CNN’s MAGA panelist Scott Jennings was laughed at to his face when he tried to dismiss considerations about how a lot Donald Trump and his household have enriched themselves since his return to workplace.
Throughout a usually argumentative roundtable debate on Sunday’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip, the panel mentioned a September Gallup poll that discovered practically 90 % of Individuals imagine authorities corruption is “widespread”—a record-high determine that has risen sharply from 73 % in 2024, earlier than Trump’s second time period.
Phillip instructed the dramatic rise may partly be attributed to the president’s private internet price increasing by billions of {dollars} since he returned to workplace, which she stated is “unheard” of and “has actually by no means occurred earlier than.”
Trump’s estimated internet price is round $7 billion, in response to Forbes. That represents a rise of round $2.7 billion since he received the 2024 election, largely pushed by his pivot to cryptocurrency, which has contributed a major share of the president’s wealth.
Forbes states that “nobody in American historical past” has made as a lot cash on politics as Donald Trump has throughout his second time period. / Evan Vucci / REUTERS
Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White Home communications director who’s now a vocal critic of the 80-year-old president, added that the “stage of non-public enrichment of individuals across the president” can be unprecedented.
“I at all times known as out the Bidens, Hunter Biden, however that is fully completely different and on a a lot grander scale,” Griffin stated.
When Phillip requested Jennings whether or not that was a sentiment everybody may agree with, he replied: “I do not disagree that folks have had the next internet price.”
Jennings’ response drew speedy laughter from the remainder of the panel, with Democratic strategist David Axelrod mockingly asking, “How’d that occur?”
“However a few of these individuals had current companies earlier than Trump ever got here to politics,” Jennings added.
Eric and Donald Trump Jr. have made huge sums of cash with their World Liberty Monetary crypto agency. / Spencer Platt / Getty Photos
Phillip fired again, arguing that this was largely not the case with the president’s eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric.
Whereas the brothers have lengthy been concerned in the household actual property enterprise, they’ve additionally made huge sums of cash through cryptocurrency ventures and investments in a number of firms which were awarded main federal and military contracts throughout their father’s second time period.
“They did not have current companies in crypto. They did not have current businesses in drones. They did not have current companies in protection tech,” Phillip stated. “These are not existing businesses.”
In July, The Washington Post reported that protection expertise firms in which Eric and Trump Jr. had invested for the reason that begin of their father’s second time period went on to generate a minimum of $3.2 billion in direct authorities enterprise, in addition to $3.1 billion in future contract choices.
The CNN instantly jumped on Scott Jennings’ protection of the Trump household’s rise in internet price. / Screengrab/CNN
“It might be that it turned out in the final two years that these Trump boys have been enterprise geniuses, and impulsively they began making a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} they usually’d arrange companies that acquired unprecedented loans from the Pentagon, which will simply be happenstance,” Axelrod stated. “However I do not suppose that is what individuals suppose.”
“I believe this can be a regarding concern that now we have a crony capitalist in chief,” he added. “Individuals see the system itself as corrupt. They suppose—they usually’re not fallacious—that the selections which might be being made in Washington are too usually influenced by individuals who have connections, who’ve cash, and who’ve an agenda that’s not about them.”
