Trump's Conspiracies, Live with John Aravosis

Donald Trump is preparing another prime-time spectacle devoted to elections, despite never producing proof that widespread fraud, foreign governments or American election officials changed the results of the 2020 election. Russia, Iran and other foreign adversaries have attempted to influence voters through propaganda and hacking, but influencing public opinion is not the same thing as secretly changing ballots. Trump deliberately blurs that distinction because his goal isn’t election security, it’s convincing Americans that no election he loses can possibly be legitimate.

The networks now face a genuine dilemma. Trump’s claims are newsworthy because he’s president, and may use them to justify future government action, but broadcasting demonstrably false allegations also carries legal and journalistic risks. Fox News already paid nearly $800 million after amplifying false claims involving voting machines. How do you cover a president’s speech when you know he may (surely will) manufacture another conspiracy theory in real time?

Meanwhile, Trump is finding new ways to monetize the presidency. Truth Social plans to sell Wall Street early access to posts from Trump and other influential accounts—even though Trump routinely uses the platform to announce decisions that can move financial markets. People who pay will learn what the president has decided before the rest of the country. That is not normal presidential communication. It is selling privileged access to the presidency. Every day, Trump does something 100x worse than all of Hunter Biden’s alleged scandals combined.

The corruption doesn’t end there. A White House teleprompter operator allegedly made around $100,000 placing Kalshi bets on which words Trump would use in speeches he’d already seen. Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr. and his partners reportedly acquired a 20 percent interest connected to a mining company only six days before the administration announced a Kazakhstan deal involving the company. The White House’s explanation is apparently that Trump knew nothing about it—because extraordinary lucrative coincidences just keep happening around this family.

And finally, the Washington Post had experts examine photos of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and found that the damage Trump blamed on vandals lined up with seams created during the installation process. The sealant appears to have failed because adjoining sections were allowed to dry too much before being joined. In other words, Trump blamed Antifa, but the evidence points to a botched installation. Yet more incompetence from the “world’s greatest builder.”