Dems slam Trump crypto dinner as ‘orgy of corruption’

The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell

NBC News

Policy, Msnbc, Politics, President, Washington, Congress, Government, Senate, News

4.4 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tonight on The Last Word: Donald Trump’s crypto dinner raises questions on ethics and access. Also, Trump confirms his attempt to deport migrants to South Sudan. Plus, Trump confronts South Africa’s leader with debunked “white genocide” claims. And the Trump Justice Department announces its plan to cancel George Floyd era police reforms. Nnamdi Egwuonwu, Sen. Jeff Merkley, Barbara McQuade, Patrick Gaspard, and Toluse Olorunnipa join Jason Johnson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The last word with Jason Johnson is in for Lawrence, and he starts right now. Hey, Jason,
0:04.7	how you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks so much, Jen, for starting us off tonight.
0:09.3	Thank you. Oh, boy. The Mount Everest of American Corruption. That is how our first guest
0:17.0	tonight referred to Donald Trump hosting a dinner tonight for the highest bidders to Donald
0:21.3	Trump's latest grift, his crypto coin. NBC News reports, quote, the price of admission, $55,000 to $37.7 million.
0:31.7	That's how much the 220 winners of a contest to meet Trump spent on his volatile cryptocurrency token. In total, the
0:40.2	winner spent $394 million on Trump's official cryptocurrency, while the website for the
0:46.3	contest claims that Trump is appearing at the dinner as a guest and not soliciting any funds for
0:51.4	it, it also says that 80% of the Trump Coin Project is owned by
0:55.9	two Trump-affiliated companies. You know, Trump is just a guest at his own dinner,
1:02.0	and the companies are only affiliated with Trump, and that clears up any conflict of interest
1:05.8	and selling the office concerns, said no one ever under any circumstances.
1:12.4	The top bidder at this dinner is Justin's son, a crypto billionaire who was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission,
1:18.1	a case that's on hold thanks to Trump's Justice Department. And while the identities of most
1:23.2	of the other contest winners are largely private, NBC News reports that, quote,
1:32.1	a majority of the attendees appear to be foreign nationals, according to Molly White,
1:35.5	an independent crypto researcher who was written about the contest.
1:48.1	Of the 220 wallets tied to contest winners, 158 of them, or 72%, appear foreign. White told NBC News. A New York Times investigation reported that the leaderboard included people representing crypto businesses in Singapore and Australia.
1:53.8	Look, I try not to, but a lot has been normalized about Donald Trump. But this is something else.
2:00.8	This is shocking and a stunning level of unethical behavior for a sitting president of
2:05.6	United States.
2:06.8	About 100 protesters gathered outside Donald Trump's club to protest the dinner, the dinner,
	...

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