Latest news with #StateDemocracyDefendersAction
Int'l Business Times
21-07-2025
- Business
- Int'l Business Times
Trump's Truth Social Says They Now Have $2 Billion in Bitcoin Reserves
President Donald Trump's social media app Truth Social announced they now have approximately $2 billion in Bitcoin reserves and Bitcoin-related assets. The move to acquire the large amount of cryptocurrency was made by Truth Social's operator Trump Media, leading the Bitcoin to account for nearly two-thirds of their assets, which total $3 billion, according to a press release . "These assets help ensure our Company's financial freedom, help protect us against discrimination by financial institutions, and will create synergies with the utility token we're planning to introduce across the Truth Social ecosphere," David Nunes, CEO and president of Trump Media, said. Trump Media said it plans to continue acquiring bitcoin and bitcoin-related assets, which will be used by the company to generate revenue and acquire even more crypto assets. The company shared that it has an "options acquisition strategy for bitcoin-related securities" in place, with $300 million set aside for the plan. The president faced scrutiny earlier this year after launching a Trump memecoin, which was valued at a tens of billions of dollars days before his inauguration. According to an April report from State Democracy Defenders Action, a nonpartisan lobbying and advocacy group, the Trump family has profited at least $2.9 billion from cryptocurrency. Trump held a dinner with the top holders of his memecoin in May, with many reportedly saying that they hoped to influence policies on cryptocurrency. Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., who has been a vocal proponent of cryptocurrency, has pushed back against concerns that the memecoin could lead to foreign influence, telling CNBC in June that "it's hard to influence if you don't know where the stuff is coming from." Since the announcement of Truth Social and Trump Media's acquisition of billions in Bitcoin, stock in Trump Media opened 6% higher Monday morning, according to Yahoo! Finance . Originally published on Latin Times
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's Crypto Grift Is the Latest Corruption Mike Johnson Says He's Too ‘Busy' to Care About
House Speaker Mike Johnson wants you to know he is a very 'busy' man. Too busy, in fact, to care about Donald Trump's blatant corruption. When confronted with legitimate concerns that Trump is using the power of the presidency to enrich himself by launching a crypto meme coin and allowing the scheme's top investors to dine privately with him at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, Johnson essentially shrugged. 'President Trump held a closed-door event Thursday night for top investors in his private cryptocurrency. We do not know who was there. The list has not been released. We do not know how much of the money came from outside the country,' Jake Tapper said while interviewing Johnson Sunday on CNN's State of the Union. 'The president has, of course, a huge role to play when it comes to regulation, regulating crypto. I really have a difficult time imagining that, if this was a Democratic president doing the exact same thing, you wouldn't be outraged.' 'Well, look, I don't know anything about the dinner. I was a little busy this past week, as you know, getting the reconciliation package over the line,' the speaker said, referring to legislation that would severely cut Medicare and Medicaid while carrying out Trump's domestic agenda. 'And so I'm not going to comment on something I haven't even heard about. I'm not sure who was there, what the purpose was.' Johnson went on to praise Trump, who has also evaded questions about how much he has made on the meme coin, as 'the greatest dealmaker, one of the greatest dealmakers of all time.' And sure, Trump's crypto investments have been great deals — for the president's wallet. The Trump family has added nearly $2.9 billion to its net worth because of its crypto investments, comprising 37 percent of Trump's total assets, State Democracy Defenders Action estimated in a report issued earlier this month. 'As a stakeholder in crypto assets, President Trump will likely profit from the very policies he is pursuing,' the authors of the report wrote. Trump's Jan. 23 executive order, Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology, created regulations that encourage digital currency growth. As a result of the order, Trump's Justice Department directed prosecutors not to charge people for digital assets fraud unless the funds are used to commit other criminal offenses 'such as terrorism, narcotics and human trafficking, organized crime, hacking, and cartel and gang financing.' Meaning, digital assets fraud will not be prosecuted unless it is done in furtherance of another crime. Trump doesn't just earn money when the value of his meme goes up, he also profits from trading fees. Less than two weeks after $TRUMP launched, according to Reuters, trades of the coin amassed between $86-100 million in fees. While Johnson is blasé about Trump's corruption and investors purchasing access to the president, he was very concerned about people potentially buying access to then-President Joe Biden through his son — even though a months-long House investigation was unable to uncover any evidence of impeachable offenses or wrongdoing by the president. 'The difference, of course, is that President Trump does everything out in the open. He's not trying to hide anything,' Johnson told Tapper when asked about the comparison between Biden and Trump. 'He's putting it out there, so everybody can evaluate for themselves.' Of course, not all of the details about the dinner are out in the open as Johnson claims. The identities of the majority of the invitees, including the 25 VIP dinner attendees, are unknown. According to a Bloomberg News analysis, 19 of the top 25 wallets to purchase $TRUMP used foreign exchanges, hinting that the majority of those buying the most of Trump's token are not from the U.S. and raising concerns about foreign influence of the president. When asked for details on attendees, press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, 'The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner.' Self-identified dinner attendees include Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun (whose company Tron has been linked to illicit crypto activity and was reportedly under investigation by the Biden Justice Department), social media influencer Nicholas Pinto (who complained the food was subpar), and former NBA player Lamar Odom (who has his own cryptocurrency and was booed by protesters as he arrived at the venue). When Tapper asked about the 220 dinner attendees — 'Shouldn't we at least just know who was at the dinner? Wouldn't you want to know that list of people?' — Johnson again gave the verbal equivalent of a shrug. 'I guess,' he said. 'I mean, again, I don't know anything about that dinner. I do know that President Trump is the most transparent president in the most transparent administration probably in history. He has nothing to hide.' Johnson's justifications here are bizarre. He says he knows nothing about the dinner all while claiming Trump is being entirely 'transparent' and 'has nothing to hide.' But how would Johnson know that Trump is being transparent if Johnson himself is ignorant about the details of the dinner? This is not the first time Johnson has claimed he simply doesn't know enough to comment on the meme coin grift. 'I don't know anything about the meme coin thing. I don't know, I can just tell you that, I mean President Trump has nothing to hide. He's very upfront about it. There are people who watch all the ethics of that, but I mean I've got to be concerned with running the House of Representatives,' Johnson told reporters on May 14. 'Congress has oversight responsibility, but I think, so far as I know the ethics are all being followed,' Johnson added. Johnson has pleaded ignorance other times to wiggle out of addressing allegations of Trump's corruption. When asked about Trump's plans to accept a lavish private jet from Qatar's royal family earlier this month, Johnson said, 'Look, I've been a little busy on reconciliation, so I'm not following all the twists and turns of the Qatar jet, I certainly heard about it. My understanding is it's not a personal gift to the president, it's a gift to the United States, and other nations give us gifts all the time, but I'm going to leave it to the administration.' It appears that, under Johnson's leadership, congressional oversight of the executive branch is deemed unimportant when the corruption of a Republican president is in plain sight. As for Trump, he's planning on raking in as much cash as he can in his second term after deciding it was 'stupid' that other Republicans and his own advisors convinced him to temper his corruption during his first term, sources told Rolling Stone last week. More from Rolling Stone Judges Consider Managing Their Own Security Force Due to Rising Threats Trump's ICE Detains U.S. Citizen, Claiming His REAL ID Was Fake Joe Biden Struggling to Bring In Cash After 2024 Election Catastrophe Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
Int'l Business Times
09-05-2025
- Business
- Int'l Business Times
White House Insists Trump Has 'Lost Money' Since Being President Despite 'Corruption' Accusations: 'He Left a Life of Luxury'
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted President Donald Trump has "lost money" since beginning his second term despite a report revealing he and his family have allegedly generated $2.9 billion in cryptocurrency earnings. Leavitt defended the White House's ethics on Friday after a reporter asked whether he plans to visit any of his businesses during his upcoming trip to the Middle East. Just over the past two weeks, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have inked new ventures involving billions of dollars, including a $1 billion, 80-story Trump International Hotel and Tower in Dubai, which will sells units that cost up to $20 million, The New York Times reported. "Not to my knowledge, and let me just get to the premise of your question that both of you have raised," Leavitt responded in a clip circulating on X. "I think it's frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit." "He left a life of luxury and a life of running a very successful real estate empire for public service, not just once but twice," Leavitt continued, adding that he was voted back into the White House because Americans "trust he acts in the best interest of our country and putting the American public first." "This is a president who has actually lost money for being president of the United States," Leavitt claimed. "I don't remember these same types of questions being asked of my predecessor about a career politician who was clearly profiting off of this office. That is not what President Trump does and this White House holds ourselves to the highest of ethical standards," she added. Although Leavitt claimed that the president has lost money, a report from State Democracy Defenders Action, a nonpartisan lobbying and advocacy organization, found that the Trump family has profited $2.9 billion from cryptocurrency during the past six months alone. Trump's cryptocurrency empire is expected to expand further after his cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial, announced an Abu Dhabi-backed firm will invest $2 billion in the company in 2025. President Trump and his sons hold a 60% ownership stake in World Liberty Financial and will receive 75% of net revenue from future token sales, according to CBS News. Meanwhile, from within the White House, Trump has continued to champion cryptocurrency. In March, he signed an executive order establishing a "Crypto Strategic Reserve" as part of his effort to position the U.S. as the "crypto capital of the world." Originally published on Latin Times
NZ Herald
24-04-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
How Trump team turned a dinner invite into a crypto boon worth millions
The coin's price has surged more than 30% since the announcement, to about US$12, boosting the value of the crypto wallets owned by a digital firm affiliated with Trump's family business, the Trump Organisation, by roughly US$100 million, the review shows. The Trump-allied team who launched the meme coin also earn fees when the coins are bought or traded, including via a debit-card-friendly 'buy now' button on the coin's website. The team have earned US$1.25m in fees over the past week, the analysis found. Trump has frequently promoted his desire to turn the United States into the 'crypto capital of the planet' and two of his sons, Eric and Donald Trump jnr, have described the $TRUMP coin as the 'hottest digital meme on earth'. The dinner promotion 'creates the spectre of a pay-to-play deal' for wealthy spenders eager to bend the President's ear, said Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel for watchdog group State Democracy Defenders Action and a former White House associate counsel under President Barack Obama. 'He's actually selling access, personal access, to him and to the White House if people invest in this meme coin, which really has no intrinsic value,' Canter said. 'If you are a foreign government burdened by tariffs, will you be enticed to invest? If you're a criminal felon, will you maybe invest in hopes they'll give you an opportunity to make your case for a pardon?' Senanor Chris Murphy (Democrat, Connecticut) posted on X: 'This isn't Trump just being Trump. The Trump coin scam is the most brazenly corrupt thing a President has ever done. Not close.' The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Trump Organisation officials also did not respond. The meme coin project is run by a Trump Organisation affiliate and a Delaware-registered company called Fight Fight Fight that together own 80% of the coins. (That company, led by a Trump friend and entrepreneur named Bill Zanker, is named for Trump's rallying cry after his attempted assassination last year in Pennsylvania.) The coin is one of several Trump-brand crypto ventures launched within the past year, including a company called World Liberty Financial, which offers a separate crypto token named WLFI that calls itself 'inspired by Donald Trump'. Since launching days before the inauguration in January, the meme coin has earned for Trump and his business partners about US$41 million in fees and US$312 million in sales of the coin, according to the Post analysis. The Trump meme coin team said only the coin's top 220 holders would be invited to the gala dinner and created an online leaderboard to rank the anonymous accounts, who are known only by their crypto wallet's addresses and usernames such as 'elon', 'MTGA' and 'boop'. At least 15 wallets hold more than 100,000 of the $TRUMP meme coins, the leaderboard says. The Post used data from Flipside Crypto, Arkham Intelligence and the Meteora decentralised exchange to analyse meme coin transactions on the blockchain, a sort of public database that logs crypto activity. Though many wallets aren't tied to a real person's identity, their trades are linked to standardised address codes and other pieces of data that allow them to be tracked around the web. The Post review found several of the coin's recent acquirers have received funds from Binance, a crypto exchange that doesn't allow US customers, suggesting they may not be Americans. The biggest wallet on the leaderboard, calling itself 'Sun', has more than 1.1 million of the coins, a stake now worth more than US$13 million on paper. The wallet is registered by HTX, a crypto exchange founded in China whose global advisory board includes the crypto billionaire Justin Sun. Sun invested $30 million in Trump's World Liberty Financial last year while under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on charges of fraud. The SEC asked a federal judge to halt the case in February and the Justice Department this month directed prosecutors to no longer pursue or investigate certain kinds of crypto crimes. (Neither Sun nor HTX immediately responded to requests for comment.) The meme coin's website, which includes heavily edited photos of Trump at a dinner table, says the gala dinner is 'one of the most exclusive events in the world' and that invitees will have to pay all expenses, including for the meal, parking and tips. The top 25 coin-holders will also be invited to tour the White House and attend a private 'VIP reception' with Trump. But the team warn in the terms and conditions that Trump may not be able to attend the dinner, which 'may be cancelled for any reason'. If Trump cannot attend, the fine print says, meme coin-holders could instead receive a 'limited edition' Trump NFT or non-fungible token – the crypto equivalent of a digital trading card. But some shareholders in Trump Media & Technology Group, the public company that runs the social network Truth Social, have expressed frustration at how crypto investors might get special treatment. Chad Nedohin, an investor and long-time cheerleader of Trump Media's stock on Truth Social, posted there on Wednesday, 'Where's the part for [Trump Media] OGs who've been wiped out for 4 years?' he said, using a slang term for 'original gangster'. (Nedohin did not respond to requests for comment.) Even with the past day's boom, the meme coin's value remains nearly 90% lower than its initial peak of about US$74, which it reached between its launch on January 17 and Trump's inauguration on January 20. The meme coin team continued promoting the offer on Thursday, posting on X that the private event would not be recorded. 'This is real, in the room, shoulder to shoulder with Greatness,' the post says. 'No second chances. If you're in crypto, you need to be there.'
Washington Post
07-02-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Democrats, don't save Trump from himself
So, here's a shocker: It turns out that, if you elect a felon as president of the United States, he will continue to break laws once he's in office. Who knew? Ultimately, it will be up to the courts to determine which of President Donald Trump's actions are illegal. But a case can be made — indeed, many cases already have been made in federal courts — that the new administration over the course of the last fortnight has violated each of the following laws. See if you can say them in one breath. In reverse chronological order of first enactment: The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act of 2024. The Administrative Leave Act of 2016. The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014. The Affordable Care Act of 2010. The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986. The Inspector General Act of 1978. The Privacy Act of 1974. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946. The Public Health Service Act 1944. The Antideficiency Act of 1870. That's a century and a half of statutes shredded in just over two weeks. And those don't include the ways in which Trump already appears to be in violation of the Constitution: The First Amendment's protections of free speech and association; the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection and due process; the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment; the 14th Amendment's promise of birthright citizenship; Article I's spending, presentment, appropriations and bicameralism clauses; Article II's take-care clause; and the separation of powers generally. 'The Trump administration so far has been the advent calendar of illegality,' says Norman Eisen, whose group, State Democracy Defenders Action, has been filing lawsuits against the administration. At least seven federal judges appointed by presidents of both political parties have already blocked Trump's moves to freeze federal funding, end birthright citizenship, extend a dubious buyout offer to government employees and deny treatment to transgender inmates. Benjamin Wittes, who runs the popular Lawfare publication, predicts that, of the dozens of instances in which Trump is in conflict with existing law, he will ultimately lose 80 percent of the cases when they eventually arrive at the Supreme Court after 18 months or so of litigation. But that's a long time to wait while the president's lawlessness causes chaos and suffering. And even if the pro-Trump majority on the Supreme Court hands him a victory only 20 percent of the time, that could still fundamentally reshape the U.S. government, reducing Congress to irrelevance. Republicans in Congress have for years asserted their Article I authority, and they howled about encroaching dictatorship when President Joe Biden did nothing more nefarious than forgive student-loan debt. (The Supreme Court struck that down.) So what are they doing about Trump usurping the powers of Congress? They're applauding. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, acknowledged that what Trump and Elon Musk are doing to cut off congressionally mandated funding 'runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.' But, he told reporters this week, that's 'not uncommon' and 'nobody should bellyache about that.' House Speaker Mike Johnson, at a news conference Wednesday, was asked by Fox News's Chad Pergram about the 'inconsistency' of Republicans who are now 'ceding Article I powers to the executive branch under Elon Musk.' 'I think there's a gross overreaction in the media,' Johnson replied, with a forced chuckle. He admitted that what Trump is doing 'looks radical,' but went on: 'This is not a usurpation of authority in any way. It's not a power grab. I think they're doing what we've all expected and hoped and asked that they would do.' These are not the words of a constitutionally designated leader of the legislative branch. These are the words of a Donald Trump handmaiden. And it is time for Democrats to treat him as such. Democrats have been negotiating in good faith on a deal to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2025; the government shuts down in five weeks if funding isn't extended. There's no doubt that Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, are also negotiating in good faith. But the whole thing is not on the level. Trump has shown that he will ignore the spending bills passed by Congress and fund only those programs he supports — the Constitution, and the law, be damned. And Johnson has made clear that this is 'what we've all expected and hoped and asked that they would do.' In a letter to his Democratic colleagues this week, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said he told House GOP leaders that Trump's efforts to cut off programs funded by Congress 'must be choked off in the upcoming government funding bill, if not sooner.' But even if Democrats extracted from Republicans language in the spending bill that the programs must be funded as Congress specifies, Trump has already made clear that such a law wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on. And Johnson made it clear he has no intention of obliging Democrats with such a guarantee anyway; he said at his Wednesday news conference that Jeffries's letter 'laid out the foundation for a government shutdown.' Clearly, there is no hope of good-faith negotiation with Trump, or with Johnson. Republicans control the House, Senate and White House. Let them pass a 2025 spending bill on their own. Let them raise the debt ceiling on their own. Let them enact Trump's entire agenda on their own. They have the votes. Democrats ought not give them a single one. Good parenting uses the idea of 'natural consequences': If your child refuses to wear her coat, let her be cold for the day. Either way, the voters will provide the consequences: FAFO. Trump knows what this means: He posted a picture of himself next to a FAFO sign, to deliver the message to Colombia's president during their recent deportation standoff. Democrats, by withholding their votes, will be giving Trump and Johnson some good parenting. Republicans can shut the government down. Or they can enact the sort of devastating cuts to popular programs that they like to talk about. Either way, the voters will provide the natural consequences. The third week of the Trump presidency has been just as chaotic as the first two. Trump, who won the 2024 election promising to end wars and to put 'America First,' now proposes to take over Gaza and to spend American taxpayer dollars to dismantle bombs and make it a 'Riviera' on the Mediterranean. (He later clarified that Israel would handle the forced resettlement of the 2 million Palestinians there — 'people like Chuck Schumer' — and then cede the Palestinian land to the United States.) The Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is using his agency to assist Trump in his personal vendetta against CBS News, forcing the network to hand over unedited tapes of an interview with Kamala Harris that are the subject of a lawsuit Trump filed against CBS. Funding was shut off to some Head Start programs for preschoolers. And the administration, though it isn't deporting any more migrants than the Obama administration did, stepped up efforts to humiliate them and is now sending deportees to Guantánamo Bay. Meantime, the world's wealthiest man runs amok through the federal bureaucracy, and he appears to have access to private records of all Americans and highly classified information such as the identities of CIA operatives. He is reportedly doing this with a group of unvetted men in their early 20s — as well as a 19-year-old heir to a popcorn fortune who recently worked as a camp counselor. Musk, though he seems to be running much of the country, has exempted himself from all government disclosure and ethics requirements. But fear not: If Musk, whose companies get billions of dollars in federal contracts, 'comes across a conflict of interest,' said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, he will — Scout's honor — recuse himself. The administration's attempt to induce federal employees to take a legally dubious buyout came in the form of an email with the same subject line — 'fork in the road' — that Musk used to drive Twitter employees to quit. The South Africa-born Musk, fresh from his encouragement of far-right extremists in Germany, replied 'yes' this week to a post on X that said 'we should allow more immigration of White South Africans.' Musk moved to dismiss staff and shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Musk calls 'evil.' Maybe that's because USAID's inspector general was investigating the activities of Musk's Starlink in Ukraine. But the administration and its allies rushed to justify the decision — by fabricating propaganda. At the White House, Leavitt told reporters that she was 'made aware that USAID has funded media outlets like Politico. I can confirm that more than $8 million … has gone to subsidizing subscriptions.' Trump inflated the fiction further, to suggest 'BILLIONS' went to 'THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A 'PAYOFF' FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS.' In reality, $44,000 of USAID money went to Politico over several years — not from 'payoffs' or 'subsidies' but from officials subscribing to Politico Pro, as they did throughout the government (hence the $8 million). On Capitol Hill, Johnson provided a different fabrication, crediting Trump and Musk for stopping USAID from funding 'transgender operas in Colombia,' 'drag shows in Ecuador' and 'expanding atheism in Nepal.' But it appears USAID did not fund any of those things. The willy-nilly cancellation of all foreign aid would end lifesaving programs and various counterterrorism and counternarcotics efforts, dealing a lethal blow to U.S. soft power and driving countries into the arms of China and Russia, while hurting American farmers in the bargain. But it's not just USAID. Trump and Musk, with their reckless and unfocused attack on federal workers, are raising the likelihood of any number of crises, at home and abroad. Their hollowing-out of the FBI and the Justice Department (with the notable exception of activities targeting Trump critics and migrants) raises the likelihood of a terrorist attack and foreign infiltration, not to mention more crime domestically. Their attempt to drive workers to quit at the CIA and NSA jeopardizes national security. Depleting the ranks of food-safety inspectors and bank regulators poses obvious dangers, as would Trump's idea of abolishing FEMA. The administration tried to reduce personnel at the FAA — but last week's plane crash in D.C. suddenly made it discover we need more air traffic controllers. Yet Republican leaders on Capitol Hill either salute Trump or look the other way. They're on their way to confirming all of Trump's nominees, including vaccines opponent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the federal government's health programs; Tulsi Gabbard, who has a bizarre fondness for Russia, to oversee intelligence; and Kash Patel, Trump's agent of vengeance, to run the FBI. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said the sort of thing Trump and Musk are doing to USAID is 'probably true of any administration when they come in.' Handmaiden Johnson even welcomed the proposed U.S. takeover of Gaza, saying, contrary to reality, that it was 'cheered by, I think, people all around the world.' A few Republicans are raising objections. Collins doesn't think Musk's upending of USAID 'satisfies the requirements of the law,' and she pronounces herself 'very concerned.' But what's the senator from Maine going to do about it? Apparently, nothing. That will have to be up to Democrats. The out-of-power party has been bashed in the news media and by progressives for doing too little to stand up to Trump. Then, when Democratic lawmakers protested outside USAID headquarters, they were criticized for doing too much. 'You don't fight every fight,' Rahm Emanuel told Politico. In truth, Democrats have almost no ability to stop Trump, but they do have the power, and the obligation, to stand in lockstep opposition to what the president is doing. Some of them might argue that the only way to protect certain programs, and the vulnerable people who need them, is to cut a deal with Trump and Republicans. But Trump has demonstrated abundantly that he will try to use unconstitutional means to kill off those programs regardless of what Congress does. But if Democrats can't stop a reckless president from creating unnecessary crises and harming millions of Americans, they certainly don't need to give a bipartisan veneer to the atrocity. Let Republicans own the consequences of breaking government. Don't save Trump from himself.
