Tag Archives: Peter Baker

New York Times: As Trumps Monetize Presidency, Profits Outstrip Protests

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The president and his family have monetized the White House more than any other occupant, normalizing activities that once would have provoked heavy blowback and official investigations.

When Hillary Clinton was first lady, a furor erupted over reports that she had once made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review.

Thirty-one years later, after dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about Melania Trump that will reportedly put $28 million directly in her pocket — 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband’s government. Scandal? Furor? Washington moved on while barely taking notice.

The Trumps are hardly the first presidential family to profit from their time in power, but they have done more to monetize the presidency than anyone who has ever occupied the White House. The scale and the scope of the presidential mercantilism has been breathtaking. The Trump family and its business partners have collected $320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate deals worth billions of dollars and are opening an exclusive club in Washington called the Executive Branch charging $500,000 apiece to join, all in the past few months alone.

Just last week, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Mr. Trump’s use not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane, formally donated to the Air Force, at $200 million, more than all of the foreign gifts bestowed on all previous American presidents combined.

And Mr. Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in — not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Mr. Trump personally.

trump-money-plane-crypto.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/us/politics/trump-money-plane-crypto.html

Raw Story: Longtime reporters ‘almost speechless’ over Trump’s ‘transparent bribery’ plot

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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.”

,,,

 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.”

Longtime reporters ‘almost speechless’ over Trump’s ‘transparent bribery’ plot

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-crypto-dinner-almost-speechless

Raw Story: ‘Open hostility’: Reporters despair at what Karoline Leavitt [Bimbo #1] has done to the White House

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt [Bimbo #1] has created an atmosphere of hostility, mockery, and disparagement in the briefing room, a veteran reporter told Politico.

In a lengthy profile, correspondent Adam Wren quoted Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent with The New York Times, who has covered 17 press secretaries over his career.

Wren wrote, “He told me that the current tension ‘goes beyond anything that is traditional to the point of open hostility, and mockery and disparagement in a way that’s meant for the larger audience, not for the people in the room.'”

Baker continued, “They don’t view the briefing room as a way to impart information. They don’t even view the briefing room as a way to shape reporters’ stories. They view the briefing room as a theater for the MAGA audience.”

Wren wrote that Leavitt [Bimbo #1] “relishes dispatching mainstream reporters’ hardballs with dismissive quips and, increasingly, welcomes right-leaning influencers’ softballs.”

What do you expect in a White House run by an orange-faced clown surrounded by a collection of suck-up sycophants, failed right-wing fringe politicians, and Fox celebrities looking for a better gig?

‘Open hostility’: Reporters despair at what Karoline Leavitt has done to the White House
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has created an atmosphere of hostility, mockery, and disparagement in the briefing room, a veteran reporter told Politico. In a lengthy profile, correspondent Adam Wren quoted Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent with The New York Times, who has covered 17 press secretaries over his career. Wren…

https://www.msn.com/en-in/lifestyle/smart-living/open-hostility-reporters-despair-at-what-karoline-leavitt-has-done-to-the-white-house/ar-AA1DCymq