-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, my colleagues, you are going to hear a lot of stories about the first 100 days of President Trump's second Presidency, and, indeed, there are a lot of stories.
There is a story of incompetence. We are dealing with multiple measles outbreaks all across the country.
There is a story about abdicating our responsibility to lead around the world. Vladimir Putin is laughing at us as Trump goes about the business of handing Ukraine to a brutal Kremlin dictator.
There is a story of transferring wealth from the poor and the middle class, through massive cuts to Medicaid, to the very, very wealthy, who are asking for another massive tax cut.
But I would argue that the most important story to tell is a story of corruption--a story of mind-blowing, massive, scalable corruption. That story is important because we are watching the theft of taxpayer money by the decision of the Republican Party to look the other way as Donald Trump essentially monetizes, at scale, the White House and the powers given to him by the Constitution and the American people in order to enrich himself and his friends.
And if we don't tell this story and if we don't mount a national, bipartisan, apolitical resistance to this thievery, to this corruption, and it becomes normalized as just a part of doing business in America, a normal facet of residence in the White House, then shame on us because our democracy will not survive this level of corruption, grift, and graft.
So I am going to try to tell the story really quickly. I have got two charts, and this is hard to read. These words are really small because, you know, over the course of 100 days, there are 40, 50, 60 different individual acts of precedent-breaking corruption.
And that is intentional, because what President Trump is trying to do is engage in so much public corruption that you just become normalized to it, that you stop paying attention to the corruption because is it-- can it be--corruption if it is just playing out in public? He is trying to make you think that this stuff happens all the time behind the scenes, and, now, all that is different is that you are seeing it publicly.
But that is not true. This is not, actually, how government works, and I refuse to accept that, just because the corruption is happening in public, in front of the cameras for everybody to see, we should accept it.
OK, I am going to try to do this: I am going to try to do this as quickly as possible. I am just going to highlight for you maybe the 40 most egregious examples of corruption in the first 100 days, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.
So, on January 6--this is before Trump is even sworn in--Amazon, which has a ton of business before the incoming Trump White House, pays $40 million to the Trump family to license a documentary, a series, about Melania Trump--just a cash payment from a company that has huge interests before the incoming White House to the Trump family.
On January 17, a few days before Trump is sworn in, maybe the most corrupt act in the history of the White House: This is the creation of the Trump meme coin. This is just a backdoor way for anybody with business before the Trump administration to send him millions of dollars in total secret.
Trump doesn't disclose who buys the coin. He launders his income from the coin through an unregulated Chinese exchange. He promotes the coin on his social media feeds.
In the first minute of trading, one buyer--and what we know is, this was likely a Chinese individual--purchases 6 million coins, sending the price through the roof and immediately making a ton of money for Trump, who makes money off of every transaction. Trump knows who this person is, no doubt, but American citizens do not.
All right, on January 20, he is now sworn in, and he fulfills a campaign promise to the oil and gas industry. There is a report from the campaign that said they came down to Mar-a-Lago, I think, and said: We will give you a billion dollars in campaign contributions.
This is not me alleging this. This is an open report.
The oil and gas industry says: We will give you a billion dollars in campaign contributions if you do what we want when you are sworn in.
And the day he is sworn in, Trump issues an Executive order gutting environmental rules so that the oil and gas industry can start making bigger amounts of money.
On January 25, Trump eliminates the inspectors general, the ethics officials in government, and whistleblower offices. It is a late-night purge; so you know it is fishy. On January 25, 17 inspectors general get fired, clearing the way for the President to engage in even more corruption--because that is what the inspectors general do: They sit in these Agencies, and they look for corruption.
Now, the inspectors general are gone. They are just gone. But that is not good enough because, on the same day, Trump fires the head of the Office of Special Counsel. Why would you do that? Well, that Office is an investigative and prosecutorial Office that works to end government and political corruption and protects government employees who become whistleblowers. That office is gone now, along with all of the whistleblowers.
Two days later, Trump illegally fires NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox. This effectively shuts down--illegally--the NLRB for a period of time. Why is that important? Because the guys who are standing behind Donald Trump on Inauguration Day, people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, are being investigated at the moment by the NLRB for massive workplace violations. Now the NLRB is shut down--a big gift to the people who financed Donald Trump's inauguration and stood behind him to give him political endorsement and cover on his Inauguration Day.
On January 31, a trend begins. Enforcement actions are paused against Trump loyalists.
This is Representative Andy Ogles from Tennessee. He was being investigated for illegal or potentially illegal loans made to his 2022 campaign. But right after Representative Ogles introduces a bill to amend the Constitution to allow Trump to serve for a third term, what happens? Trump makes the investigation go away. As you will see, Trump's justice system will often look the other way if you cheat or steal but you are a friend of Donald Trump's.
At the same time, another of Trump's friends, his IRS nominee, Billy Long, gets his donors--almost all of them have direct interest before the IRS--to pay off his six-figure campaign debt. It is a fabulously corrupt thing to do, but it is just all normal now. So when Trump is showing you the way, then the folks who work for him follow suit.
All right. We will jump to February now, February 4. We are into, what, week 2 of the Trump White House. Trump hauls the PGA and the Saudi Government into the White House to broker an agreement between the two rival golf leagues so that Trump can make more money hosting golf tournaments. He is in business with one of these entities, the Saudi-owned LIV league.
In a normal world, the President of the United States wouldn't be in business with any foreign government, but the President is. And not only is that OK, but it is also apparently OK for him to bring the golf league that he is in business with into the White House and pressure the other golf league, the rival golf league, to cut a deal. And guess what happens? The PGA, which had long said they were not going to host events at Trump's courses, after being hauled into the White House, looking the President of the United States in the eye--somebody they clearly have to do business with--they announce that they are going to start allowing their tournaments to be held at Trump courses--big benefit to Donald Trump's personal bottom line.
On February 6, 2 days later, Trump ends the criminal enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Do you know what this is? You should. It requires people who are being paid by foreign governments to register. It is no longer going to be enforced. So now members of the Trump administration can get backdoor payments from foreign governments, and nobody is going to enforce the law.
This isn't theoretical. There were people who got arrested for doing this exact same thing--getting paid by foreign governments while working for the Trump administration in term one. He wants to make sure it is not a problem in term two, so he pauses enforcement of the actual act.
Four days later, Trump eliminates the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is just a magnificent present to all of his billionaire enablers because this is the Agency that stops big businesses--banks, other financial firms--from ripping off consumers, and now it is just shut down.
The same day, DOJ drops charges against Eric Adams in a mind- blowingly public and brazen quid pro quo. Adams says he will pledge loyalty to Trump. He is going to support Trump's political priorities in New York City. Trump drops the corruption charges against Adams.
Just like the Ogles case, the door is now wide open to engage in corruption or criminality as long as you support Donald Trump.
The thing that makes this one so egregious is that Adams and the White House go on TV to announce the corrupt deal, and they don't hide it. They just say that Adams is now supporting Donald Trump, and we are now going to drop the charges against him. And everybody gets the message: There is a lot of stuff I can get away with as a corrupt official as long as I am in bed politically with Donald Trump.
On the same day, February 10, DOJ pauses enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This is the law that stops American companies from bribing foreign governments in order to get business. On February 10, Trump suspends enforcement of an antibribery statute, paving the way for his friends in corporate America to start bribing foreign governments again.
Two days later, the State Department forecasts that they are going to dramatically upscale the amount of money that they are going to send to Tesla. This is the first time that Elon Musk shows up in this story. By February 12, Elon Musk is pretty well embedded in the White House, and, guess what, the State Department is now going to spend $400 million for armored Teslas--its largest expected contract in the upcoming year.
On February 12, the same day, Musk infiltrates the Department of Labor and OSHA, giving him exclusive, secret access to labor law violation data against him and his competitors. It is unethical and corrupt, but this stuff is happening every single day.
A few days later, on February 15 and 16, Musk now starts really testing the limits of what his boss will let him get away with. He fires a specific set of regulators at the FDA that are reviewing one of his medical products, Neuralink. The message is clear: You got to do right by my applications or you risk getting the ax too.
Three days later, on February 19, Trump's new U.S. attorney for Washington, DC, Ed Martin, starts to use his government power to harass Trump's critics. He launches something called Operation Whirlwind, and he is pretty unapologetic about the fact that this is going to be an enforcement operation against anybody who just seeks to get in the way of DOGE. He doesn't say it is going after people who are acting illegally; he says anybody who tries to stop or protest or harass DOGE's work is now going to be the subject of Operation Whirlwind. He starts trolling critics of DOGE online. The U.S. attorney for DC is now just trolling DOGE critics online, obviously threatening criminal enforcement.
See what is happening here? We are 30 days into the administration, and everybody in Trump's world, including the supposedly independent U.S. attorneys, are getting the message that it is now part of your job if you work for Trump to use your government powers to either enrich yourself or Trump or to help Trump politically.
On February 21, 2 days later, the FCC drops a major investigation into a company called Robinhood. Why does this matter? You guessed it-- this firm donated $2 million to Trump's inauguration fund. Thirty days later, the SEC drops an investigation into that firm. Put a pin in that because you are going to hear stories like it over and over again.
Throughout February, we watched the rich guys that are surrounding Trump come up with new ways to monetize their positions.
Kash Patel is a perfect example. He is the nominee to head the FBI-- maybe the most important independent Bureau of the Federal Government-- and while he is going through that process, he is selling merchandise online, ranging from T-shirts to playing cards, with the proceeds supposedly going to whistleblowers' education and defamation cases.
On February 26, news breaks that the FAA is considering giving a $2.4 billion contract to Elon Musk's Starlink. But it is not like a regular contract that is up for bid; it is a contract that was already awarded to one of Musk's competitors, Verizon, and word leaks that the White House is thinking of just ripping the contract away from Verizon because Verizon is not a political supporter of Donald Trump in the way that Elon Musk is, and just giving it to Elon Musk.
Now, that doesn't happen as reported. The contract has not been canceled yet. But there are regular reports of the administration still relentlessly attacking Verizon in a clear attempt to try to undermine their contract.
On February 27, the next day, Trump drops a lawsuit against Capital One. Why does this matter? Capitol One donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund.
It is now just kind of automatic--you donate a big amount of money to Trump's inauguration, and you can ask him for something.
We are not done. That same day, the FCC drops a lawsuit against Coinbase. You have the story now. Coinbase donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. They are now told that it is OK to keep cheating consumers.
We are not done. On February 28, a day later, the DOJ announces that it would drop a complaint against SpaceX, Elon Musk's SpaceX, for labor discrimination.
Elon is like: Wait a second. All of these other big donors to your inauguration are getting out of jail free. I want my get-out-of-jail- free card as well.
He gets it from DOJ.
We are now into March. On March 1, a report breaks--this is maybe second to Coinbase, the most stunning act of corruption--on March 1, word breaks that Trump is selling meetings at Mar-a-Lago. On at least one occasion, Trump has charged guests $1 million to dine with him at Mar-a-Lago.
According to the same report, business leaders can secure a one-on- one meeting with the President of the United States for a $5 million payment to Donald Trump. If you were mayor of a medium-sized town and it was reported that you were selling meetings for like $200, you would be arrested. You would be run out of town. But not Donald Trump. He is selling meetings for $5 million, according to this report, and because the corruption in this White House is daily and normal, he gets away with it.
On March 2, Trump launches the crypto reserve fund. This is going to involve government-taxpayer dollars purchasing and holding a variety of digital assets in a strategic reserve fund--a move that definitely inflates and protects Trump's investment portfolio, by now, you understand, very heavily dependent on crypto assets.
Now, this normally wouldn't be a problem because normally when somebody takes a high position like President or Governor or mayor, they divest from their own personal assets or they put it all in a blind fund. Trump does none of that. He is controlling his own assets and his family is controlling their own assets while he makes policy that benefits himself and his family financially.
On March 3, a really curious thing: DOJ intervenes in an obscure but open-and-shut 2020 Colorado elections case. This is the case of Tina Peters, who tampered with voting machines on Trump's behalf in Mesa County, CO. She was convicted by a jury of her peers, open and shut, but because Peters is a MAGA loyalist, now DOJ, on March 3, says it is going to step in and review the case because there are concerns about how it was prosecuted. This is just President Trump again clearly shielding those that violated the law to help him from consequences.
Same thing, different day--no, not even a different day. This is actually still March 3. Yuga Labs, a blockchain company, donated $100,000 to Trump's inauguration fund. They now get in line. They get what everybody else is getting. The SEC closes an ongoing investigation into the company.
On March 4, DOGE lays off thousands of IRS employees. This is bad for a lot of reasons, but it certainly helps Trump's Mar-a-Lago friends because the IRS now cannot enforce the law against the big giant tax cheats in the ways that it could have when it had those personnel on the books. Mar-a-Lago is celebrating.
On March 4, the same day, word breaks that the Commerce Department is considering changes to a very specific rural broadband program and who is eligible. Why? Because Elon Musk wants to dominate that program. Under the program's original rules, Starlink was kind of capped at $4.1 billion. This curious change now will allow Elon Musk's company Starlink to receive between $10 billion and $20 billion from the rural broadband program.
This is like a broken record, but 6 days later, the CFPB, which is basically shut down but exists in name only, drops a lawsuit against Bank of America and J.P. Morgan. Bank of America donated $500,000 to the inauguration, and J.P. Morgan donated $1 million to the inauguration.
On March 11, a day later, Trump and Musk hold this now very well- known advertisement for Tesla on the White House lawn. This is just taxpayer dollars used to support the personnel at the White House and the White House being used to sell cars for Elon Musk. And the message, again, is pretty simple here: If you are loyal to me and you pay any kind of price for your loyalty to me, I will use government resources to help get you out of trouble, even including free advertising.
On March 19--we are 8 days later--the GEO Group donated $500,000 to Trump's inauguration fund. This is a private prison company. The NLRB drops its investigation into this company.
I mean, it is really getting disgusting at this point. I mean, I don't know that there is anybody left that made a major donation to the inauguration fund that has not gotten their favor from Donald Trump.
On March 24, the Treasury Department guts something called the Corporate Transparency Act. This is the regulation that requires businesses to reveal their true owners to the government. These new rules now make it easier for billionaires to hide money, to avoid taxes, to engage in corruption--less accountability for corporations.
On March 25, a day later, the SEC reduces from $125 million to $50 million an existing fine. So this has already been litigated. This company, Ripple, a blockchain-based digital payment company, has been fined. Trump comes in and reduces the fine from $125 million to $50 million.
You know the story by now. These guys made a big investment in the inauguration. Most of these companies that got a ``get out of jail free'' or had their investigations terminated were giving $500,000 or $1 million. Ripple made sure they got it right. They made a $5 million donation to Trump's inaugural fund, and they got their fine reduced by $75 million.
On March 28, Trump pardons the founder of Nikola autos, one of his campaign megadonors. Again, this is a pardon for one of his major campaign contributors. When asked about the pardon, Trump said: They say the thing they did was wrong, but he was one of the first people who supported me for President.
He just tells you what he did. He said: Yes, they said what he did was wrong. He did something that was probably pretty wrong, but he supported me for President. So I am giving him a pardon.
I am not saying there hasn't been a lot of really bad stuff that has happened in the pardon program under Democratic and Republican Presidents, but let's just name it what Donald Trump named it.
April 8--we are into April. Trump issues an Executive order to expand coal mining, part of his downpayment on the promise he made to those oil executives. Shares of the company owned by Joseph Craft, the billionaire coal magnate who helped lead those Trump fundraising efforts during the Presidential campaign, immediately shoot up.
On April 9, this really curious timeline of events plays out, which Trump posts on his social media:
THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!
A lot of his followers comply. They make investments in the market. There are reports and speculation that many of his inner circle might have done the same thing. A couple of hours later, he announces he is pausing most of his tariffs. The market shoots up. People who followed his directions online make a lot of money, and, potentially, other people who had access to that insider information might have made a lot of money as well.
On April 17, Musk steers billions of taxpayer dollars to something called the Golden Dome. Reuters, on April 17, reports that Elon Musk's rocket and satellite company, SpaceX, has emerged as the frontrunner to develop Trump's proposed Golden Dome. This is an ill-defined, technologically unproven defense system. It supposedly has a pricetag of hundreds of billions of dollars--money that now looks as if it will be funneled directly to Elon Musk. At this point, it is head-shaking.
On April 23--now he can do anything he wants. It is like he has just blown the lid off of any expectations about what a President can and cannot do to enrich himself. On April 23, a message appears on the homepage of the website for Trump's meme coin, declaring the top 220 meme coin holders would be invited for an exclusive dinner with Trump, and the top 25 coin holders--these are private investors in Donald Trump's financial empire--would get a ``Special VIP Tour'' of the White House.
After the message went up, the price of Trump's coin jumped by more than 50 percent. In the 2 days following the announcement of the ``Special VIP Tour'' in the ``People's House''--the White House--Trump and his allies made nearly $1 million in trading fees alone. They are just selling access to the White House out in the open.
On April 26, Trump's family--this is just last weekend--announces the launch of a private club called the Executive Branch, a new private club in Washington. The initiation fee is around a half-million dollars. It is advertised as a place where you can hold secret audiences with the Trump administration, as long as you pay Donald Trump's family and their financial backers over $500,000 in membership fees. It has apparently already sold out.
This is not normal. None of this is normal. This is outlandish. This is illegal. This is unconstitutional, brazen corruption, and this is only the first 100 days.
I just detailed 40 instances of mind-blowing corruption in just 40 days, capped off by an attempt to just sell access to the White House to people who put money in the pockets of Donald Trump's personal businesses.
Donald Trump wants to numb this country into believing that this is just how government works, that he is owed this, that every President is owed this--that the government has always been corrupt, and he is just doing it out in the open.
This is not how government works. This has been the story of his first 100 days, but it is our choice as a nation to allow it to be the story of the rest of his term. We need to expose what he is doing. We need to rally everybody, from the left to the right. Nobody in this country--whether you are a hardened conservative or a hardened progressive--should root for the President of the United States to be enriching himself off of this position. We need to rally this Nation against this corruption and bring it to an end because if Donald Trump gets what he wants and we just start allowing our government's leaders to openly steal from us during the first 100 days or for the rest of his term, then, I am telling you, American democracy is not going to survive.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source