Longtime reporters 'almost speechless' over Trump's 'transparent bribery' plot
On Friday morning, longtime Washington D.C. reporters Jonathan Lemire and Peter Baker of the New York Times, as well as conservative columnist Matt Lewis, admitted they were stunned that Republicans turned a blind eye to Donald Trump's crypto dinner.
During a segment on the president's much-criticized dinner at his golf club in northern Virginia that took place Thursday night, Lemire prompted guest Baker with, "I mean, you've covered the White House for a long time. I mean, I'm almost speechless at this. Could you imagine if Barack Obama or Joe Biden did anything like it?"
"No, we couldn't, they could –– they never did anything like this," Baker responded. "It's not the first presidential family that kind of profited off the White House; you can certainly find other examples of that in history. But the scale of this, the scope of this is so far beyond anything history has ever seen."
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"It's not just even this cryptocurrency thing, although hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to the president's family and businesses in fees because of this coin, which is basically, just a reminder, there's nothing to it."
"There's a coin, it's not of value of anything, it's not even a stock," he elaborated, "It's not even a share of a company that's producing something. It's just simply there for people to buy because they want to curry favor with the president and they can do it anonymously, they can do it secretly."
"Why do Republicans not care?" the flummoxed Lemire asked columnist Lewis.
"Because whatever Donald Trump wants to do, Donald Trump does," the conservative replied. "And they saw, whether it's the Access Hollywood video or the indictments, that this guy is magic and he always ends up landing on his feet and their base loves him, so they're afraid of him."
"So some of them may care a little bit, but not enough to do anything about it," he added. "But look, the implications here are serious, right? Democracy isn't dying, it's being rug-pulled. That's basically what the message here is."
He then added, "You see those Democrats standing up there condemning this, and I don't think it's landing yet. And so, you know, yes, Republicans ought to be standing up and holding their president, their standard bearer, accountable. I don't think the Democrats yet have the juice to take what is just transparently bribery and make it matter to the American people."
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