 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Community Matters. The larger community, if you will, millions in hard payments going to Trump. We learned about this over the past month or so, and it's a hot item. And I say for this too, he is not qualified to be president. For this too, underline the word too. But with Cameron Hurt, Cameron is the program manager for Kellman Boss. And he can talk about this because Kellman Boss is looking at so many things, and this is one of those issues. Hi Cameron, thanks for joining us today. Thank you for having me, Jay. How are you doing today? I'm good. So, and I'm interested in following up on all of these things. So some of your issues, just judging from the newsletters I get for Kellman Boss is they're trying to protect us from scams around the election about voting, trying to protect us from Republican scams on Article 5 of the Constitution, constitutional conventions that are dangerous and organized by Republican groups. And we're talking about, of course, the scams that Trump does, and we're talking about privacy and surveillance. I just look at the various newsletters that I get from you guys, and there's at least half a dozen major issues that you are working on, and I really appreciate that. Common cause is special, highly credible, intense research, and great articulate power. We should listen to everything you say. So I'm going to listen to you now, Cameron. Okay, we need your rationality in a world of increasing madness. So let's talk about the report from Jamie Raskett in the house. Yeah, really amazing. Representative Raskett was able to uncover that from four of Trump's 500 businesses, so this is only four of 500. So we're not even talking about 5% of Trump affiliated businesses, but out of four of them, over $7.8 million has gone to foreign nationals or their entities. They have done work within the Trump business. So if I could put it in layman's terms, basically what it means is while Trump was in office, his business is profited exponentially from him being the president, not by word of mouth, but by what we think was a lot of quid pro quo, which we know he already stands impeached of. So what we see is something into the tune of over $5 million of investments from Chinese officials alone, $5 million of the $7 million. Now, this is breathtaking too, because what Representative Raskett's report also tells us is that this is only within the first two years of his presidency. And so when we go back and we think about the first two years of this presidency and we think how President Trump was, I would say, kind of saber rattling us as the American people to be aware of China, to be distrustful of China, to know China as our enemy in democracy. So but not so much of an enemy that he couldn't make $5.5 million plus dollars off of them. And it's things of staying at his businesses, staying at his hotels. We know that the majority of these transactions happen in New York, Washington, DC, and Las Vegas, Nevada. Now, I don't know what government official from a foreign nation needs to be handling business with America in Las Vegas, Nevada. We could assume, but we really can't speculate right now, so keep it just a speculation. But if we look at even DC and we look at New York, what on earth were Chinese officials doing in two years to where they needed to spend $5.5 million on Trump businesses and entities? And these are, it's not to say that these nations haven't been coming to New York and DC since I don't know the inception of America. What it's saying is Trump Towers have been here for a while, and we've been able to watch how they do when certain delegations are in town. We know that what they do when the United Nations is meeting in the main office in New York, these uptake in foreign entities staying in his establishments has skyrocketed enormously. And it's something that we should all be wary of. It's very interesting that you have in the top five of current contributors to Trump hotels and his businesses include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and India. We know that Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia were all a part of Trump's crown jewel, what he wanted to be his full crown jewel accomplishment of the Abraham Accords. We just wonder, was there any quick road to that? Let me answer that. Right after his term, Jared Kushner got into a deal with Saudi Arabia for $2 billion, $2 billion, more than 7.8 million cash. And so exactly what was that about? That was transactional. And that was a payoff. And let me add, too, that in the case of the hotels, and I hope you can talk about this, it's not that they had thousands of people staying in thousands of rooms at Trump's various hotels. It's that they were overpaying by millions of dollars. If you look at the rates. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. No, that's exactly it, what you just hit on the head. Again, keep in mind, this report only goes into the first two years. During that time, the United Nations as a full body only met whites. So that says the full body, these people are staying, and it's not hundreds or thousands of a Chinese delegation coming. We're talking about seven people, plus maybe at best 10 security guards because of American policy with foreign security guards being in. So these people are only in these Trump establishments for the better part of maybe 20 days at best. That is making giving really generously about nine days. But at best, they're in these Trump establishments for 20 days, and they drop over $5.5 million. Again, it gives the sense of impropriety that we see this entire time with Trump, whether it be things where he is praising murderous villainous dictators who never in my life did I think I would see an American president stand for, or whether he thinks about him being willing to suspend parts of the Constitution. I say this to you as a black man. I say this to you as a black man who understands that at one time the Constitution only represented me to be worth three-fifths of a person for anybody to want to take away from the living breathing document that is the Constitution, the living breathing document that allows us to strive to form a more perfect union. We must all, regardless of race, religion, freedom, sexuality, if we are American, we must have pause for concern and deep concern at length. Yeah, and that's only the top of the iceberg. You know, the 7.8 million that the Jimmy Raskin's committee found, we know. I mean, it's a syllogistic point of logic that it's going to be much more than that. Start looking at the two billion, start looking at the years they couldn't get. Can you talk about that the years they couldn't get? This is only a very limited report, even though it's 160 pages, I think. And that was astounding, isn't it? It's 165 pages and it's a limited report. And let's talk about the limitations of this report. One, it was not done with bipartisan effort, which means that we can expect that some on the Trump side of things did what they could to obstruct and delay this report and to stop as much information as getting out. A clear evidence of that would be when Representative Comer became chairman of the committee, he stopped allowing for any information to be given and effectively shut down the investigation itself. And we would ask why. We would ask why would Comer do that, especially if this seems like the same Representative who is wanting to drain the swamp because he has no problem going after Hunter Biden, Comer doesn't, is no problem going after Joe Biden on second hand information. And what I mean by that is we know as of today that the crux of his impeachment inquiry into President Biden, his whistleblower, has now been indicted. But when you get great, what was it? He was indicted for lying. He was indicted for lying, for lying on Hunter Biden and saying that he had conversations and was told things that never happened, the FBI was able to determine. And again, important to realize that the FBI director isn't a staunch Biden supporter. He is a moderate conservative who found this independently. But to bring that point back to what could be seen as obstruction, how can Comer be so gung-ho to go in on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden on what we now know is completely incredible information, but to have documents, literal receipts and statements and say nothing to see here, no harm, no foul. I see the conservative party use the term Patriot a lot, a lot. And I am the proud son of a service member. And I love our nation. I love what we have the potential to become and what we're continuously fighting to be. And with that, though, I just wonder to my conservative counterparts, where, when did it become patriotic to start serving this special interest of foreign nations? And you know, I've framed this as a question to conservatives, but it is something that even Democrats and liberals must look at when we think about the corruption of Menendez in the Senate. But really and truly, as a group that has co-opted, in my opinion, the term Patriot, when did patriotism come into serving the interests of Vladimir Putin? When did being a patriot become serving in the interests of, I guess I would say, MBS, how did it, in Saudi Arabia, when did that become the definition and the want for patriotism? It is, it's really baffling and it's sad. It's sad, you know, because again, I am young, but I am old enough to remember one, what life was like before social media. I'm old enough to remember what life was like before 9-11, immediately after 9-11. I'm old enough to remember what it was like before we went into Afghanistan and after, same thing with Iraq. And these, all of these situations led to this wave and a few more, of course, but to know how the Republican Party really used to stand for traditional American values in the most genuine way, I can't take that from them. They really did. And to see where they are now, some perverse, I'm sorry, some perverse bastardization of conservative socialism, it's deeply sad. You know, can you remind me of a piece that we published not too long ago about the hijacking of the American flag? Donald Trump never appears without 57 American flags behind him. But all of those guys, while they're lying to us, while they're making completely un-American, unpatriotic, you know, statements, they got the American flag behind them. What in the world justifies that? They're as far away from the American flag as you can possibly imagine. And they're throwing this icon on us. They hijacked this icon on us to make us think that they really are patriotic, which is actually what they call a crock. So, you know, I think it falls in the same ballpark as your comments about patriotism in general. Absolutely. Because what this is, what this is at the baseline when I say this, I'm talking about Trump's actions and his portrayal of American politics since entering the arena. But what this is is nothing short than pure Benedict Arnold treason. And people may say that that's a very bold statement or let's say a very dramatic statement. But when we think about how much he has betrayed this nation to serve his own best interests, it's unmistakable. Unfortunately, it's not a gloating matter. It should pain us all. But you have to spin things if you are all about yourself. You know, we in the political world, we're not dumb to this. He is only running to stay out of jail. Period. Full stop to stay out of jail. That's what's going to best suit him. But apart from that, and this threat that that brings to our democracy is constant lying, but it's not just lying one time. We're being bombarded over and over and over again with the lies that we don't know where's the lie, where's the truth. And I have this conversation with people when I tell people, you know, this is a lie. They're frustrated. They're not frustrated with me for pointing out the lie. They're frustrated because of the exhaustion that they have from believing something and getting emotional about it and then saying, saying something very egregious, maybe ignorant, and then feeling like they have the backtrack now because, oh, they got the wrong information. And I think an amazing example of that was I saw a story about a not here in Hawaii, but on the continent, a teacher who was a drag queen in his spare time at night, and he was fired. The school district said that wasn't appropriate or I'm sorry, subordinate unilaterally said that wasn't appropriate. And one of the things that people would interviewed about it, conservatives who agreed with it were like, we don't want that around our children. He can do whatever he wants in his personal time. Well, the pause right there was he was doing it in his personal time. But the headline read that a principal was a drag queen and people instinctually assume that that meant he was promoting it and being a drag queen in front of and around his students, which was not the case. Well, this goes to a question of the press, doesn't it? The media, how well they handle this, how well they educate us, how well they report and continue to report on issues that are unresolved such as this one. And then it becomes our duty as amplifier as voice amplifiers, right? To start changing our terminology so we can unconfuse our general public. What I mean by that is I constantly have this conversation with my peers and my friends. When you're watching CNN, when you're watching Fox, you're not watching news. I get that, you know, some are more credible than others, but 24 hour news cycles are inherently dangerous. They make their money from news being sensational at the bottom line. Rather, they have a conservative slant, whether it's an independent slant or a liberal slant, they need sensational headlines because they have to report on this stuff all throughout the day. You can watch the same story be reported literally 12 times in one day on one station. We must get into knowing that that is entertainment media. Now, what our local news stations do at 8 AM, what they do at 6 AM, what they do at 8 PM, what ABC News gives us every night at 6, 7 PM Eastern time. Those are actual news programs. Those are there just to give you the facts and let you draw your own conclusion. But with 24 hour cable media, they're trying to convince you of a point of view. And what we've seen in that, I think since the evolution of this has been a gathering into silos. If I could break it down in a very silly way, when I was growing up, it was like, okay, are you a Nickelodeon kid or are you a Disney channel kid? Which one are you? And to be honest, as a kid growing up, that affected your personality. The Nickelodeon kids were a little bit more rambunctious, a little more do what they want, a little more say whatever they wanted off the top of their head. Disney kids were supposed to tell the line, be nice kids like musicals and stuff like that. But again, this is ways that these two TV stations kind of cultivate a little bit of a cult-like personality. It's the exact same thing right now with 24 hour cable media. Well, and it's worse. It's worse. It's not just repeating a point of view story. It's not looking for news beyond that. Not giving us anything beyond that. And furthermore, looking for raw meat news, news that excites the passions. And that means more viewers, more eyeballs, more advertisers, more money. It's bottom line. It's given by the bottom line. And it's shameless really. It really is. And it's shameless because they do it at our expense. They do it at our expense. They do it at, and not with this one, it's the media and our politicians because we, the American citizens, we live with their decisions. We live with the Rupert Murdoch's decision to prioritize his family staying 100 billionaires, I'm sorry, billionaires versus telling the truth so that we can come together. I'm fortunate enough, I currently, and a half for the past decade, lived in Hawaii. I grew up, though, in Tennessee and South. So I grew up in a supermajority Republican state. I have grown up all my life around conservatives. I've had conservative teachers, conservative friends, conservative family members. But I've never seen conservatism so volatile. So void of reason and facts. And again, it's deeply sad, deeply concerning. I would hope that eventually reason would give way, but as long as people continue to put themselves over the betterment of us, the community, we'll always get sold out. I think Nikki Haley is a great example of that. Now, don't get me wrong. I would love to see Nikki Haley win the primary, but for her to be very surprised at Donald Trump, kind of, I would say, made in situations about her husband not being around. As her husband is a service member in this nation and currently serving overseas, God bless him and all who are serving overseas. But she said that should disqualify him for going out of service member. She was eerily silent, though, when Trump and MAGA alike went after John McCain. Not only was she silent, she ended up taking a position with him. Again, I'm somebody who grew up in the South. I would have a lot of respect for traditional conservatives. So John McCain is somebody who I think that we as all Americans, we can draw pride in. You don't have to agree with his policies. But I think he's an American that all Americans can find a point of pride in. To see people like Nikki Haley be so I would say disgusted by who Donald Trump is when it's their turn to get the heat, but not say anything when they see it happen to other peoples, that is the epitome of what's wrong with where we are right now. Well, what's wrong with where we are right now is going to continue despite the efforts of common cause and think tech away. And it's very troubling that we are finding, we talk about a swamp. You peel it off and there it is and it's raw corruption. It's all those animals under the rock and they're all doing horrible things. They're all involved in transactional. We should have taken the transactional nature of Trump's withholding the 400 million from Ukraine back in 2017, but we didn't. He managed to get by that. He's gotten by so much. And what it all unfolded sits then has been just eerie, just eerie that the nation that was around his first impeachment, the nation that was in need of these weapons. And Trump knew that they were in need of these weapons. And he probably understood now in hindsight the security threat that they were facing and the barrel that he had them over. And for him to push that, to try to get information on his political opponent, but then argue about a two tier justice system, the logic does not track. It's inconsistent as it is almost idiotic. You know, Kevin, you've talked about China and the $5 million that Trump earned, gotten, talked stolen, corrupted out of the Chinese visitors. But what about Russia? We talk about Ukraine, and of course it reminds us of Russia. I feel, and I wonder what your thought is, that Trump is indebted to Russia and he's paying off a debt. It's all transactional that he supports Russia in this war, that he says he's not going to support Ukraine if he's elected or if he takes power, one way or the other. And it seems to follow a line of activity, a line of dots if you will. And if you connect the dots, and the press doesn't necessarily do this, if you connect the dots, you find that he's wedded at the hip with Putin. You have any thoughts about that? Yeah, I think, one, that one is so messy that I won't get too deep into speculation, but I will get into what's fact. And what's fact is that he has building permits in Moscow right now that went into effect the week after he became president. So we know that he has interest in building and in real estate in Moscow. You could assume that that would be financed potentially through the leave golf tournament that he is working with with the Saudis. I also think Putin has what Trump wants. One, Putin is older and fit. I think Trump would give anything to be a fit man. He can't do anything more than lie about his weight and his height. I think Putin also has the respect of his people, but respect probably that comes from fear. Trump wants that as well. And he has a very homogeneous society that I think Trump admires and wants. The way that they value men and the way that men are looked at in Russian oligarch society. Trump wants that oligarch respect that he doesn't really get here in America. And that's because we're a land of the free and as much as media would try to say that we worship our celebrities and our political figures, we're not as bad as many nations. So I think that he admires what Putin has. He wants what Putin has. He wants to be a democratically elected president for life, which is essentially what Putin is. I mean, this is a guy who has been leading Russia since before I was in middle school, I want to say or right as I got in middle school. So he admires Putin. I think that's ultimately what it is as far as in bed with absolutely. I think he's betting on Saudi Arabia and Russia to be very lucrative for him, seeing how he probably won't be able to do business in New York for very much longer. Yeah. And who knows exactly what the deal is with that hotel in Moscow. Oh, what kind of money is going to flow into Trump's pocket or already has flowed into tragic North Koreans? Yeah. So, you know, what I when I get out of this is that we know 7.8 million was found that Jamie Raskin's committee oversight committee found that that was inappropriate. We know that there's an issue over the emoluments clause and the Constitution as to whether you should take money from a foreign power. And I don't think Trump is so clever that he could avoid a claim that he is in violation of the emoluments clause. And when you start to tally it up is in gross violation. The question really is how much more is there? How can we find out how much more is there? And what do we need to do to find that out? Like, you know, the oversight committee? I would say, yeah, I would say that there's definitely a lot more out there. When I say we're at the tip of the iceberg, I mean, we're really at literally the bare tip and the rest is underwater rate waiting to be seen. What we can do is we can vote. We can vote. That is going to be how and not just these presidential elections. No, I'm hoping that people saw how critically important it is to vote for your local senators or your local House representatives, your county officials, all these people play a decision. All these people came into effect when it was time to effectively correct President Trump when he served as president. But because we didn't have the right officials and nothing was corrected, we can do this. And we don't have to just go after Trump. No, we have to go after the entire system. And the family, I'm sorry, the family is involved. The family is a conduit for some of these monies. How does somebody who believes that you take one truck down, the rest of the dominoes will fall. So, okay, so voting means hopefully flipping the house, flipping the house is where the investigation has been and should be. So let's assume, let's assume one thing and another, you know, we have a couple of wins in recent days, and maybe we will be able to flip the house to Democrats who will who will reinitiate that investigation. We get Homer out of there. Homer is a fraud. He's just working for Trump. He's just a follower. And so the question is, how does that investigation go? What do they do first? What are they looking for? What might they find in what corner of the room? And here's the thing, suppose they find that it's not 7.8 million, which is bad enough, they find it hundreds of millions, okay? And Trump has been, you know, brandized by hundreds of millions of dollars, by his own corrupt and criminal efforts. What do you do with that? How does that work then once we find out lots more? I think that is going to be a question that we're going to have to address in that time. I had never in the history of America, we had a president that has already 91 indictments. So I think those are going to have to play out. I think if you were able to flip the house, but you don't get the presidency, then nothing happens if Trump becomes president again. Now, if you flip the house and you keep the presidency, I think you may see a move by the Democrats to possibly wash it under the bridge, because like I said, there are 91 other counts. And I think what they're going to focus on is probably the most egregious of the egregious of the despicable, because there's so much to choose from. It's like a shopping mall of violations, just pick whatever store you want to go into and shop from. However, if they do take it on, they will definitely probably, not definitely probably, they will absolutely make sure that they have a seasoned Democrat head that committee. And I think there will be a push, like we saw with the January 6th committee to have it be bipartisan. They're going to want at least one or three of Republican voices on that committee so that they can have some validity in it. But I think that would be it. I think also when this comes out, we may end up finding out that President Trump may have had more knowledge, more situational knowledge, more understanding that certain situations in the globe or in the world right now today were inevitable or would be happening, which may be also I held onto some documents and kept certain friends. So what I think is more so not the money, but I would be interested to see it how much he knew about Ukraine. Yeah, it should be revealed to the public. It should absolutely be revealed to the public. And to be honest, we should announce real charges. We should announce real charges. If something is insurrection, it must be charged as insurrection, otherwise stop calling it an insurrection. And something is treason, make the charge for treason or stop calling it that. It's not just Trump's side who's dropping the ball on this. It is absolutely our entire system that really is kind of showing how weak we are to this. Yeah, so one of the points I want to extend with you on, we covered it briefly, is the policy point about why this is bad. Of course, it's bad under the emoluments clause. And it's bad as a matter of corruption. It's bad as a matter of keeping it secret. He would have kept it secret forever at the oversight committee not found it. He would never have said a word. Nobody would have known about it. And so you wonder where the press is on this, because this story came out roughly a month ago. So I saw it there. In fact, we had a talk show about it a month ago. Now Common Cause is on it. And Common Cause is doing stuff about it and making it public. But in that month, I haven't seen the media anywhere. So the media has not been following the story. And they won't because they've calculated that this is now Trump's fatigue. Another crime that Trump has committed, the general public doesn't care. The people who care already believe he's a criminal and the people who don't are never going to believe it. So they don't care. And again, this is the problem when what you're after is profit and not actually informing us about what is going on and what intimate and perceived danger we may be in. Yeah. Even if the story is that we demand information, we're not getting it. Even if that's the story, people should know. The other thing I want to know. We deserve to know. We deserve to understand how the president of the United States is, or the former president of the United States, is very close to several dictators or is his best friends with the nation that created Wahhabism, which led to the attacks of 9-11. It's very interesting to find how he is in such good standing with these people while our nation and our people aren't in good standing with these people. This is a man who made it his business to ban people from predominant Muslim countries from coming in. Who was left all of that list, though, was the nation where majority, and I mean majority, I'm saying at least 90% of the hijackers of 9-11 came from Saudi Arabia. So all of this has been very concerning because all lanes point to something potentially bigger. But we can only speculate that that is not fact. But what is fact is that a former president is facing 91 criminal indictments. Yeah. And the point I think that follows from that is if you have somebody who has been receiving this under the table money, call it bribes because that's what it is. If I pay you 10 times the value of a room in the Trump hotel in a place where no diplomat would go, no representative of China would go. I mean, I've seen that hotel. Actually what happened is it was on this side of the street and I couldn't stand being on the same side of the street as that Trump hotel walked on the other side. And it's right in the middle of the gambling district, the center of Las Vegas. So really, what are they doing there? But the point is the fact that every country a part of the Abrahamic Accords is a part of this report. It's very interesting. So anyway, so the president gets this, he does this, he keeps it secret and it benefits him in terms of millions of dollars, maybe hundreds, maybe, maybe more than that. Okay, and then how can we feel ever that he is representing our interest honestly and faithfully? We can. He did not have to think that he is representing our interest. He represents himself. He does not even represent his family. That man represents himself. And he may be doing the bidding of those to whom he is indebted, therefore working not only for himself, but for them. And I mean, I think it's not an unreasonable possibility just logically that he is working for them and against us. This is totally intolerable. And an individual with this kind of track record is not fit to be president ever. And I think it's really important that common cause is taking this up. I think it should be work and work and work. I think the intelligence agencies ought to go after him on this. I think the media such as it is ought to go after him on this and good for common cause for going after him on this. It has to be something that feeds into the public decision making when it goes to the polls in November. It has to be. It absolutely has to be. And you know what, the honest is after 2020, this could look a whole lot different. I'm not not 2020, 2024. I'm sorry. They get back to what we first had to beat him. If Trump can be defeated again, I imagine just like we saw 91 indictments the first time he was defeated, we may see 91 new ones. And again, it's, it's horrible because it's framed as a witch hunt. But if there was no magic, there would be no witch to go after. If there was no room in the air that nobody could say there's a witch, there's a witch, there's a witch. These are all whole indictments that he is earned. That he is absolutely earned. And again, if he does not, well, I think he's betting everything on this, this next one. If he does not win this, this next election, it's over for him. And it's over for the back of him. Yes, that's true. The stakes are high. And on the other side of it, if he does with the election, and he does, you know, continue this criminal corruption, then the message is it's okay to do this sort of thing. So it's not just Trump we're talking about is all his lights and all those who watch him, not not only here, but elsewhere. Yeah, Matt Gaetz win, Lauren Boebert wins, Marjorie Taylor Green wins, Comer wins. We have Alex Stone wins. We have so many people who need Trump to win in order for their careers to keep going. We don't even know who they are, but we know that they will follow him in his footsteps, and the American ethic will be changed permanently. So that's the dark side. That's the experts. There will not be any experts a part of his administration if he wins again. It will be nothing but yes, men who will do what he says when he needs them to do it. Yes. Why do I feel I'm a yes man? All right, Cameron Cameron, for the common cause program manager here, who I look forward to further discussions with you. I so enjoy your passion and your Acoma Highway and looking at things. Thank you very much, Cameron. Thank you. You have a great rest of your day and thank you for having me.