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Trump is going to the NATO Summit, this year held in Turkey. I often wonder what goes on in his head when he goes to these things. Does he realize how many world leaders don’t like him (or worse)? Trump has threatened to reduce the U.S. role in NATO and accused allies of disloyalty for not supporting his Iran war.
If that weren’t enough, Trump had his creepy fingers in the World Cup the other day. A suspension that was given to one of US team’s top scoring player was lifted after Trump called FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, and asked the association to review the suspension. This is important news only it that it underscores yet again how corrupt he is, and how he thinks it’s admirable. Remember when he said years ago that he was smart because he knew how evade taxes?
The suspension reversal is apparently highly unusual and a boost to the American team before it plays Belgium in a Round of 16 game. Infantino has curried favor with Mr. Trump, and last year awarded him the first FIFA Peace Prize.
There are so many stories right now about Trump’s financial gain and corrupt practices since he has taken office. I read the articles as they came out, but today Heather Cox Richardson sums up those reports. I share part of her post today:
“Last Tuesday, new financial disclosures showed that Trump has made an eye-popping $1.4 billion in his family’s cryptocurrency ventures since he took office. On Thursday, Trump appeared to feel the need to defend those profits, telling CNBC:
“There’s nothing illegal. There’s nothing wrong with it I could know.”
Julia Manchester of The Hill noted that Trump went on to say that the nature of the presidency means that his children “have inside information” about almost any business decision they make. He said:
“Almost anything they do, if they want to buy a truck, if they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information.”
Richardson continued: “As of the end of June, nearly a million people who bought Trump’s memecoin lost a total of $3.81 billion while Trump walked away with $636 million. Trump took transaction fees up front, so he made money no matter what happened with the coin. For his followers, though, his advice that “It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” and to “Join my very special Trump community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW!” cost them dearly as the coin slid from trading at $75.35 to trading at $1.76, a drop of 97%.”
Not caring what anyone thinks, Trump’s grabbing as much money as he can. It seems desperate. He’s using government to enrich himself and hurt others. What should be done about all this fraud is that we gain back the House and Senate in the midterms, and then Democrats impeach the heck out of Trump in a way that will work this time. Unfortunately, his followers will never see their money again.
I don’t envy the next president and all she/he will have to clean up.
I don’t know if you saw this photo from July 4th. Hundreds of masked white supremists marched around Washington carrying Confederate flags. In the photo below from The Guardian, we witness them riding the DC Metro, along with a Black woman. Chilling photo, worthy of a Pulitzer Prize.
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Yesterday, I had the wonderful pleasure of lunching with fellow New Yorker artists (covers and cartoons) at the country home of Ed Sorel. In the photo below, we are sitting in Ed’s studio, and despite the apparent vibe from this photo, we had a lot of laughs. We talked shop, politics, gossiped, Ed told stores from his years in the business (he was one of the founders of Push Pin Studios, and works for most major publications). Traditionally, cartoonists who contributed to The New Yorker would get together weekly, but the magazine stopped inviting cartoonists to the magazine on Tuesdays to meet with the editor. This was a tradition for my entire career (and well before I joined). We would then all go out to lunch, sometimes hang out for the entire afternoon — a few times we played pool, went on the Circle Line boat around Manhattan, or to a Mets game. It fostered camraderie, and helped us weather the challenging winds of such a solitary career choice. So, gatherings such as yesterday are especially great.
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Thanks for being here, you all. See you tomorrow! Happy Monday.