Ethical concerns abound on the president's first big trip to the Middle East since reentering office. But if you really want conflicts of interest, take a look at his crypto projects. This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. A billboard featuring President Donald Trump holding Bitcoin in Hong Kong. Photo by May James/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the context of President Trump's Middle East trip?
Donald Trump's in the Middle East doing the kinds of things you might expect a U.S. president to do while in the Middle East. He's been shaking hands with leaders, posing for photos. Here's some Fox News coverage. Donald's been doing diplomacy. He made a big announcement on Tuesday.
I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness.
And on Wednesday, Trump met with Syria's new president, Ahmed al-Sharra, a former al-Qaeda leader who used to be on the U.S. terror list, I might add.
Young, attractive guy. Tough guy.
But while in the Middle East, and before he even got there, the president and his family have also been doing things you'd never expect a U.S. president and his family to do. Making hotel deals, golf course deals, plane gift deals, crypto deals. All the president's side hustles on Today Explained.
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We used to have big ideals and dreams when we were still in university. We wrote these beautiful application essays about how we were going to fix tax avoidance and tax evasion, how we're going to tackle global hunger and work at the United Nations. And look at us. What has happened?
What has happened? This week on The Grey Area, we're talking about our moral ambition. Where did it go and what we can do to get it back. New episodes of The Grey Area drop on Mondays. Available everywhere.
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Chapter 2: What side hustles is the Trump family involved in during this trip?
And ethical quandaries be damned? I mean, just to bring this back to where we started, his kids show up first, make a bunch of deals. You're saying some of those deals are pretty close to, if not involving, foreign governments. And then the president rolls in, makes a bunch more deals, and also is dealing with those same actors. Yeah. in the process.
Right. It's like, any questions? Any questions? Like, you summed it up. That's right. I mean, these different things, I mean, look, the LIV Golf, we haven't even talked about LIV Golf, but that's the Saudi-backed golf league that's a real competitor to the PGA Tour. And it's run by the head of Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth Fund. You know, and what did they do? He hosted a tournament.
He hosted a tournament for them at Doral in Florida. And frankly...
What they're doing for golf is so great. What they're doing for the players is so great. The salaries are going to go way up.
And what happened? All of these people came to Doral, filled up the hotel, ate in the restaurant, sat out there on the golf course, right? So he has benefited from that. is clearly an ally of the Saudis as they, you know, the government is sort of working in this private space, but it's still the government, right?
There's investors, Qatari investors, who have invested in some of the Trump Corporation projects over there. So they are working together in the sort of official space, and then they are working together in the private space as well. And that's just how he's going to run foreign policy. The ethical watchdogs can howl at the moon, but it's not going to stop him from operating this way.
Read Eli Stoeckels at politico.com. Eli was mostly talking about things we can track, but when we're back at Today Explained, we're gonna talk about Trump's harder to track deals, the president's billion dollar crypto portfolio. Support for today explained comes from Built Rewards. Not B-U-I-L-T, but B-I-L-T. Let's talk about points. Not Point Guards. Not the Pointer Sisters.
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