Donald Trump Is Using the Presidency to Get Rich

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Obama, News, Wnyc, Washington, Barack, President, Lizza, Wickenden

4.2 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Washington Roundtable discusses the unprecedented corruption of the federal government, including Trump Administration members’ self-enrichment through cryptocurrency schemes and the inaugural committee, and the gutting of parts of the government that are responsible for rooting out self-dealing from public life. It is a level of corruption so “outright” and “brazen,” the staff writer Evan Osnos says, that it constitutes “a new phase in American politics.”

This week’s reading:

“Mike Waltz Learns the Hard Truth About Serving Donald Trump,” by Susan B. Glasser
“How Donald Trump Is Expanding His Authority While Shrinking the Government,” by Jon Allsop
“What Canadians Heard—and Americans Didn’t,” by Adam Gopnik
“Trump’s Deportees to El Salvador Are Now ‘Ghosts’ in U.S. Courts,” by Jonathan Blitzer
“Will the Trump Tariffs Devastate the Whiskey Industry?,” by Charles Bethea
“A Life-Changing Scientific Study Ended by the Trump Administration,” by Dhruv Khullar
“The Bureaucratic Nightmares of Being Trans Under Trump,” by Grace Byron
“How Trump Is Helping Tycoons Exploit the Pandemic,” by Jane Mayer (July, 2020)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	eBay, it's the place to fall in love with new, pre-loved vintage and rare fashion over and over again.
0:06.7	Your favorite designers, expertly authenticated.
0:10.0	Yeah, eBay.
0:11.5	Things people love.
0:14.6	Just letting you know of an important event this morning that I heard on our way in the studio.
0:20.2	Saturday is the famous race in Washington,
0:23.9	the running of the Chihuahuas. They will be running at the Navy Yard. Just thought you should know.
0:31.0	Are they sponsored? What's the story? I don't know anything about the running of the Chihuahua.
0:33.8	If it's Washington, surely their sponsor is going to say, who's by big
0:37.5	pet. I don't know. Dogs are out in in in in Trump's Washington. You know, right. He's not a pet
0:43.4	man. All right. I shouldn't tell you this. I shouldn't tell you this. But this weekend we're dog
0:47.8	sitting and we're terrified because this is it, man. No, no, no, No, no, it's, no, I have to.
0:56.0	Evan, if you can take care of children
0:57.6	and you have taken care of two children successfully,
1:00.8	you can take care of dogs.
1:01.8	I am worried because dogs are a little like children
1:03.9	that everybody else's are less appealing than your own.
1:07.5	Exactly.
1:08.0	I'm so glad.
1:09.5	Because it does, it's not a real test of how you feel.
1:13.6	Welcome to the political scene from the New Yorker, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics.
1:23.6	I'm Jane Mayer, and I'm joined by my colleagues Susan Glasser and Evan Osnos.
	...

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