'Can I start with you?' CNN host dares conservative to defend Trump's controversial event
President Donald Trump hosted a private dinner for the top investors in his crypto meme coin, which has drawn bipartisan criticism as brazenly corrupt, and CNN's Audie Cornish dared a conservative panelist to defend the event.
The president dined with the top 220 investors in his $TRUMP token, whose names were not released but spent $1.8 million on the coin project, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt justified the event by saying Trump was taking part on his own time at his private golf resort in Virginia.
"I think it's interesting that she's making that distinction because optics not great, right?" Cornish said, turning to conservative journalist Rob Bluey. "Rob, can I start with you? Because I don't know how people justify the meme coin thing."
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Bluey, the executive editor for The Heritage Foundation's "Daily Signal" website, accepted the host's challenge
"Sure," Bluey said. "Well, so I think two things can be true at the same time. On the one hand, I think it's exciting that President Trump is focusing so much on crypto and the promising future, and there's obviously a big change between what [former President Joe] Biden did and what Trump did on that front. At the same time, he has held out that he wants to be the most transparent administration in history. The challenge that you have, Audie, is that that these meme coins, there's anonymity, so unless they self disclose who they are, it's difficult."
Cornish agreed that was a big part of the problem.
"They're not interested, right?" she said. "They're, like, private, his own time, and then yet you hear about people who are there, Justin Sun, Chinese-born crypto billionaire. In February, the [Securities and Exchange Commission] actually asked a court to pause a lawsuit filed against him and his company in 2023. Needless to say, he's one of the top purchasers of this meme coin."
Cornish then turned to Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha, who had started laughing.
"Chuck, why are you laughing already?" Cornish said. "I didn't even get the question."
Rocha explained that he was laughing at the audacity of Trump's pay-to-play event.
"I was thinking, remember the first term when we all lost our mind because he was hosting events at his golf club?" Rocha said. "Now he's literally like, 'If you will pay me, you can meet with me – we just can't do it at the White House.'"
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