The Daily Blast: Trump Press Sec’s Flattery of Him Goes Awry as Ballroom Fiasco Worsens

The DSR Network

Chris Cotnoir

Government

4.5 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re seeing a confluence of events that suggest President Trump’s corruption has crossed over to an ugly new place. Trump is destroying a White House building to create a ballroom for him and his rich friends. He’s demanding that the Justice Department hand over $230 million in taxpayer funds to compensate him for “damages.” And Democrats from Senator Chris Murphy to Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries are going after all this in a newly aggressive way. Into this mess stepped White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who issued an extraordinary new defense of Trump’s ballroom fiasco. It was absolutely laden with comically cultish devotion to the Audience of One, but the hagiography also revealed something darker. We talked to New Republic staff writer Matt Ford, author of a great new piece about Trump’s self-dealing. He explains how all this corruption and all this worshipful propaganda reveals Trump’s profound contempt for the rule of law, for DOJ independence, for the idea of the public good, and even for the American people. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.4	Joe Wicks is on a mission. I want to make this and sell it. He's creating a protein bar.
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0:38.5	I want the maximum amount of each harmful ingredient while staying within the legal limit. So just how
0:43.4	ridiculous the food system really is. Joe Wicks licensed to kill on Channel 4. Stream now. This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
1:06.6	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
1:21.5	It looks like we've crossed over to a new place when it comes to President Trump's corruption.
1:24.4	We've seen a confluence of events here.
1:28.7	Trump's destruction of a White House building to create a ballroom for him and his rich friends? Trump demanding that the Justice Department hand over $230 million to
1:35.3	compensate him for damages? And now, Democrats going after all this in a newly aggressive way.
1:43.1	Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Caroline
1:45.5	Levitt issued an extraordinary new defense of Trump's corruption that only underscores the depths
1:51.3	of contempt that Trump and the White House have for the rule of law. We think it's often
1:56.7	forgotten how important corruption can be to voters. Yet this is mostly absent from the political
2:02.2	discourse right now, and we don't get why. New Republic staff writer Matt Ford has an excellent
2:08.2	new piece that really centers Trump's nakedly corrupt self-dealing as the core story of his presidency.
2:14.7	So we're talking to Matt about all this today. Matt, thanks for coming on, man.
2:18.7	Thanks for having me. It's good to be here. So let's start with Trump's destruction of the
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