteo subscribers, then you did better than the president of the United States, who, when heâs not failing to secure peace in the Middle East and wrecking the global economy, or attending a third medical checkup in 13 months while insisting everythingâs fine, is busy building a rancidly corrupt slush fund for his buddies.
In todayâs âFirst Draft,â we get into why, when it comes to this particular Trumpian abomination, the Republican elite is jacking the freak-out dial all the way up past 11. We also look to Texas, where Trumpâs MAGA pick, Ken Paxton, duly hammered Senator John Cornyn in their runoff election. Letâs get to it.
Itâs the Corruption, Stupid
If youâve been following the news for the first year and a half of the second Trump administration, youâve probably seen elite conservatives, otherwise so fast to sacrifice all oversight and leverage to their dear leader, occasionally pop up to finger-wag the president. Usually, this isnât for any particular moral or constitutional reason. Itâs because Republicans on Capitol Hill want to stay there and donât like that Trumpâs abysmal record and spiraling unpopularity are jeopardizing their job security.
This is why youâve noticed such an uptick of notable Republicans coming out against the Trump administrationâs $1.776 billion pot of taxpayer money, established to benefit the presidentâs allies and (alleged!) criminal associates who claim Democrats or prosecutors were too mean.
Trump lied that he âwasnât involvedâ in this. As Zeteo reported over the weekend, he was deeply involved. The fund was created after Trump sued his own government over an Internal Revenue Service leak of his tax returns. Last week, Trumpâs Department of Justice announced that Trump had struck a deal with his own administration, in which he would drop his absolutely bogus lawsuit in exchange for the establishment of what Democrats are now very credibly dubbing a full-on âMAGA slush fund.â There was even a blisteringly corrupt addendum: immunity from tax-related investigation for Trump, his business, and his family.
To call this shockingly corrupt would be far too polite. And it appears elected Republicans are starting to get the memo.