The latest revelations led one Democratic senator to argue, “Foreign countries are bribing our president to sell out the American people.”
The latest revelations led one Democratic senator to argue, “Foreign countries are bribing our president to sell out the American people†-Sen. Chris Van Hollen (MD). Previously undisclosed UAE stake in tRump company sparks new controversy.
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
— Petisia (@petisia.bsky.social) 2026-02-02T20:55:11.978Z
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/previously-undisclosed-uae-stake-in-trump-company-sparks-new-controversy
Controversies soon followed. Trump faced awkward questions, for example, about the curious group of business partners with whom he had linked arms. A year later, in one of the most scandalous presidential pardons in American history, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the convicted founder of the crypto exchange Binance, which just so happened to have struck a lucrative business deal with World Liberty Financial.
The broader story, however, hasn’t hit rock bottom just yet. The Wall Street Journal reported:
Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49% stake in their fledgling cryptocurrency venture for half a billion dollars, according to company documents and people familiar with the matter. The buyers would pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities.
The deal with World Liberty Financial, which hasn’t previously been reported, was signed by Eric Trump, the president’s son. At least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with the family of Steve Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder who weeks earlier had been named U.S. envoy to the Middle East, the documents said.
The deal, the Journal added, “
marked something unprecedented in American politics: a foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming U.S. president’s company” — which, at the time, “had no products.”.....
In the president’s first term, there was considerable interest in the emoluments clause and foreign interests renting rooms at Trump-owned properties.
In his second term, the seeming corruption is spectacularly worse.
STEPHANOPOULOS: A foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming president's company -- how do you respond to those who say this is a serious conflict of interest?
BLANCHE (lying): The Biden family did the same thing
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-02-01T16:25:57.314Z
.....There are a few elements to this that are worth keeping in mind.
First, never in American history has a foreign country bought a stake in a company owned by the American president, even as the president negotiated foreign policy matters with the other country. The idea that Joe Biden did “exactly the same thing” is plainly ridiculous.
Second,
if Trump had been “completely transparent” about all of this, the Journal’s reporting would have been old news. It wasn’t — because all of this had been secret from the public up until now.
And third, let’s not overlook the fact that Blanche was offered an opportunity to offer his best possible defense of the president. Evidently, he couldn’t think of anything persuasive.
I guess that’s not too surprising, given how difficult it is to defend the indefensible.
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