Latest / NO FILTER / _Rich man_s game__ Michael Steele on JD Vance touting crypto(MP3_160K)

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_Rich man_s game__ Michael Steele on JD Vance touting crypto(MP3_160K) · NO FILTER

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It is not that cryptocurrency is inherently bad. There are
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of folks who've become interested in cryptocurrency specifically
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: because they are disenchanted disenchanted with America's financial institutions. I
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: appreciate that. At the same time, when you have such
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: a big push to keep them from being regulated, how
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: does that then open the door for the type of
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: corruption that we've seen over and over welcomed by this administration.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's a coincidence that
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: President Trump changed his thoughts on bitcoin, going from saying
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: it was a scam to fully embracing it at the
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: same time that his family launched all of these crypto investments.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: And you know, if you think about it, crypto really
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: is the perfect mechanism if someone was interested in corruption.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: It's borderless, it's easy to transmit value from foreign countries,
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  Speaker 2: and it has a level of anonymity to it that
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: you know, allows folks to escape scrutiny of the public
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: and the press. But what I think is most important
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  Speaker 2: is while they are engaged in this push to enrich
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: themselves through crypto investments, they are systematically dismantling all of
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: the protections that Americans rely on to ensure that they're
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: not being scammed, they're not being hacked. The CFPBE right
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: now is being shuttered as those is trying to shut
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: it down and also dismantling the national security protections that
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: prevent countries like North Korea from using crypto to one
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: their nuclear program.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: That's, for me, the heart of all of this is
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  Speaker 3: when you listen to the Vice President today at the
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Crypto Gathering, to someone's point sort of touting Trump's business interests.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: It really comes down to the truth when you look
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: at the two administrations on this subject. The Biden administration
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: had legitimate concerns about where this potentially could be could
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: be headed, but the Congress refused to regulate. The Congress
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: refused to get in and actually understand exactly what this
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: marketplace is, which is exactly why Donald Trump is all
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: up in it because it is unregulated. It is, as
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  Speaker 3: she noted, the wild wild West, as you noted, the
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: ability to have moments where oops, I didn't know I
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: couldn't do that occur on a regular basis. Right, Why
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: has the Congress not taken seriously the economic and financial
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: impact this industry will have on the nations, not just
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: our economic stability, but our criminal justice system.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: It's a great point, and I would say there already
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: are a lot of laws on the books that control
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: many of the risks associated with cryptocurrency that the Biden
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: administration was trying to enforce, and we have seen all
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: of those litigations get dropped under the Trump administration. Even
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: as the litigation was successful. The government was winning in
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: these cases, and they got dropped. But I think it
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: really comes down to the substantial lobbying influence of the
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: cryptocurrency industry. They spent around half of all corporate spending
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: in the twenty twenty four election. None of the ads
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: that they supported were about the benefits of cryptocurrency. They
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: were about unrelated topics, and that's for a clear reason,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: and it's because sixty nine percent of Americans, according to
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: a survey in battleground states, had a negative view of
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  Speaker 2: the industry. So I think it's really a classic case
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  Speaker 2: of lobbyist capture.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: This is I think that is the rub and that
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: is the point. I mean, they spent about two hundred
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: million dollars in the last cycle. To be very clear,
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  Speaker 4: I believe they spent the most money ever in the
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: race in Ohio against Shared Brown. The reason Benny Moreno
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: is the Senator right now is because of the money
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  Speaker 4: that crypto spent. And to Amanda's point, Mark, I mean
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  Speaker 4: the companies were the packs, were they shake protect progress
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: to fend American jobs right? They collectively raised over nine
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: one hundred ninety seven million dollars. None of those pacts
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  Speaker 4: said hey, hey crypto, this is crypto. However, it was
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: the crypto money that was powering those And now you've
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: got legislation in Congress where a number of Democrats have
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: voted for it as it relates to cryptocurrency.
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: I hate to be the guy who blames everything on
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: the Supreme Court, but I got to blame.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Some of this health brand.
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: It was the Supreme Court that dismantled the entire infrastructure
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  Speaker 5: of campaign finance regulations that would have prevented crypto from
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: essentially purchasing so many elections. It was the Supreme Court
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  Speaker 5: that opened the floodgate to allow the crypto industry to
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  Speaker 5: spend immense amounts of dark money not on ads touting
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  Speaker 5: the benefits of crypto, but on unrelated issues so that
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: they could purchase politicians like Moreno and then have them
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  Speaker 5: do their bidding in Congress. And there's very, very little
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: that we can expect this Congress to do about it.
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  Speaker 5: It's already passing legislation that will facilitate the crypto industry
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: the worst impulses now and Donald Trump himself has embraced this,
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  Speaker 5: turned the White House and the Oval Office into a
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  Speaker 5: kind of crypto cash register, and just blowing past constitutional
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  Speaker 5: restrictions on presidential bribery, on presidential acceptance of foreign gifts,
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  Speaker 5: just enmeshing himself in this very seedy and shady network
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  Speaker 5: of unregulated assets. And you know, we can't expect Congress
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: to do anything to rain him in. We shouldn't expect
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  Speaker 5: Congress to reign in the industry itself, because the industry
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  Speaker 5: owns this GOP majority. And it really feels like if
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: we could have just held on to some of those
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  Speaker 5: campaign finance rules that limited outside spending, that limited disproportionate
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  Speaker 5: spending by these huge corporations, that we would be in
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  Speaker 5: a much better place, and there would be fewer Americans
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  Speaker 5: who are investing in crypto because they think it's good,
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  Speaker 5: who are about to get scammed and see their life
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  Speaker 5: savings drained away because the Trump administration decided that rather
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: than enforce some laws against the crypto industry, it would
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: just curry favor and use the industry to enrich the family.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Well, and to that point, I'm glad you brought up
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  Speaker 3: you know, average Americans out there versus the very wealthy.
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  Speaker 3: Pew Research Center, regarding crypto investments by income level tell
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  Speaker 3: us that twenty three percent of upper income households have invested,
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  Speaker 3: eighteen percent of middle income, but fourteen percent of lower
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  Speaker 3: income and in fact, fifty one percent of low income
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  Speaker 3: adults who have had used the cryptocurrency say they no
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: longer use it, they no longer have crypto, and overall,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: seventeen percent of Americans have ever invested in crypto. So
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: this is a rich man's game. This is a game
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  Speaker 3: where a lot of money floods into the market very fast,
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: and it is apportioned however it's apportioned, and the least
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: little thing, the least little thing, can wipe it all out.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: So this is the part of the game that I
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: don't think people fully appreciate. And to your first Pointsmone,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: you're right, it's crypto in and of itself is not
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: a bad thing, and it's what people like the Trumps
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: and others do with it, and how they utilize it
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: in the marketplace, and how they, to your point, mark
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: sucker people into And we've already had stories about people
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: in the earl in the front of what Trump was
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: doing lost a lot of money. So where do we
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: go from here with this?
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, your points are well taken. And in fact,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Trump's own FBI put out a report in April saying
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: that actually older Americans are the fastest growing group of
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: people getting scammed by cryptocurrency. And when I was at
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Buying administration, we
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: also saw tremendous amounts of affinity fraud, of targeting particular
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: communities by using messengers to sell them on a promise
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: that they could get rich quick in an economy that
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: sometimes left them behind. So I think it's really incumbent
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: on policymakers to understand that these efforts are not being
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: driven by the public, They're being driven by a very
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: powerful set of special interests, and for them to stand
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: up and that the full suite of laws applies to
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: this industry. There is nothing particularly special about crypto that
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: requires it to get its own special banking laws, special
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: stock exchange laws.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Is not different from the dollars, which is to bring
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: this back to sort of one of the conversations we're
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: always having at this table. It's fundamentally about the grift
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: and about corruption. And I think we always ask ourselves,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: what is it that's going to break through the plane
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  Speaker 1: from the country scenes to have broken through with the
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: American public. This quote from Senator Chris Murphy speaking to
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Peter Baker at The New York Times. I want to
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  Speaker 1: get your reaction to it, Michael. It is unlikely he
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: is going key being Trump to be held accountable through
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: traditional means. There are going to be no special counsels.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: There's going to be no doj action, and so it's
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: really just about public mobilization and politics. If Republicans keep
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: paying a price for the corruption by losing special elections
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: throughout the next year, maybe that causes them to rethink
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: they're complicity.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: You think that's the answer, that's the bottom lawn. And
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: at the end of that, I've been saying it forever
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: the day. At the end of the day, the courts
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: are a wall, but they can only hold for so long.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: And the reality still remains. As you both know that
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: the voters ultimately going to decide how much of all
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: this corruption, how much of all of this grift they're
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: going to tolerate. When they see planes, trains, and audiblebiles
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: being floated through the White House on the front lawn
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  Speaker 3: and in the back room, well I guess this is
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: just this.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: They the Trump administration really thought this through.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: They did.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: They made sure that they got rid of the career officials,
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  Speaker 4: and they made sure they had people in there that
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: would not push back because of course, if as Atlantic said,
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: Trump perhaps would be president, it was for crypto. If
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: the crypto industry literally helps buy both for you and
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: buy you the election, the political appointees are going to say, oh,
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: we need to make sure we take care of so
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: and so. We got to take care of this, like
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: that is what happens, and it is oftentimes the career
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: officials are SAI, Okay, well this ain't the campaign trail.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: This is the government, and we don't do that. But
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: there's nobody they're doing that next week