On his tour of the Middle East, Trump lavishes praise on dictators—as they deposit bribes in his pocket. Republicans, in between defending Trump's jet grift, finalize more details of their "big beautiful bill," which, in addition to gutting Medicaid, now aims to cut food assistance, funding for Planned Parenthood, and Biden's clean energy tax credits. The Supreme Court hears arguments on two important, intertwined questions: whether Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship is constitutional (it's not), and whether federal judges below the Supreme Court can issue nationwide injunctions. Jon and Dan react to the Solicitor General's clueless argument before the justices and new polling on Trump's "inoculation" against corruption attacks, and offer Democrats some advice on how to talk about the GOP's tax cuts. Then Jon sits down with long-time friend of the pod Beto O'Rourke to talk about Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Beto's future in the Lone Star State. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.
What is Trump’s relationship with Middle Eastern dictators?
What he celebrates – he celebrates authoritariancy. He sees weakness in democracy. And that is a very disturbing place for the American president to be.
Especially wealthy autocrats who can shower him with not just praise, but planes, money, business deals for his family. I mean, you know, maybe Brussels should have given Donald Trump a new jet. And we'd have better relations with the European Union. Maybe the Canadians should have thrown in some Trump towers and Trump golf courses, and he wouldn't be threatening to annex them as the 51st state.
You know, this is how he operates. You give him praise, you give him money, you give him gifts, and he's going to treat you and your country well. He's going to make sure that the policy of the United States is favorable to your government so long as... You take care of Trump.
He is obviously a transactional kleptocrat. That is very true. But there is just this certain level of respect and admiration he has for true dictators that he does not – even if Mark Carney gave him a whole bunch of free stuff, he would never view someone subject to the will of the people as impressive as someone who has crushed the will of the people.
Yes, that's why Kim Jong-un he praises, Duterte in the Philippines, Bolsonaro, Putin, like just name your autocrat. So hanging over all this, of course, is the issue of the jet, which is such an obvious grift that more MAGA types are breaking with Trump on it. We talked about Laura Loomer on Tuesday's pod. She is now the conscience of MAGA.
But there has also been criticism from your Ben Shapiro's, your Mark Levin's, your Eric Erickson's. There's also a growing number of Republicans in Congress who are saying they want to look into the details before letting this deal happen. Unclear what that entails.
That's what details they want to know about.
You know, you're like, oh, this person's on the Armed Services Committee. I'm like, okay, so what is it? Is it legislation that's going to come up before them? Are they going to block a funding bill because of the jet? We'll see. But none of that criticism is stopping the most committed cult members from doing their thing. Let's listen.
Mr. Speaker, you are very critical of President Biden and his family's foreign business dealings. You supported an impeachment inquiry as a result of it. Are you equally concerned about President Trump's family's business dealings?
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