The Common Ills

Thursday, July 02, 2026

BREAKING: Congress EXPOSES Massive FRAUD Over Trump's 250 Celebrations, Criminal Acts!!

The Snapshot

Thursday, July 2, 2026. Chump's greed is on full display as Americans struggle with the economy he broke, Republicans struggle for voters, Democrats struggle to explain some basics, and much more.

"The American people realize how badly this administration is screwing them over," Ben notes on this morning's MEIDASTOUCH.

Let's note two things we noted at the top of yesterday's snapshot because they warrant continued attention. Ben Protess, Andrea Fuller, Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

President Trump reaped a stunning windfall in his first year back in the White House, including about $1.4 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses, a new filing shows.

All told, the president pulled in at least $2.2 billion, a figure that includes other parts of his vast holdings, such as his real estate assets. That compares to a minimum of $622 million his enterprises pulled in for all of 2024, before he returned to the presidency.

One of his biggest hauls in 2025 came when an investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates bought nearly half of the Trump family’s main crypto company, World Liberty Financial, a transaction that blurred the line between foreign policy and private enterprise.

THE TIMES' Eric Lipton adds:

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s wife owned a profitable radio station. George W. Bush was on the board of an oil company while his father was in the White House. And Hunter Biden was paid by a Ukrainian natural gas company while his father was vice president.

But never before in American history has there been anything like Donald J. Trump, a president who in his first year back in office has collected about $1.4 billion in new revenues from cryptocurrency businesses that directly benefited from his actions as president, a financial disclosure report made public on Tuesday shows.

Overall, Mr. Trump’s revenue in 2025 jumped to at least $2.2 billion, compared with a minimum of $622 million in 2024 before he returned to office.

“It is completely unprecedented,” said Megan Gorman, a tax attorney and the author of a recent book, “All the Presidents’ Money,” that studied the history of presidential wealth dating back 250 years.

Generally, throughout history, Ms. Gorman and other historians said, American presidents have taken actions to try to separate themselves from corporate entanglements that might create conflicts.

“Public office, if anything, was a source of debt, not a source of revenue,” said Lindsay M. Chervinsky, a historian and the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon.

Mr. Trump and his family have done the opposite, creating new business ventures that are profiting from actions Mr. Trump has taken since he returned to the White House.

Those include the pardon Mr. Trump issued in October to Changpeng Zhao, the richest man in crypto, who founded the company Binance, which has been a critical business partner to the Trump family’s own crypto venture. They also include legislation that Mr. Trump signed last July to promote a form of cryptocurrency called stablecoins, four months after his family-backed firm introduced its own stablecoin.

On his gilded and grifted ways, Farrah Tomazin (DAILY BEAST) reports:

Donald Trump has taken a maiden flight on his new Qatari-gifted luxury jet while brushing aside questions about how much taxpayers spent converting the Boeing 747 into the new Air Force One.

The president showed off the new plane before boarding it to North Dakota for his latest America 250 celebration at the dedication of the Theodore Roosevelt Library.

However, when asked directly about the cost to American taxpayers, Trump avoided offering a figure, insisting the cost was “very little relative to what it would cost if we did it a different way” while emphasizing that the aircraft itself had been “a gift.”

[. . .]

The Air Force has previously said it spent less than $400 million modifying the plane for presidential use, including installing secure communications and defensive systems, though officials have declined to provide a full public accounting of the classified security upgrades. Critics have argued the true long-term cost could be significantly higher.

This is all enough to make a person nervous. And Ed Mazza (HUFFINGTON POST) argues it's made Chump very nervous:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a first-ever “midterm convention” for the Republican Party, which will be held in September in Dallas.

But critics on social media said it sounded like a desperate move given his plunging popularity in the polls and growing signs that the GOP will lose their majorities in the House and possibly even the Senate.

Even states once considered safe red territory now appear to be in play, with a New York Times/Siena poll this week showing the race for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas is a dead heat. Democratic candidate James Talarico and Trump’s hand-picked Republican candidate, scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton are both at 47%.

Chump and his planners have been woefully out of touch with the country. And with midterms in November, minutes away, that's not a good sign. What else isn't a good sign? GOP reps in Congress who live to appear out of touch. Max Rego (THE HILL) reports:

Despite a sizeable number of Americans expressing financial concerns, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) boasted Tuesday of his plans to eat lobster tails and rib-eye steak this Fourth of July weekend.

“Affordability — what are you talking about?” Nehls told reporter Pablo Manríquez on the Capitol steps, when the latter asked him how House Republicans can convince their constituents they are fighting to make life more affordable.

“Over the fourth, I’m going to get me a couple of big lobster tails, I’m going to get me some nice rib-eyes. I’m going to sit in my backyard with my family [and] my neighbors, and we’re going to be enjoying the fourth, celebrating 250 years, the birthday [of America],” the Texas Republican added.

[. . .]

When another reporter asked him whether Americans living “paycheck to paycheck” can afford to eat the same food he plans to, Nehls wondered if those people “work as hard as I do.”

Don't worry about voting him out of office, he's not seeking re-election. For obvious reasons. And Chump's there helping to tank his own party as well. Stephanie Kaloi (MEDIAITE) reports:

Former White House spokesperson Sarah Matthews, who worked for President Donald Trump from June 2020 to January 2021, says it “seems” her former employer “is doing everything in his power to tank Republican chances in the midterms.”

In a segment on MS NOW, Matthews explained to correspondent Antonia Hylton that Trump’s fixation on the SAVE America Act could cost him, and the Republican Party, dearly this fall.

“I think that if President Trump was doing everything in his power to tank Republicans’ chances in the midterms, he wouldn’t be doing anything differently,” she said. “That’s what it seems like. It seems like he does not care about the party, which he never has, to be fair. He has never cared about what is good for the betterment of the Republican Party. He has only ever cared about himself and accumulating as much power as possible.”

And, you could argue, he's never cared about the American people, only about himself. That would explain a new poll. Anna Commander (NEWSWEEK) reports:

A majority of Americans say President Donald Trump has not paid attention to the issues that matter most to them, according to a new poll from The Economist/YouGov released Tuesday, as the president promoted a new Republican midterm convention aimed at energizing GOP supporters ahead of the 2026 elections.

On Tuesday, Trump announced on Truth Social that Republicans will hold what he called the party’s first-ever national midterm convention in Dallas on September 9 and 10. He described the gathering as a “truly Historic Event” celebrating the “Great American Comeback” and said it would showcase achievements under the America First agenda, while promising “lots of Great Entertainment” and “a RALLY like none other!”

Meanwhile, the survey released on Tuesday found that 60 percent of respondents believe Trump “hasn’t paid attention to the most important problems” facing the country, underscoring persistent concerns about his priorities as his administration pushes ahead with a slate of initiatives, including foreign affairs decisions amid turmoil with Iran and as the country prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary.

The findings come as Trump has drawn criticism this week for seemingly dismissing the nation’s housing bill. Speaking to reporters Monday, the president brushed aside legislation aimed at addressing soaring housing costs, calling it “a big yawn.”

And yesterday's NEW YORK TIMES report by about the 2.2 billion Chump's raked in throughout 2025 via grifting and corruption isn't helping people see him as a friend who understands their economic struggles. Marco Margaritoff (HUFFINGTON POST) notes some criticism of Chump over that grifting:

Former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb on Tuesday called out President Donald Trump over his $1.2 billion in earnings from cryptocurrency ventures since returning to the White House in 2025, calling it “the greatest onslaught of corruption in the history of mankind.”

Cobb appeared on CNN following the release of a financial disclosure document showing Trump earned $594,263,944 from his family’s World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency firm and $635,068,835 from the CIC Digital LLC company that marketed his $TRUMP meme coin.

“I don’t believe so,” Cobb told “OutFront” host Erin Burnett when asked if he thinks it’s legal.

He continued, “Certainly, I don’t think it was contemplated by the Founders when they created the emoluments clause. I do think that one of the line items, of course, is the commemorative coins, several hundred million dollars of income related to those coins.”

Cobb went on to ponder how this could be “anything other than trading on his image and likeness,” noting this violates the 1787 clause designed to prevent federal officials from being corrupted, influenced or enriched from external entities, and calling crypto a “slimy industry.”

Americans under Chump are starving for the truth -- one of the many things Chump cannot provide. That's among the reasons why REGIME CHANGE is a huge hit. Bill Barrow (AP) reports

It turns out readers still want to learn more about President Donald Trump after all.

“Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” the latest book on the Trump presidency, written by political journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, has sold more than 300,000 copies in its opening week, according to publisher Simon & Schuster.

They’re the kind of sales that numerous works about Trump reached during his first term, but had been rare during his second term. Publishers had speculated that the public had tired of Trump books, believing there was little left to know.

The total figures include preorders, print book sales, ebooks, and e-audiobooks and orders that have yet to be fulfilled because of demand, the publishing house said. Simon & Schuster said the book is into its third hard copy printing, with 200,000 copies on order, after it sold out quickly in bookstores and on Amazon. It's the best first-week clip of any hardcover nonfiction book in 2026.

Andrew Stanton (NEWSWEEK) reports on Democrats' chances to take over the Senate in the midterms:

Democrats and Republicans are engaged in a close race for control of the Senate in the 2026 midterm elections, according to a new poll from The New York Times, which showed single-digit races in six GOP-held states Democrats must win in November to flip the chamber.

Historically, the party in the White House loses seats in the midterms, so Democrats are optimistic about their chances of reclaiming a House majority. But their Senate map is tougher. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and Democrats have few easy targets this year and must win seats in states that backed President Donald Trump by double digits to flip the Senate.

The poll from the Times, Siena University and the Portland Press Herald suggested that several key Senate races are close, about four months out from the election. Other polls and prediction markets similarly show a tight race.

Ed Kilgore (THE INTELLIGENCER) reports:

Last month, there was immense excitement on the left when outspoken progressives (two of them members of the Democratic Socialists of America) won three congressional primaries and a host of down-ballot races in New York. Losers included two entrenched incumbents, one of them the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and their backers, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and AIPAC-aligned donors. While some activists immediately leaped to predictions that the uprising would go national, others noted New York’s unique political culture and emphasized the local influence of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is a national celebrity but not yet a national power broker.

But after Colorado’s June 30 primaries, there’s evidence that the ideological and generational ferment that was so evident in New York is bubbling up elsewhere. Most strikingly, 29-year-old DSA member Melat Kiros knocked off 15-term incumbent congresswoman Diana DeGuette in Denver’s deep-blue First Congressional District. Kiros first received national attention in 2023 when a law firm fired her for publishing an open letter questioning Israel’s legitimacy as a Zionist state. She overcame heavy late spending on DeGuette’s behalf by AIPAC-funded and Silicon Valley groups. The incumbent wasn’t exactly a “centrist”; she’s a long-time co-sponsor of Medicare for All legislation and is best known for her fiery defense of reproductive rights. So to some extent, Kiros’s win represented a generic “change” sentiment; she wasn’t even born when DeGuette first went to Congress. But at her victory celebration, where celebrity socialist influencer Hasan Piker appeared, Kiros was quick to claim affiliation with a national movement, PBS reported:

“We are winning from coast to coast,” Kiros said to an ecstatic audience and the blast of air horns. “We are taking back our party and our country!”

Though it was clearly a less ideological contest, Colorado progressives also cheered state attorney general Phil Weiser’s landslide win over three-term U.S. Senator Michael Bennet in the state’s gubernatorial primary (incumbent Democrat Jared Polis was term-limited). Weiser shrewdly played the anti-Trump resistance card, citing his many lawsuits against the Trump administration in contrast to Bennet’s relatively conciliatory record in the Senate, as NBC News noted:

Weiser, who is in his second term as attorney general, gained traction as the two candidates traded attacks over their anti-Trump credentials in a race in which there was little daylight between them on policy. Both have pushed affordability, housing and environmental issues as top priorities, as well as fighting Trump’s immigration agenda.

Weiser has attacked Bennet for having voted to confirm several of Trump’s Cabinet nominees as a member of the Senate and has cast him as a Washington insider.

The editors of NEWSWEEK note:

Notice, though, where the left won and where it did not.

Every one of those victories came in a safe Democratic seat, where the November election is likely a formality.

The one genuinely competitive race on the board—Colorado’s 8th, the state’s only toss-up—went to Manny Rutinel, a more conventional Democrat backed by Latino-outreach groups and tech donors.

That seat has flipped in each of its two elections; a Democrat won it by around 1,600 votes in 2022, and Republican Gabe Evans took it by fewer than 2,500 in 2024.

It is exactly the kind of district that decides House majorities, and it did not reward a factional candidate.

The progressive left has proved it can beat Democratic incumbents. The open question is whether it can produce politicians who become national figures, their reach and reputation growing beyond the districts that elected them.

Perry Bacon (THE NEW REPUBLIC) writes:

Attorney General Phil Weiser won comfortably in the gubernatorial primary over Bennet, who had been considered the heavy frontrunner until recently. Weiser isn’t much more liberal than Bennet but positioned himself as more anti-Trump. He hammered Bennet for his votes to confirm several of Trump’s executive branch nominees last year and won the backing of the state’s Indivisible chapter.

It’s normal to have multiple candidates seeking an open governorship (incumbent Jared Polis is term-limited), so Weiser’s decision to take on Bennet wasn’t unusual or surprising. But House Democratic incumbents rarely face strong primary challenges, and Democratic senators almost never do. And it’s not as if Hickenlooper or DeGette are Joe Manchin–style centrists. They strongly backed Joe Biden’s agenda and have opposed most of Trump’s. DeGette is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. While neither of them has been a leading critic of Israel, they haven’t been vocally pro-Israel like Representative Dan Goldman, who was defeated last week in New York.

So why did DeGette and Hickenlooper get primary challengers, and why were those challenges so popular with voters? How did a man (Bennet) who has voted against nearly all of Trump’s proposals in Washington lose a contest over who would be the most anti-Trump?

For the same reasons Mamdani won the Democratic primary in New York last year, Graham Platner won in Maine earlier this year, Abdul El-Sayed has surged in Michigan Senate polls, and other progressive candidates are gaining ground and winning around the country. Democratic voters are mad at party leaders for not defeating Trump in 2024 and then last year having to be coaxed by the base into aggressively opposing him. They are also curious if newer politicians will do a better job than those from the party establishment in fighting MAGA. Those two factors provide an opening for challenges to incumbents and frontrunners, even those with fairly liberal voting records.

Perry writes that. He appears to forget that Janet Mills repeatedly stood up to Chump -- even to his face.

You can't just throw junk together in an essay and ignore facts and expect anyone to be impressed with your 'hot' take. Enough on thought pieces that are half-thought out -- if that. Eric Garcia (INDEPENDENT) puts some actual thought into the election results:

There are plenty of parallels to that era and today, and not just because Kiros, a barista and attorney, beat a long-time entrenched incumbent in much the same way that AOC, a democratic socialist and bartender, took out the chairman of the House Democratic caucus in 2018.

She came to Washington flanked by Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who formed what would become “the Squad” of progressives in Congress.

And just like back then, Republicans hope to paint Democrats in swing districts with the same socialist brush from these deep-blue districts.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told The Independent that the most important quality for any race is candidate quality and whether someone fits their district.

“And that's why we have the advantage, because we have really good candidates that fit their districts, and the Democrats have had these crazy primaries where they've all tried to out-Mamdani each other, and they’ve ended up with extreme candidates,” he said.

Russell Payne (SALON) observes:

The race, however, has broader implications for the future of left-wing politics in the U.S., with Kiros’ victory putting to rest any notion that the progressive wave sweeping across the country might be limited to New York City.

The progressive victory in Denver, however, also means that a potential Democratic majority in the House is likely to feature a majority-making coalition of left-wing progressives. As it stands, there are two DSA-endorsed members of Congress, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. After this year’s election, there is almost certain to be five, due to the wins in Colorado and New York alone. The coalition on the Democratic Party’s left wing, however, will be significantly larger, though its exact size depends on how the group is counted.

We've noted that Socialist doesn't need to be treated like a dirty word. We've noted that if AOC has any hope of a presidential campaign in the Democratic Party primary in 2028, people need to stop hiding. Ave and I called out the very bad book by which refused to note Socialists. On the right, it could and did name Libertarians and MAGAs and GOPers and you name it. But everyone on the left was a Democrat or else not noted. It's like how Amy Goodman brought on all those Democratic Socialists to trash Kamala Harris when Kamala was running for the presidency but never noted that these guests weren't Democrats, they were the word that the left would not mention back then . . . socialists.

Ava and I noted this silence -- from our side (the left) -- on Socialists in February of last year with "Media: OWNED finds Eoin Higgins owned by bad journalism:"

There are all these characters in the book which is another problem.

You encounter Republicans and Libertarians and MAGA and even the Tea Party.

And then?

And then you have the left. Such as, on page 134, when he writes of being part of "a group of lefty writers." Socialists. That's what he's talking about on that page. He notes a left "environmentalist" in the book -- a Socialist. He writes of the genocide in Gaza insisting that the "left" was all basically on the same side ("The left was more or less opposed to the war, but the conflict quickly exposed a split on the right.")

Is that what he heard in the echo chamber bubble he lives in? For the record, we are opposed to the ongoing genocide and have been throughout. But we're not so stupid that we think that is the uniform opinion on our side. For example, October 30th -- days before the US presidential election -- Linley Sanders (AP) reported on the latest AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll:

But there’s a big partisan split on whether the Israeli government bears “a lot” of responsibility for the war’s escalation. About 6 in 10 Democrats say they do — similar to the share of Democrats who say Hamas bears “a lot” of responsibility — while only about one-quarter of Republicans say the Israeli government bears “a lot” of responsibility.

Six in ten is not 100%, it's barely over half.

But damned if the media ecosystem that Eoin hails from -- FAIR, THE NATION, COMMON DREAMS, etc, etc -- hasn't misled everyone on that reality.

In a really poorly written section about leftists brought on FOX "NEWS" (made even worse by his desperation to name check another friend), he notes that the network brings on two types -- the ineffectual (think Alan Colmes) who is seen as ridiculous and then the Glenn Greenwald types who are there to insult the left.

We wish it would have been better written book but we also wish he had the nerve to go beyond finger pointing at the other side. What he's describing -- the fake assery of FOX "NEWS" when it comes to the left -- is what the media eco-system he hails from does over and over. In fact, that's what DEMOCRACY NOW! did every day from the start of August through October 30th when covering Kamala Harris.

They brought on Socialists to lie and attack. And the biggest lie there was that they were Democrats. Even Democrats don't like Kamala, they insisted with their coverage thereby achieving Amy Goodman's intent to suppress turnout for Kamala.

That lie also helped them attack Kamala constantly regarding Gaza. Again, the lie was -- and continues to be in Higgins' book -- that the left was of one mind on Gaza. But, as polling demonstrated, that was never the case for the Democratic Party's members. Kamala had to navigate a tight rope but that reality was ignored as Amy Goodman repeatedly brought on Uncommitted to tell their lies -- frequently, the biggest one being that they were Democrats. They were, in fact, Socialists (and one Communist). Long before Eoin finished his book, we were pointing out here that DN! was using the FOX "NEWS" model.

It takes a lot of nerve and a lot of hypocrisy to rightly attack Glenn Greenwald for his lies, distortions and FOX-ification while you not only refuse to do the same with your own peers but, in fact, also applaud them in the book -- Naomi Klein (a Socialist whose pro-Kamala message on DN! was hold your nose and vote for her -- again, the messaging from DN! was that even Democrats did not support Kamala), Adam H. Johnson, Branko Marcetic and so many more Socialists.

We don't like Glenn, we have called him out here for years. But when the left does what we call out in Glenn, we call out the left. And when we say that we call out the left, we mean we call out Democrats, we call out Socialists, we call out Communists and we call out Greens.

Not only does Eoin refuse to do that, he can't even type the word "Socialist." Political closets run deep. And political closet cases worked overtime to defeat Kamala so we're in no mood to play and pretend this is some deep and important book.

It's trite and superficial. The scope is beyond the page length. It's 'finding' are generic and self-fulfilling. Doesn't make them necessarily wrong but does reduce this allegedly important book to nothing more than a basic primer good only for someone brand new to the topic.

There are all these characters in the book which is another problem.

You encounter Republicans and Libertarians and MAGA and even the Tea Party.

And then?

Six in ten is not 100%, it's barely over half.

But damned if the media ecosystem that Eoin hails from -- FAIR, THE NATION, COMMON DREAMS, etc, etc -- hasn't misled everyone on that reality.

It's a year later and the MSM can now use the term "Socialist." However, lefty media remains skittish. More to the point, the point we made repeatedly was that AOC may run for president. If she does, we should have a working knowledge of Democratic Socialism in place before she announces her run. To educate the country on DS and AOC at the same time is expecting a bit much.

But where are the articles from the left about Democratic Socialism?

It's left to the MSM to cover this topic. For example, Eliza Collins and James Fanelli (WALL STREET JOURNAL) explain:

The nationwide group consists of chapters in all 50 states and counts more than 100,000 members. The group, which is often referred to as the DSA, says that it thinks “working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few.” It describes itself as a political and activist organization, but not a party.

The DSA’s origins date to the 1970s, but its membership grew by the thousands when the group mobilized around the 2016 presidential campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. While Sanders lost that campaign and a subsequent 2020 bid, his movement was the first warning sign to a Democratic establishment that voters were looking for change.

Over the past decade, the DSA has continued to gain members to varying degrees around the country, though its biggest strides have been in urban areas. The New York City chapter has been one of the most successful in growing membership and cultivating viable candidates.

After Kiros’s victory Tuesday, chants of, “DSA, DSA!” could be heard at her watch party.

While Sanders has long called himself a Democratic socialist and in many ways is seen as the leader of the new progressive movement, he isn’t an actual member of DSA, according to a spokesman.

Sanders spent much of his career as a gadfly within the Democratic Party, which he caucuses with despite being an independent. But following his 2016 bid, the progressive movement has grown—taking along many who consider themselves Democratic socialists, for whom Sanders has become a philosophical chieftain.

In 2019, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, both Democratic socialists, were part of a small group of progressives who came into Congress with much fanfare, while also triggering panic from Democratic leadership. Both had been inspired by Sanders. In the next Congress, the group of socialists or progressives who are ideologically aligned is expected to be much bigger.

Many of its candidates have called for or Palestinian self-determination, pushed for increased taxes on the wealthy and universal healthcare.

Mamdani focused his mayoral run on the high cost of living in New York City, saying he wanted to expand free universal child care, make city buses free and freeze rents for cash-strapped New Yorkers. After taking office, he urged state lawmakers to increase tax rates on high-income earners and businesses. While he didn’t get those levies, his advocacy had an impact: Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature recently approved a pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes in New York City.

In the recent primaries, DSA candidates have also attacked incumbents over their ties to the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a strategy that resonated with voters who have grown disaffected by the war in Gaza.

Are we going to do our job and address Democratic Socialism or not? If AOC is the nominee in 2028, that's going to be a little late to start addressing the topic.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:

Cloud of corruption surrounds Trump’s fundraising for library, ballroom, and other projects

Softbank reportedly made largest publicly disclosed contribution to Trump Presidential Library just before President Trump weakened an executive order regulating the AI industry

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with Representative Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), opened an investigation into reports that Softbank Group’s (Softbank) recently donated $50 million to the Trump Presidential Library — the largest publicly disclosed contribution to the Library and a possible attempt to curry political favor.

“The Trump Administration is the most corrupt in the nation’s history, and one apparent nexus of that corruption has been tens of millions of dollars that have been given by corporate interests to the President’s pet projects including his gold-encrusted ballroom,” wrote the lawmakers.

On May 22, 2026, Politico reported that SoftBank Group had donated $50 million to President Trump’s Presidential Library project, making it the largest publicly reported contribution to the Library. The donation followed a December 2024 Softbank announcement that it would invest $100 billion in the United States during President Trump’s second term. On March 11, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission also greenlit Softbank’s $4 billion acquisition of DigitalBridge, a data center investment firm.

The $50 million donation came before President Trump weakened an executive order regulating the AI industry. Softbank is “one of the largest AI investors in the world,” raising questions as to whether the donation was an attempt to buy political favors. The reported donation is the largest publicly disclosed contribution to the Trump Presidential Library to date.

Softbank has previously contributed to the Presidential Libraries of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, but only after the Presidents had left office. This time, reports indicated that Softbank quietly made the contribution while President Trump is in office, and before any presidential library has been constructed.

“These circumstances [under which the donation was made] raise concerns about the potential for bribery and whether donors are seeking favorable treatment from the Trump Administration through contributions that personally benefit a sitting President,” wrote the lawmakers.

The lawmakers asked the Softbank CEO, Mr. Masayoshi Son, to explain the company’s decision to contribute and whether it was made in exchange for any promises by the Trump administration.

Senator Warren has led the fight to prevent the Trump family from using the Trump Presidential Library for corrupt pay-to-play deals:

In April 2026, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with Representative Stansbury (D-N.M.), released new responses from Big Tech CEOs indicating that they have no public explanation for where as much as $63 million in settlement money to Donald Trump’s now-dissolved Presidential Library fund has gone. The lawmakers followed up with a new letter to President Donald Trump pressing for answers to solve the ongoing mystery of the missing millions.
In March 2026, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with Representative Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), pressed ABC, Meta, X, and Paramount on their settlements with President Donald Trump, in which the companies promised to donate as much as $63 million to President Trump’s future Presidential Library.
In July 2025, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with Representatives Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Raskin (D-Md.), and Stansbury (D-N.M.) unveiled the Presidential Library Anti-Corruption Act to close loopholes that allow presidential libraries to be used as tools for corruption and bribery.
In July 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a new report exposing how companies, special interests, and foreign governments may be pledging donations to President Trump’s future Presidential Library as a corrupt tool to secure favorable outcomes from his administration.

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The following sites -- plus Marcia's "JB Pritzker shares some truth," Elaine's "Junior and child molester Silas H. Shelton" and Betty's "Chump's planned attack on the challenged and disabled" -- updated: