Tag: financial crisis
White House Says Musk Won't File Public Financial Disclosure

White House Says Musk Won't File Public Financial Disclosure

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insists President Donald Trump’s Director of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, is complying with all federal laws. The Trump administration is under growing pressure to release Musk’s financial disclosure form and any conflict of interest waiver the President may have signed, if there is one.

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, who wrote the best-selling book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, made a rare appearance inside the White House press briefing room on Wednesday to challenge Musk’s actions.

“You talked about the transparency with DOGE and Elon Musk,” Haberman reminded Leavitt. “There is a conflict of interest law in place that says that people who have personal interests can’t interact with government entities that could touch on those. Has President Trump signed a waiver for Elon Musk, does such a thing and exist, if it does, will you guys release it in the interest of transparency that he’s committed to?”

“I have not seen the law that you are referring to,” Leavitt was quick to respond. “What I can tell you is that Elon Musk is, I’ve confirmed before, is a special government employee. He is filing the proper financial disclosure. And he is complying with all applicable federal laws.”

“As you also heard, Elon addressed this directly yesterday in the alleged conflict of interest, and he said everything he’s doing is very public, and if you all perceive a conflict of interest, you’re welcome to bring that up.”

“And as the president said, if he feels like Elon is engaging in something that’s a conflict of interest, he will tell Elon not to do that,” she claimed. “Elon also said yesterday that before he moves forward with anything, he consults with the president of the United States. So, um, we’re very confident with the ethics and the guardrails that have been put in place here.”

On Tuesday during his Oval Office press conference, Elon Musk told reporters that there is no conflict of interest.

Musk’s SpaceX reportedly received a $38.8 million contract from NASA this week.

CNN on Tuesday reported that Musk has not filed and will not file a public financial disclosure form.

“Musk, speaking in the Oval Office, sought to underscore his belief that ‘transparency is what builds trust,’ and insisted that all of his team’s efforts were being made public on DOGE’s social media accounts and website,” CNN reported. “But he also seemed to chafe at some of the scrutiny he was receiving, likening it to a ‘daily proctology exam.'”

“Earlier in the day, a White House official said Musk would not need to file a public financial disclosure, allowing the world’s richest man to skirt public scrutiny of his potential conflicts. Musk’s various companies have billions of dollars in government contracts.”

“As an unpaid special government employee who is not a commission officer, he will file a confidential financial disclosure report per the norm,” a White House official told CNN, the news outlet reported.

“We wouldn’t let him” have a conflict of interest or a lack of transparency, President Trump assured reporters Tuesday.

But the New York Times on Tuesday reported that the White House had not responded to its request “for a copy of the waiver, a document that is required under federal law to be released. Ethics waivers are typically drafted based on conflicts identified through a financial disclosure filing, so it is possible that no waiver has been prepared yet.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

JD Vance

Vance Botches Attempt To Blame Egg Prices On Harris

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance accused Vice President Kamala Harris of causing egg prices to spike to $4 per dozen—despite making his accusation in front of a sign advertising eggs for as low as $2.99 per dozen.

“Eggs, when Kamala Harris took office, were short of a $1.50 a dozen. Now a dozen eggs will cost you around $4 thanks to Kamala Harris’ inflationary policies,” Vance claimed during a media availability at a Pennsylvania supermarket on Saturday.

Just over Vance’s right shoulder it can clearly be seen that eggs were available at the supermarket for $2.99.

The Trump campaign posted the video of Vance’s specious claim on its official “War Room” X account, amplifying the allegation to the account’s 2.1 million followers.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, egg prices are down from the spike in prices that occurred in January 2023, when the average cost for a dozen eggs was $4.82. The current average, as of August, is $3.20.

The rise in egg prices is not connected to policies from the Biden-Harris administration, either.

In 2022, there was an outbreak of avian influenza. The outbreak, which was the largest in U.S. history, resulted in the deaths of at least 52.7 million animals. That led to a shortage of chickens to produce eggs, and when the supply was reduced, the price went up.

The virus had a resurgence in November 2023, which has caused current price increases. The animal death toll is now over 100 million.

Overall inflation is down. According to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on September 11, the Consumer Price Index—which measures price changes for commonly purchased goods—increased 2.5 percent in August (year over year), the lowest annual increase since February 2021.

The positive economic news comes in the wake of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in August 2022. The legislation faced unified Republican opposition in Congress and advanced with only Democratic votes. Harris cast the deciding vote in the Senate that allowed the legislation to eventually become law.

The law locked in price reductions for many medicines covered by Medicare and allowed the agency to negotiate on drug prices for the first time ever, with the intent to cut costs for consumers in response to inflation.

The Inflation Reduction Act also sought to direct federal investment in job creation by providing tax credits for domestic green jobs. According to an analysis by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the law is projected to create nine million jobs over the next decade.

Trump and Republicans have called for the law to either be repealed or severely curtailed, which could cause a spike in drug prices and cut back on job creation—which is vital to economic growth.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Mike Lindell

Lindell's Financial Woes Lead To My Pillow Eviction From Warehouse

At a time when he's struggling with major legal bills, far-right conspiracy theorist and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has received some more bad news. MyPillow, according to The New Republic's Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, is being evicted from a warehouse it has been renting in Shakopee, Minnesota.

The eviction, Houghtaling reports, is the result of MyPillow's failure to pay $217,000 in rent for one of two warehouses. The property is owned by the company First Industrial, whose attorney, Sara Filo, appeared during a courtroom hearing on Tuesday, March 26.

Filo told the court, "MyPillow has more or less vacated, but we'd like to do this by the book. At this point, there's a representation that no further payment is going to be made under this lease, so we'd like to go ahead with finding a new tenant."

Many of Lindell's financial and legal problems stem from his efforts to help former President Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election results.

Lindell claimed, without evidence, that Dominion Voting Systems and its competitor Smartmatic — both providers of voting equipment — helped now-President Joe Biden steal the election from Trump. And those companies have sued Lindell for defamation.

Lindell's legal bills are also the result of his "Prove Mike Wrong" challenge of 2021.

That year, at this "Cyber Symposium" event in South Dakota, Lindell offered to pay $5 million to anyone who could disprove his claim that Chinese government officials helped Biden steal the election. Software developer and computer forensics expert Robert Zeidman accepted the challenge and went about debunking Lindell's claim.

According to Zeidman, Lindell now owes him $5 million. The MyPillow CEO has tried to get out of paying him, but U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim upheld Zeidman's victory as perfectly legitimate in a February 21 ruling and agreed that Lindell needs to pay him the money owed.

Lindell, however, has maintained that Trump really won the 2020 election and that Zeidman didn't disprove his conspiracy theory involving Chinese officials.

Houghtaling notes, "The beleaguered conspiracy theorist has, all in all, been struggling with cash flow for some time. Earlier this month, Lindell joined Steve Bannon's podcast to advertise a new Arizona lawsuit he underwrote for Kari Lake — and to ask if listeners would be willing to spare some change to help him out.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Liz Cheney Trump GOP

Cheney: Donors Beware! Trump's Legal Woes Are Draining GOP Finances

Donald Trump is in a bit of a financial bind: He can't post the $464 million bond necessary to buy him time while he appeals the ruling in the New York civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump has reportedly floated the enticing idea of underwriting his nearly half-billion obligation to some 30 different organizations and, shockingly, found no takers.

Trump absorbed the news with his usual grace, complaining bitterly about it Tuesday morning in at least seven posts on his social media platform Truth Social (which was down at the time of this writing).

“I would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone. Does that make sense?” Trump fumed in one post.

Trump's excessively public self-victimization for being found guilty of breaking the law is a clarion call for cash—from his MAGA cultists and whoever else might find it useful to potentially have a grateful asset in the White House.

As The New Republic's Timothy Noah told Greg Sargent on his new "Daily Blast" podcast, "Trump is broke, on the verge of bankruptcy, and he's running for president. It's a situation just ripe for corruption."

The presidency, should Trump win it, is effectively up for sale to the highest bidder.

But Trump's personal financial issues are just the tip of the iceberg for the man who just last week secured enough delegates to be the 2024 Republican nominee for president.

As his legal troubles continue to mount, the small-dollar donors who have funded much of Trump's legal bills are starting to turn off the spigot. CNBC's Brian Schwartz reports that in 2023, Trump’s reelection campaign raised 62.5 percent less money from small-dollar donors than in 2019, the year preceding the last presidential election. When the dust settled in 2020, Trump had raised nearly half of his total cash haul—$378 million—from small-dollar donations.

But the Trump campaign's looming cash crunch doesn't end there: the Republican Party's traditional well-heeled donor class is also missing in action. Many of those donors kept Nikki Haley’s rival bid for the GOP nomination afloat. Now they’re directing more of their funds to congressional races and, in particular, the Republican effort to win back the Senate.

Trump hasn't done himself any favors by promising to "permanently" bar Haley donors from his MAGA movement. In fact, the Biden campaign clearly sees an opening there and is making a play for Haley donors.

Biden made his own fundraising pitch when Haley ended her campaign, tweeting, "You don’t have to agree with me on everything to know MAGA extremism is a threat to this country. We need everyone on board—join our campaign." The tweet included a link to the Biden-Harris campaign fundraising page.

To review, Trump may have topped out in terms of what he can raise from his MAGA loyalists, while the bougie donors who fueled Haley's campaign are still MIA on Trump's presidential bid.

Since securing the required delegates, Trump has taken over the Republican National Committee with high hopes of a cash infusion he can use to pay his legal bills. Except the RNC is broke—entering the year with just $8 million cash on hand and nearly $2 million in debt. Those are some downright dismal numbers. And despite Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump promising to pay her father-in-law's legal bills, the RNC faces the same uphill fundraising battle that Trump does.

Trump’s archenemy, former Rep. Liz Cheney, took the opportunity to send out a buyer beware missive on Monday.

"Is it just a coincidence that Donald Trump took over the RNC, fired most of its Republican staff, and installed his daughter-law as co-chair at the same time he’s become desperate for money and can’t post bond?" Cheney tweeted. "Donors better beware."

While this month's Daily Kos/Civiqs poll found that 63 percent of Republican voters are fine with the RNC paying Trump's bills, it appears many of those voters aren't personally coughing up the cash they used to.

That's a serious problem for the RNC and, perhaps, all of its associated committees, though it's possible GOP donors will shore up Senate Republicans’ finances even as they take a pass on Trump. As for House Republicans, it remains to be seen whether House Speaker Mike Johnson can keep pace with his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, who was actually a fundraising stud.

And amid these harrowing cash-strapped times for Trump, the Republican Party is convulsing its way through a nasty divorce that will require a lot of time, effort, and money to clean up before November.

That's a big messaging problem that is going to translate into a massive money problem. Even if Sephora sold enough lipstick to put on that pig, Trump wouldn’t have the cash on hand to buy it.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

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