Hello and welcome to The Rest is Politics US with me, Katty Kay. Antony is away today, flying somewhere around the world. I'm not quite sure where, but we are super lucky to be joined by David McCloskey, former CIA analyst, all-round intelligence expert, and of course, the co-host of The Rest is Classified, which is, David, the one show that I know Anthony would really like to be the host of, at least for a visiting moment in the Goalhanger Stable. First off, Cady, thank you very much for welcoming me on. This is host swap, right? Because Gordon will be subjected to Anthony hosting The Rest is Classified with him at some point. I think we've decided that before we started recording. Well, good luck to Gordon. There we go. I hope he enjoys that. Gordon is a well-trained BBC journalist who I'm sure will be able to manage Anthony's, shall we say, conspiratorial views on intelligence topics. I think he sort of really actually wanted to be a spy. That's my takeaway from all of this. The number of times he mentions you guys, he loves your podcast. And the number of times he speaks with you with slight reverence makes me think actually this was the vocation he wanted to have. He would, by the way, have been the worst spy ever. Never tell Anthony a secret because it will be broadcast to millions of people around the world. So CIA, if you're listening, he's not the guy for you. Anyway, we're very happy to have you. You're going to pivot from being a national security expert to being an NFL expert. So who knew? Because you're going to have to do that because I certainly am not. But we are going to talk about the Super Bowl. And particularly, we're going to talk about the one bit of the Super Bowl that I actually watched, which was the Bad Bunny halftime show and the president's reaction to that. and this kind of MAGA outrage that Bad Bunny was starring in the Super Bowl. And then in the second half of the show, we're going to look at money and the Trump administration and national security, which really is your field, David. So I can't wait to get you on that. And what is happening with the Trump administration, both in the Middle East and in Russia, potentially, where the Trump allies and friends and cronies are looking at making an awful lot of money. And what does that do to American national security? So we'll get to that. But first, this weekend, Bad Bunny made history by becoming the first Super Bowl halftime headliner to perform almost entirely in Spanish. For those of you who've been living under a musical rock recently, Bad Bunny, otherwise known as Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, is from Puerto Rico. He was born on the island. He's a very proud Puerto Rican. He's also one of the biggest, if not the biggest musicians in the world right now. I have a feeling, somebody will correct me if I'm wrong, that he has now surpassed Taylor Swift in downloads on Spotify. and for a guy who went from kind of having bagged groceries as a part-time job when he was in high school to now becoming an absolute megastar, it's been a wild ride. Full disclosure, not a massive Bad Bunny fan, not because I don't like him, but because I'm way too old to be a Bad Bunny fan. My kids love it. But I just watched the show as a show and I thought you couldn't fault it. It was fantastically produced, super lively. It's any of you who are listening, worth 16 minutes of your time. It was like watching a kind of Broadway musical in 16 minutes. How the hell they did it? I don't know, but it was great. What did you think? I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it in particular because my children speak fluent Spanish and could understand pretty much everything, which I could not, but they were having a great time with it. That's a pretty good flex. Yeah, they loved it. I also am not, I will admit, and this will probably come as no surprise to you, I'm also, I'm not regularly listening to Bad Bunny. I think we're, you know, sort of, we're not the target demographic necessarily, but like, I enjoyed it. I agree with you. The production value was incredible. Like the way it was filmed, the camera angles, it was very, very interesting to watch. And it does feel like there's a lot of manufactured outrage over it. Like, I actually am not sure anyone who's, or many of the people who are claiming to be angry, like, are they actually angry about this? because it doesn't seem, I don't know. It just, it was entertaining. And also if you didn't want to watch it, you could just go do something else. So where's the outrage, you know? The outrage is in the White House or at least on the president's truth social feed. But as you know, that could just not actually mean very much. So Trump's review of the show that David and I both really enjoyed and Anthony really enjoyed too because I saw his tweet about it was absolutely terrible. One of the worst ever. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying. And the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching throughout the usa and all over the world so to set this up guys you get bad bunny comes on to the pitch they've somehow in the space of about five minutes of ad time managed to construct these kind of street scenes from new york there was a bit of puerto rico at one point a real couple actually get married it was a legitimate wedding right it was an actual wedding i mean how could you not love a wedding in the halftime show There's dancers everywhere. There's color. At another point, he climbs up these electricity poles are referenced how after Hurricane Maria, the power went out and Puerto Rico was ravaged by the hurricane. But really, this was a show, it was a halftime show that Bad Bunny, who had been very political when he received his Grammy just a week ago, and had said, before I receive it, I just want to say, ice out, we're not aliens, we're not savages, we're humans, we all deserve to belong here. and everyone was slightly thinking, oh, my God, is he going to make a similar overtly political show? But the politics of this show was the joy of this show, that it was this huge celebration of Puerto Rican culture and Hispanic culture without being exclusionary. I mean, he talks about, you know, God bless America and then lists every single country in the Americans from Canada right down to Chile. and I think that was that was the effectiveness of it was that in the kind of joy and the music and the fun he said so much more powerfully and articulately the message was we are worth celebrating we are here we're part of America and look what we bring to America we bring this joy and this energy and this music and this art and this culture rather than actually standing up and saying ice out. I felt that was what made this so powerful. And maybe that's why all of these people on the MAGA right have suddenly become snowflakes and said, oh my God, we need a safe space and we have to create our alternative programming. Yeah, I agree. It did not feel political. It really didn't. And I think you'd have to go, you'd have to be stretching the truth pretty considerably to have just absorbed the actual experience of the halftime show and come away with some kind of political message. It just wasn't there. Well, I guess what the right would say is the fact that it was in Spanish and the fact that he said, God bless America, and then lists all of these other countries, not just the United States of America, that that in and of itself was a political. I agree with you. It's stretching it. But don't you think that's what they're really the fear here, I think, is this kind of looming date of whatever it is that the census takers tell us of 2044 when America becomes a minority white country. And actually, the politics here is just the presence of Hispanics and Spanish speakers in America. Yes, which I guess in one light, you know, we should sort of say shame on ourselves for that even being political, because it's just the reality, right, of the demographic makeup of the country. And also, you know, I went, I looked this morning, Katie, on Spotify, and do you know how many monthly listeners bad bunny has on spotify does he have more than you and me it's does he have more than even more than the rest is classified wow it's offensive it's offensive how many more there you go there he has more than the reason to be outraged he has more than the rest is history caddy that's how big he is he's he's bigger than than two english historians talking about stuff. 90 million. 90 million. It's just, so he's, it's a massive, it makes total sense when you think about the NFL's perspective on this too, because he's a massive star. He is a massive global star who's going to draw eyeballs to the Super Bowl because he's huge. And when you look at, you know, sort of the alternative, the Turning Points USA show, Kid Rock has 5 million monthly listeners on Spotify. So, it's just like, from a pure business standpoint, and sort of who's going to watch what, you know, I think the politics are a lens here, but it's also just the reality that he is a massive global star, and nobody that is being put up in the alternative programming qualifies. That's not to denigrate their music. It's just to say, when you look at the numbers, They're just not going to draw the same viewership. And apparently, given Trump's disgust, I don't think he watched The Alternative either. He was watching Bad Bunny. Yes, he watched Bad Bunny. So just to fill you in, in case you've been missing out on this controversy, what happened was that Turning Points USA, the Charlie Kirk organization, said that it was going to have a genuinely all-American halftime show after Bad Bunny was announced because Bad Bunny sings only in Spanish. And so Turning Points USA said it needed an all-American show just to remind everybody Puerto Ricans are actually American citizens. They don't get to vote in congressional and presidential elections if they don't live in the continental United States, but they are full American citizens. Puerto Rico is part of America. So anyway, he is an American. And so Turning Points USA then said, OK, well, we've got to have alternative programming that is genuinely American. What is it? What did they call it? Something like for faith and family or something. Anyway, they they had their own halftime show. But here's the problem. Who do they have singing? They have Kid Rock. Nothing says family like Kid Rock. Nothing says family like Kid Rock. Should we just read a couple of the lyrics from country singer Kid Rock? 2001 song. He writes, young ladies, young ladies, I like them underage, see, some say that's statutory, I say it's mandatory. That hasn aged well in the past quarter century has it And particularly not aged well right at the moment perhaps with all the Epstein stuff going on But there is Franklin Graham and all of these evangelists and Turning Points USA which presents itself as a Christian organization And Franklin Graham saying, well, I don't want this over-sexualized show that Bad Bunny's going to put on. So what does he do? He puts on a guy who has sung a song about raping children. I mean, I think that's fair enough, isn't it? I think that's how you would talk about that. Young ladies, young ladies. I like them underage. See, some say that's statutory, referring to statutory rape. So that is their equivalent. Anyway, they got 5 million, which I actually thought was not bad. I think that's a pretty big audience because they clearly have a big audience themselves. More than I would have thought. But they were sort of blown out of the water by the 133 million that watched Bad Bunny live and in streaming. So he's had a ton of backlash in MAGA world. namely, Megyn Kelly has kind of led the charge, Donald Trump, as we said earlier, but not every MAGA person thinks this should be criticized. Perhaps they read the political writing on the wall. Conservative influencer Emily Austin said Bad Bunny had the biggest stage in the world and could have made it political. He didn't. He chose unity and love. You can celebrate different backgrounds and still love this country. and MAGA friendly influencer Logan Paul rounded on his own brother, Jake, who had criticized the show and the fake American citizen at his heart. Logan said, I love my brother, but I don't agree with this. Puerto Ricans are Americans and I'm happy they were given the opportunity to showcase the talent that comes from the island. That's Logan Paul. Doesn't Jake Paul live in Puerto Rico? He's criticizing Puerto Ricans. He lives there, doesn't he? I think probably as a tax grift, I'm sure. We're going to talk about grift in the second half. I have a feeling that's taxed grift. Well, anyway, that might not go down terribly well with his neighbors, his new neighbors, who I'm sure are lovely. Okay, I'm also going to ask you to put on your Dallas-Fort Worth Rest is Politics US special correspondent for the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It's the job I've always wanted. The job you have always wanted. Who knew you didn't even know you had the job? So that's even the best kind of job to get. But let's talk a little bit about the kind of broader politics of this in the context of the Hispanic vote. I mean, not to get too hacky on this, but that's what this is, a politics show. And if you look at the way that Hispanics, we've said this on the program before, Hispanic voters really helped power Donald Trump into office in 2024. It was a kind of surprising swing vote fed up, according to exit polling, largely with inflation to some extent with immigration. But they they were quite happy with his border policies, but they didn't like the inflation. And they they kind of were became a swing vote and they they swung enough to vote for Donald Trump to get in there. But we spoke about this on the show last week. There was a special Senate seat, Texas Senate, not National Senate, Texas Senate election right down the road from you. are, which is why you've just got this illustrious new job, where Taylor Remitt, the Democrat, captured 79% of the Hispanic vote in the district. And that was a 26 point jump from the 53% of the Hispanic vote that Kamala Harris got in that same district in 2024. And I think if Republicans needed any more glaring example of why perhaps alienating Bad Bunny supporters and appearing to kind of suggest that somebody from puerto rico doesn't represent traditional american values is bad politics that taylor remit performance we spoke about his overall performance last week but we've dug down a bit into the specific hispanic vote performance that 26 point swing yeah that he got in hispanic vote should be a i think a flashing red alarm for them right No, I think so. And I mean, when you go down to the precinct level in that district, which covers kind of... We knew this is why we wanted you for the job. This is so good. First, it was Anthony's job, but now it's the sort of, you know, Fort Worth special election correspondent. We love a precinct level on the rest is politics, US. Yeah. 83% of the precincts in that district. So 301 out of the 364 that are there shifted to remit, shifted to the Dems from as compared to the general election in 2022. Right. So you would expect swings, I think, in kind of a midterm, you know, a year, but like at that level, that's, that's pretty ridiculous. And I think, you know, I think, well, what is it? Hispanics are about 40% of Texas's population, right? Trump won the overall demographic in 2024. I think actually many, as you said, just speaking anecdotally of friends, neighbors, colleagues here from the Dallas-Fort Worth area who are Hispanic, many voted for Trump on the basis of having immigrated legally to the US and not wanting, you know, others to sort of, I guess, be able to jump the line, you know, unfairly, as they would see it, and also on kind of wedge social issues, where they felt very out of step with where the Democrats were and where the Biden administration was. But I think now when you when you talk to those people, when you look at the polling on, in particular, the deployment of ICE, there is a feeling that it has gone well beyond what they voted for, right? And I think when you look at the national polls, I mean, 58% of poll respondents said that ICE has gone too far, which maybe sounds low in the UK, but it's a real shift, right? I mean, and I think that that is going to, I mean, you can see that reflected, I think, in the Remit special election here in Fort Worth, where there is a change. I mean, There was even a quote in one of the articles from the president and CEO of the U.S. Hispanic Business Council, right? He said, Hispanics are leaving the Republican Party in droves and going the opposite direction, right, in talking about this election. So, I think there is a real shift that's going on here. There is going to be a follow-on. This is just to fill the seat up until the election later this year. So, there's going to be another head-to-head between Remit and Lee Wamskans, who's the sort of MAGA Republican who is challenging him. So we'll see if it holds. But I think if you're the Republicans, you have to be you've got to be concerned about that shift because that would put a whole bunch of potentially kind of bright red districts in Texas in question. I don't think I've seen a shift of one demographic group this fast, a single demographic group move this dramatically in such a short space of time. And initially, when we started getting the polls on this and we started seeing the shifts last year in those special elections in New Jersey and Virginia for governor, we spoke about it back then. a lot of it was actually around inflation and prices. That was the driving factor. But since then, of course, you've had Minneapolis and you've had people being picked up and this sense that you could be picked up just for... We have video, because it's all on video now, of ICE agents being asked, why are you picking me up? And an ICE agent saying, because you sound Spanish, because you're speaking Spanish. I mean, I think that then makes people think, wow, it could be me. I'm an American citizen. I mean, I came here legally, but I could still be rounded up or my friend could be rounded up or my abuela could be rounded up famously the famous abuelas who are being rounded up but I do think it's interesting politics and I think for particularly not just in Texas but for republicans in Colorado for republicans in Florida for republicans in California for republicans in New York who are in tight seats who have Hispanic populations they've got to be watching this okay one last thing because we're going to take a break but last thing I wanted to say about the Bad Bunny show right at the end He comes out and he's kind of got this American football. I think it says better together or Americans together together. I can't remember exactly the words. Look it up, guys. You'll see it. But behind him is this big sign. It's a kind of Levi's funded ad, but it's a big sign. And the sign says the only thing more powerful than hate is love. I think if all of those people at Turning Points USA would just like to get Erica Kirk on the phone with Bad Bunny those two people might actually have something in common because it was Erica Kirk famously who said Charlie Kirk's funeral the answer to hate is not hate it's love and always more love a quote which I always think was a rather kind of a brilliant and very moving political quote well actually I don't know if Bad Bunny was doing that exit sign as a reference to what Erica Kirk was saying, but I spotted the parallels straight away. And I don't really see how the people who are watching at Turning Points USA or refusing to watch at Turning Points U of A could have objected to that because it was exactly what Erica herself had suggested. Okay, guys, we're gonna take a quick break, come back and talk about our favorite subject, corruption and national security. This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. Now it's Mother's Day coming up, And Aura Frames is what I call a genuine upgrade from the predictable gift. Yeah, especially for all of those family moments, right, Anthony? Exactly. My mom in Long Island loves seeing family photos. We put several Aura Frames in her home. I can preload it before it ships so it arrives already full. And keep adding new photos at any time, Caddy. So it's got free unlimited storage. Yes, and it comes in a premium gift box. Perfect gift without the last minute padding. Aura Frames. It really is the most thoughtful gift you can give somebody, particularly your mother. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.co.uk to get 35 pounds off Aura's best-selling Carver Matte Frames. Name the top frame by The Independent by using promo code POLITICSUS at checkout. That's a-u-r-a-frames.co.uk, promo code POLITICSUS. This deal is exclusive to listeners, so order yours now to get it in time for Mother's Day. Don't forget to add POLITICSUS at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Hello everybody and welcome to The Book Club, a new podcast from Goalhanger, hosted by me, Dominic Sandbrook. And me, Tabitha Syrods. As some of you may know, I've been Dominic's producer on The Rest is History, and we even did a mini-series last year about all things books. And since we enjoyed that so much, we have decided to roll it out as its own show So it be coming out every Tuesday We be doing a different book each time and digging into all the stories behind them And we are going to be talking about the historical contexts behind some of the greatest and most famous books of all time. We're going to be digging into the remarkable people behind them, the unexpected stories behind the stories, and also unravelling the plot of each book a bit and delving into the depths of the story. Now, you don't have to have read the books to listen to the show, but we hope that by the end of each episode, you will be able to pretend to people that you've read them. That is the key thing. And either way, whether you read them or not, we hope that you'll learn lots of fascinating facts, you'll do lots of great stories, and maybe, Tabby, the odd laugh. We will be looking at thrilling Gothic bodice rippers like Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein, as well as iconic stories like The Great Gatsby or Little Women, and then also some more modern stuff. So Game of Thrones, Normal People, The Hunger Games, Hamnet, or manner of exciting stories. So please join us on our journey into all things books wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for The Book Club every Tuesday and hopefully we will see you there. Welcome back. We are going to speak about global grift. This is a story that I feel that everybody has really not covered enough. The amount of money that Trump and allies of Trump are making at the moment out of this administration, and also this kind of blurring of national security and finances and whether that undermines national security. And I really wanted to speak to you about this whole subject, David, today and get your take on how the kind of intelligence community is feeling about all of this. But what has prompted us to do this now is that there are a couple of stories, really well reported stories, which I'd recommend people reading, that have actually come out of the Wall Street Journal, who are going after this harder than anybody else. One was about Ukraine and President Zelensky saying that Russia and the United States are discussing bilateral economic agreements that are worth approximately $12 trillion in exchange for a deal Zelensky is suggesting that would hamper Ukraine's prospects and favor Russia's prospects. And in return, the Russians will give the Americans a whole load of business deals. I'd actually heard from somebody who is very plugged into the whole Russian business community and the Russian opposition that he thought it was something like $20 trillion and that quite a lot of this would go directly to Trump and to Trump's allies and family. That is not what the Wall Street Journal or Zelensky are suggesting, but clearly there is a kind of a money for land issue going on here. But then there's also this other story which ties into this from the Wall Street Journal, which is about how much money directly Trump family members, the next generation of the Trump family and Trump family acolytes and friends, Steve Whitcoss' son, Zach, are making out of crypto and their business dealings with the Gulf states. And I think that you can kind of bring these two together under the general heading of grift and what this does to American national security. What do you make, first of all, I mean, let's kind of separate them a little bit. This Russia deal and what Zelensky is saying is behind actually these negotiations. What are you hearing on that? Well, I think, I mean, just to set it up overall, you know, when you take foreign policy classes, right, when you take international relations classes, you think about the interaction between governments is like, driven by a set of national security interests that are assumed to be essentially the public good, right? Or how a set of leaders will perceive the public good. You kind of think about the world of these, you know, sort of the US's relationship with Ukraine in Russia or our relationship with the Gulf states. You think about it in those lenses, but I actually think what you have to do with this administration is think about a family connection with other families and the way that national security policy will enrich or create the potential to enrich particular networks of families and people. That is the better lens, I think, to view the way that we are prosecuting national security policy in a lot of different parts of the world. Because if you take a kind of what is the US interest with Russia and Ukraine, you're going to miss the fact that there's a network of people who are conducting that policy, who are quite obviously, and some of the facts that we'll talk about here, I think are quite striking, like, who are driven mostly, not exclusively, but mostly, by financial motive. When you hear what Zelensky is saying about this potential deal, right, or you hear what your contact had said, like, I think that is the better lens for thinking about the deal making here. Truly. My understanding is there isn't 12 trillion, you're looking at a GDP of 2 trillion or something. So, there actually isn't necessarily 12 trillion. So, I'm not sure who's going to buy this. It's been called the Dmitriev package. I don't know which negotiators on the US side would be naive enough to think that there was 12 trillion coming their way. But one thing I have heard is that the Ukrainians are relieved that Jared Kushner has come on board because they think he is less in that sort of having the wool pulled over his eyes by President Putin and President Putin's tantalizing offers than Steve Wyckoff is. So, are you thinking when you say that there are negotiators on the American side who might be driven by material interests rather than by American national security interests, is it Steve Wyckoff that you're thinking of? The model here across kind of the Trump-Witkoff family has been that the fathers are doing the actual statecraft, right? And the sons are profiting off of the statecraft, right? And I think the deal with the Emirates, with the UAE is instructive on this point because the essential mechanics of it are that prior – and I think, again, I think it gives us a potential window into how the administration could be thinking about a Russia-Ukraine deal and how you sort of create the opportunity to profit from it. And by the way, in addition, I think the administration is probably hoping that if they can get a deal prior to the midterms, that gives them some political sort of wind in their sails. Right. So I do think that there is there's a political motivation to the timing as well to see if the Ukrainians can sort of have something crammed down their throats by summertime so that the administration can count it as a win before the midterms. We're kind of lumping the two together, the Ukraine, Russia stuff and the promise of Russian riches for American businesses. And then this UAE story and the crypto story with these Trump kids and Steve Witkoff's son, Zach. Are they exactly the same? Because in the Wall Street Journal's reporting on what Zelensky has said about this back channel deal and what I was told in speaking to somebody when we were out of the World Economic Forum, actually, was that this was going to be money for the Trump family as well and Trump family acolytes. But that actually isn't what the Wall Street Journal seems to be saying. They're just saying this is for American businesses, which seems to make it a little different, perhaps, than the UAE money. It does. Yeah, I think insofar as we have the facts in front of us now, it absolutely is different because we don't have, I think in the UAE case, we had kind of a quid pro quo. It seems to be, right, that the Trump family got investment from an Emirati royal. And in exchange, the Emirates received essentially the end of restrictions on exporting advanced microchips, right? the timing suggests that that was the essence of the deal. We don't have that, you're right, on the Russia-Ukraine side. We don't have that set of facts yet. But I think given the way that the administration has sort of conducted foreign policy and as sort of a kind of a vector for deal-making, right, for the family and the Trump family and its associates, you would have to assume that some similar logic would be guiding a Russia-Ukraine deal. And to your point, I mean, there's not 12 trillion, right? That seems impossible, but there could be billions. And because we have, the US has real leverage given the sanctions regime that we've instituted over the Russians, the opportunity for there to be a quid pro quo feels very much in place as you're trying to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict. And I think the way, if I'm, you know, again, This is where it gets really kind of, I think, to me, psychologically interesting, because I think that Trump and his family would say, look, our financial interests and the interests of the U.S. in terms of its foreign policy, I think they would essentially say they're one and the same. It's all the same. What's good for us is good for the United States and vice versa. And I think you are seeing that at play here in the Russia-Ukraine deal. So I should do something I don't often do, which is channel my inner Caroline Levitt. It's worth making the point because the Wall Street Journal did ask the White House. And of course, the White House's line on all of this is always the same. The Trump administration has said that the companies run by the children operate completely independently from their fathers. There are no conflicts of interest, a White House spokeswoman said, adding that President Trump only acts in the best interest of the American public. Now, I think if you're president, I mean, yes, I get the argument that a president is meant to be absent from the process of business deals that might impact their decisions about national security issues. But their children and their families are free to do. This is America. And if you are the child of a president, you are free to make money however you want to make money. It's hard for me to believe that President Trump isn't sitting there pleased, at least, that his children are making literally billions of dollars in the course of the last two years. But I think what you are saying is right is that in the president mind and in the administration mind business of this sort is good for America writ large And it was interesting you know when they did the hostage swap after the recent Gaza deal Donald Trump kind of made a point of letting it be known that he was bringing Jared Kushner in because Jared Kushner had these business relationships with the Gulf states and therefore could exercise leverage in a way that regular wipe that Marco Rubio couldn't because Marco Rubio has been a Senate for ages. He has not been flying around the Gulf in private planes, schmoozing Gulf Arab states and making money with them. And I guess that's their argument, is that this old fashioned way of thinking of doing things. I mean, Trump loves the idea that he's blown up the political model and that this is an old way of thinking things, that only the people who are in government, Senate confirmed, the staffers can actually do this kind of deal. What he would say is, actually, you have a much better chance of doing deals, particularly in areas of the world like the Middle East, where things are done on a rather sort of feudal system and a relationship-to-relationship system, if you've been in business and you have relationships with these people. But would your friends in the intelligence community be having a few anxious moments about this. Yeah, I would think so. Because I think you can agree with the idea that using business colleagues, contacts, people who are heavily networked commercially in particular parts of the world, you could make the argument that yes, in some cases, using those kinds of people in foreign policy dealings, in negotiations, makes sense. But it also, it does not follow that those people and their families have to be personally enriched by the deals that you were doing while you were in office. I mean, I think this is another, you know, sort of discrepancy here between or kind of a departure with tradition in the U.S. system is normally this kind of commercial activity on the part of people with this type of foreign policy experience would happen either before they came into office or after. I think, frankly, I mean, this would have made any previous U.S. administration of recent memory sort of blush in how brazen and open it is, right? There's zero apology for this. There doesn't seem to be any embarrassment about it. Trump has said himself, nobody cares. So, we're just going to keep doing it, you know? And this is exactly how, so when I was a young CIA analyst working on Syria, you know, these kind of arrangements where you would have a family and you might have one or two brothers who were actually in the military and security services, and then another one who's outside, who's doing the financial stuff. That was a very common system. And it was understood that it was family money and the families internally had their own way of sort of earmarking it. You'd have someone who was involved in the statecraft and someone who's involved in the commercial side. The commercial person's making money. The people on the statecraft side are protecting their interests from the state in some cases because there's really predatory institutions and then using the state, manipulating it and the networks inside of it to make money for the family. It's a classic model. And anyone who thinks that somehow, you know, Trump and the elder Whitcoff don't have an understanding of what's happening and are not engaged in the commercial side of this in some way, shape or form, I think you'd have to be a lunatic to think that that's correct. How would we know if the money had impacted US national security policy in a way that harmed America? Would we ever be able to connect those dots? I think they'd be really hard to connect. Let's take the deal with the Emirates, right, for those microchips, most of which I believe are manufactured by NVIDIA. And the concern is that those chips would end up in Chinese hands. presumably maybe down the line, someone inside the intelligence community somewhere could be able to draw a line between that deal and sort of a source of leakage into the Chinese market from those chips that, you know, originated from the Emirates potentially. But a lot of the reason it's so, I think it can be hard to talk about this and hard for a lot of people to conceptualize what's going on is that oftentimes like you just, if you read the Wall Street Journal reporting about that deal, it's kind of confusing. You have to read things a few times to understand what's actually happened. And then there's this other problem. I mean, one example I'll give is on, you know, the Trump organizations, even though crypto is a massive amount of its income now. And I actually think before the Trump administration came into office, they were making about 50 mil in income per year inside the Trump organization. Now it's up to like, I think in the first half of last year, it might have been north of 800 plus million. And most of that's from the crypto, right? So it's a massive, massive increase. The licensing deals are still part of the overall pot. And there's one example here where the Trump administration agreed to lower its threatened tariffs on Vietnam a month after a Trump organization project broke ground on a massive multi-billion dollar golf complex outside of Hanoi. So like, you couldn't, So in that case, you'd be like, well, maybe the tariffs weren't a good idea anyway. Right. Right. So maybe it's fine. But that's sort of another clear example of we're going to use the levers of state in a negotiation that is going to directly, you know, enrich us. I mean, another great example from the crypto grift, which I think is endlessly fascinating, is this. And I'm not sure if you guys had covered this one, but there was a dinner last May for the largest meme coin buyers. Out in Virginia. That's right. And the top spender was a Chinese crypto billionaire who had bought more than 20 mil worth of those meme coins. And then a few weeks after Trump takes office, the SEC suspends a fraud, a civil fraud case it had brought against him. So, you know, I'd probably say that's not in the interest of the American people, but very much in the interest of the Trump organization. And it is hard to connect the dots and there is no proof of wrongdoing. You cannot say that these chips were given to the UAE because of money that was given from the UAE into the Trump organization's coffers. So that is also making this a harder story to report on. But the direct tie has not been proven, but there are an awful lot of people, including the Democrats after the midterm elections, who are going to be asking questions about whether there was a quid pro quo here. All I'm going to say is let's flip it. If I'm a Chinese crypto guy paying 20 million or I'm a UAE royal shake to noon paying 500 million into some Trump family crypto deal, I'm going to be kind of pissed off if I don't get anything in return. You would be pissed off. I just think that was a very bad investment. So these people are smart. They're business people. They're making these business investments for a reason. It may not be easy for us to connect the direct dots of the quid pro quo, but I think you'd have to be pretty naive about the way politics and money work, not to think there was some kind of quid pro quo going on. Yeah, that's right. Kudos to the Wall Street Journal for reporting this because it is complicated, which I think is partly why, as Donald Trump says, nobody cares because crypto is inherently complicated and these financial dealings are inherently complicated, which I think makes it even harder for journalists to tell the stories. And I'll say just on that point, and on the kind of murky sort of classified end of things, I mean, I've heard from former agency contacts who have been involved in helping some of these sort of family associated entities do deals, even much smaller deals overseas, like in the Middle East, where I think it is what we have just talked about, I think, is the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more going on that just hasn't been reported and or, you know, can't be reported because it really is just I think it is a massive story that really more people should be paying attention to because it's happening all around us. I agree. I think it's one of the biggest stories of this administration. I think if the Democrats win the midterms, we will hear more about it. But it's complicated and therefore hard to keep the public's attention. David McCloskey, thank you very much. our new co-host of the Rest is Politics US for this week. Don't panic, Anthony. I know Anthony's terribly thin-skinned, so don't worry, Anthony. Can't wait to have you back later this week. But David, thank you. Honestly, that was great. It was really lovely to have the program. And of course, if anyone wants more of David with his co-host Gordon Carrera's excellent reporting into the murky world of secrets and spies, it's all there on The Rest is Classified. and congratulations, by the way, on your book, The Seventh Floor. I'm going to confess I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I've heard so many people have recommended it to me. So I will get to it. I'm waiting for the signed copy, actually. Oh, that's true. Okay. I will rectify that. I will rectify that immediately. And, you know, maybe see you next week because I have no intention of turning over Anthony's chair. No, well, once you, you know, nine tenths of, you know, whatever it is, possession is nine tenths of the law. So there you go. You're in the seat right now. That's right. Thanks very much for joining us, David. And thanks, guys, for listening. We'll be back later with more of your questions and we'll have more with David's going to answer some of your questions for our founding members. If you'd like to become a founding member, you know where to find us. The rest is politicsus.com. And this week you'll have David McCloskey answer great questions too. So that'll be fun. Thanks, Katty. This was a lot of fun. Did Vladimir Putin interfere in the US 2016 presidential election? I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist. And I'm David McCloskey, author and former CIA analyst. And we are the hosts of The Rest is Classified. And in our latest series, we're going deep inside the 2016 election to reveal the true story of whether the Russians helped Donald Trump take the White House. This is the unbelievable story of how Russian spies first hacked and then leaked emails belonging to Hillary Clinton's campaign. how Julian Assange got involved with Putin's spies, and how 2016 marked the point that the world changed forever. Get the full insider scoop by listening to The Rest is Classified, wherever you get your podcasts.
