
Crypto memecoin $TRUMP dinner blurs lines between profit and politics
Live Events
More than two hundred guests on Thursday will make their way to a ritzy country club just up the Potomac River from Washington, ready for a sumptuous dinner hosted by the president of the United States.The lucky few are not top officials or visiting heads of state but the 220 biggest buyers of $TRUMP, a crypto memecoin launched by the US president in January.The top 25 investors will enjoy even more special access: a private session with Trump before dinner -- which is set at the Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia -- and a White House tour."The most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World," a website dedicated to the event said. "The question is...ARE YOU IN?"This dinner represents perhaps the boldest commercial venture of Trump's presidency, further blurring already hazy boundaries between politics and profit.Launched hours before his January inauguration, the $TRUMP memecoin is only one example of the Trump family's ever-expanding moves into cryptocurrency Much of the crypto industry frowns upon these coins or tokens, fearing they tarnish the sector's credibility, amid reports of quick pump-and-dump schemes that leave unwitting buyers paying for assets that end up worthless.$TRUMP saw a spike in value when it announced the dinner, but reports said that many of the winners of the offer, which closed on May 12, are now selling their memecoins.Critics, including the typically Trump-friendly Wall Street Journal editorial board, point out that Trump and his allies, as the creators of the memecoin, have made $320 million in trading fees, citing Chainalysis, a data analytic firm.They also point out that the dinner allows foreign actors who otherwise can't influence the White House to try to use the memecoin to buy favor with the government.The crypto industry, which massively contributed to his campaign, has welcomed Trump's return to the White House, praising his promise for a clear departure from the skepticism of the previous Democratic administration toward digital currencies.Those years were marked by major scandal, including the collapse of FTX, the crypto giant founded by CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who is now serving a 25-year sentence for committing massive fraud.But the controversy surrounding the dinner is complicating efforts to pass crucial legislation that would provide clearer legal framework in stablecoins, digital assets that are considered safer and more established than more speculative corners of the sector."The American people deserve the unwavering assurance that access to the presidency is not being offered for sale to the highest bidder in exchange for the President's own financial gain," US Senators Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren wrote in a letter to the Office of Government Ethics.Trump, despite previous hostility toward cryptocurrency, has already taken significant steps to reduce regulatory barriers, including an executive order establishing a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" that would maintain government holdings of the world's leading digital currency.However, key Democrats in Congress are blocking other legislative advancements, frustrated by the dinner and other Trump family ventures into cryptocurrency.- Win the 'race' -These expanding connections include investment in Binance, whose founder is seeking a presidential pardon to re-enter the US market.The investment is being made through World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture backed by the Trumps that launched in September and has made major deals in the Middle East.The company founders feature Trump's sons Donald Jr. and Eric alongside Zach Witkoff, son of Trump's diplomatic adviser Steve Witkoff.At an April crypto conference in Dubai, Eric Trump and Zach Witkoff announced that the state-backed Emirati fund MGX would use USD1, their firm's cryptocurrency, to invest $2 billion in Binance.Additionally, American Bitcoin, another venture backed by Trump's eldest sons, recently announced plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange.That company will ride lower energy costs and environmental norms to lower the cost of bitcoin mining in the United States."The US won the space race. We better win the crypto race," Eric Trump recently told CNBC.arp/bfm
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Hindustan Times
36 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Donald Trump military parade FAQs: RSVP, ticket prices, venue details, date and more
President Donald Trump will host a grand military parade on June 14, 2025, celebrating the US Army's 250th anniversary, coinciding with his 79th birthday. The event, featuring 6,600 soldiers, tanks, and flyovers, is open for locals to attend. Here are key details on the event: Date: Saturday, June 14, 2025 Parade Time: 6:30 PM to 7:30 PM EDT A festival on the National Mall runs all day, with a wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery in the morning, a fitness competition, an enlistment ceremony led by Trump, a Golden Knights parachute jump, a concert at the Ellipse, and fireworks at 9:45 PM will also be held. Read More: Trump stumbles on Air Force One steps, internet says 'Joe Biden vibes' The parade starts at the Pentagon's north parking lot in Arlington, Virginia, crosses the Arlington Memorial Bridge, and proceeds along Constitution Avenue NW from 23rd Street to 15th Street, covering 0.89 miles. Heavy vehicles join near the Lincoln Memorial to avoid bridge damage. Festival Location: National Mall, with equipment displays, military demonstrations, and musical performances. Tickets: The parade and festival are free and open to the public, with no tickets issued. However, notes an RSVP option for the 'Grand Military Parade and Celebration' via America250's event registration portal ( requiring full name, email, phone number, zip code, and state. Two people can register per phone number. RSVPs help organizers plan, but free tickets are limited. RSVP Link: Available at attendees are encouraged to RSVP early due to high demand. Livestream: The parade will be livestreamed on US Army social media platforms for those unable to attend. Read More: Trump says he would 'certainly invoke' Insurrection Act if needed amid Los Angeles protests The parade features 6,600–7,000 soldiers, 150 vehicles (including 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks, 28 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, 28 Strykers, and four M109 Paladin howitzers), 50 aircraft (helicopters like Apaches, Black Hawks, and Chinooks), 34 horses, two mules, one dog, and historical reenactors in uniforms from the Revolutionary War to modern conflicts.


India Today
an hour ago
- India Today
LA protests: Judge denies California's bid to block Trump's use of National Guard
A federal judge in San Francisco has declined California Governor Gavin Newsom's request for an immediate restraining order to prevent the Trump administration from deploying Marines and National Guard troops in Los Angeles for immigration enforcement operations. Judge Charles R Breyer scheduled a hearing for Thursday afternoon to further consider the state's request for a temporary restraining Justice Department has called the state's request "legally meritless" and warned that granting it could jeopardize the safety of Department of Homeland Security personnel and interfere with federal operations, CNN development comes after Newsom filed an emergency motion in federal court seeking to block the Trump administration from using National Guard troops and US Marines in immigration raids across Los Angeles, escalating a fierce standoff between state and federal authorities. 'Trump is turning the US military against American citizens,' Newsom wrote on X (formerly Twitter), as he accused the president of weaponizing troops against Californians in the wake of days-long protests over immigration I just filed an emergency motion to block Trump's illegal deployment of Marines and National Guard in Los is turning the U.S. military against American courts must immediately block these illegal actions. Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 10, 2025Newsom's legal filing, submitted on Tuesday, comes as President Donald Trump ramps up his controversial deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to the city. While initially tasked with protecting federal buildings and personnel, the new filing says military support is shifting toward direct assistance in immigration operations, including securing raid locations and controlling surrounding declaration from Paul Eck, deputy general counsel for the California Military Department, submitted as part of the filing, warned that 'the Pentagon plans to direct the California National Guard to support immigration operations,' blurring the line between civil assistance and immigration enforcement.'It's a sense of intimidation and fear that is just so unnecessary and so corrosive to our city,' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said at a Tuesday press conference. She added that ICE raids are expected to continue for 30 days or said she planned to personally ask Trump to halt the operations. Meanwhile, Los Angeles police confirmed over 100 arrests in connection with the protests, and acknowledged the use of "numerous less-lethal rounds" to disperse Trump on Tuesday issued a stern warning to anyone planning to protest during the upcoming military parade on June 14, which marks the US Army's 250th anniversary in Washington. The large-scale event, scheduled to take place on the National Mall and through the streets of Washington, also coincides with Trump's 79th birthday.(With inputs from Associated Press)Tune InMust Watch


Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
Paul Weiss Strategy Tested as Partners Exit Post-Trump Deal
Paul Weiss leader Brad Karp spent more than a decade building his firm's deals practice to an elite level matching its litigation work. A deal he struck with President Donald Trump threatens the balance between the two. The Wall Street firm lost a string of litigation partners following the March 20 deal with Trump to provide $40 million in free legal services. The move got Paul Weiss out from under an executive order that Karp said threatened the firm's survival. Jeh Johnson, the prominent Democrat and former Homeland Security Secretary, last month retired from the firm where he'd spent parts of 40 years. Days later, a high-profile group of litigators, including Karen Dunn, Bill Isaacson, and Jeannie Rhee, hit the exit to launch their own firm, which numbers seven ex-Paul Weiss partners so far. Also gone: Damian Williams, the former Manhattan US Attorney who bolted from Paul Weiss after six months on the job to join Jenner & Block, a firm that successfully fought off a Trump executive order in court. All have Democratic ties. The departures accentuate a long-term trend at Paul Weiss, with the firm shifting its focus to lucrative work for private equity giants such as Apollo Global Management, Blackstone, and Bain Capital. That's brought greater headcount, revenue, and profitability, but also challenged the firm's identity. 'Paul Weiss made a decision a while ago to invest in their corporate work, and this is just a further development in that trajectory,' said Alisa Levin, a veteran recruiter with Greene-Levin-Snyder Legal Search Group. 'Nobody has left yet from the corporate side and I doubt that anybody will.' A Paul Weiss spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. The firm under Karp has changed its compensation model so that partners don't know what others earn, and it added a second tier of partners who don't share in the firm's profits. Some of those who departed for the new Dunn firm were in the income partner category, according to three sources familiar with the firm. The corporate practice now outnumbers the litigation group, data from Leopard Solutions show. Karp, who has worked at Paul Weiss for more than 40 years, rose to prominence as a litigator and led the firm's courtroom practice before becoming chairman in 2008. He's become a go-to lawyer for the National Football League and built a reputation counseling major banks including Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. 'I went to Paul Weiss because of the reputation as the finest litigation, white collar defense firm in the county,' he said in a 2024 podcast interview with Quinn Emanuel leader John Quinn. Karp, who snagged Apollo as a major client on the litigation side, identified public M&A, private equity, and restructuring as three practice groups Paul Weiss needed to develop when he took the reins. 'You wouldn't be at the top of the national or New York market if you were a very successful litigation defense boutique,' Karp said in the podcast interview. 'We just had to be broader than that, and we had to be more resilient than that.' He scored a coup bringing onboard Scott Barshay from Cravath Swaine & Moore in 2016. Barshay, as corporate department head, holds great sway within the firm, bringing in major business and leading some of its recruitment efforts. Barshay was among a small group of partners Karp consulted on how to respond to Trump's executive order, the New York Times reported. Tension between litigation and corporate groups is not unique to Paul Weiss. Kirkland & Ellis, the world's largest firm by revenue, was long known as a Chicago-based litigation shop before its corporate practice shot to the top of the industry on the back of the surging private equity industry in the mid-to-late 2010s. Kirkland is among the nine firms that made deals with Trump to avoid executive orders, pledging nearly $1 billion in free legal services. Some Kirkland alumni describe litigation as an add-on 'service' for corporate clients, a view that firm leader Jon Ballis, has pushed back against, saying that the firm's litigation group would be larger than most law firms based on its revenue and is comparatively profitable to the firm's corporate work. Kirkland's litigation group has focused its work on major matters and been more receptive to alternative fee arrangements, which can bring large profit margins. Paul Weiss' litigators have maintained a lofty position in the industry. Top litigators include Ted Wells, former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and appellate practice leader Kannon Shanmugam. Many of the lawyers who departed had strong ties to Democrat politics, with Dunn prepping presidential candidate Kamala Harris for her debate with Trump, and Williams serving in a role appointed by President Joe Biden. Karp told attendees at a litigation partner lunch last week that six of the firm's 10 largest ongoing matters are litigation-related and none of those matters was generated or worked on by any of the partners who recently departed the firm, according to three people who attended the meeting. 'Paul Weiss is an institution, and the firm's litigation team will continue on as a top-caliber group despite these departures,' said Jon Truster, a partner at recruiting firm Macrae. Dunn and Isaacson joined the firm in a high-profile move from Boies Schiller Flexner in 2020. The group was known for its relationships with Big Tech clients such as Apple Inc., Oracle Corp., Facebook Inc., Uber Technologies Corp., and Inc., which it continued to represent at Paul Weiss. Dunn also pursued pro bono work with Paul Weiss-like vigor, including representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit over the Charlottsville 'Unite the Right' rally. The firm's commitment to pro bono work dates back at least a century. Paul Weiss attorneys worked to overturn the wrongful conviction of 'the Scottsboro boys,' a group of Black teenagers in the 1930s who were falsely accused of raping a White woman in Alabama. The firm opened an office in San Francisco—a historically difficult market to crack—shortly after the arrival of Dunn and Isaacson, signaling the hires' impact. Paul Weiss' Silicon Valley presence today numbers less than 40 lawyers, and it has only made one internal partner promotion there since the office opened. Dunn appears set to continue her work with major clients. She's notified courts in cases representing Google and Qualcomm of her change to a new firm, staying on the cases alongside other Paul Weiss lawyers. She did withdraw from one case this week. She is no longer working alongside Paul Weiss lawyers representing the city of Springfield, Ohio in a pro bono case against the Blood Tribe, a group labeled as neo-Nazis by the Anti-Defamation League that rallied in the city in 2024 amid a campaign of conspiracy theories directed against its Haitian community. To contact the reporters on this story: Roy Strom in Chicago at rstrom@ Justin Henry in Washington DC at jhenry@ To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chris Opfer at copfer@ John Hughes at jhughes@ Alessandra Rafferty at arafferty@ This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.