“It needs to stop.” Ben Shapiro calls out Trump's “skeezy stuff” like the crypto scheme and accepting a plane from Qatar.
Shapiro: “I think if we switch the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we'd all be freaking out on the right”
Published
Citation
From the May 12, 2025, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): Taking sacks of goodies from people who support Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, al-Jazeera, all the rest, that's not America first. Like, please define America first in a way that says you should take sacks of cash from the Qatari royals who are behind al-Jazeera. It just isn't America first in any conceivable way. So back to the original question — is this good for President Trump? Is it good for his agenda? Is it good for draining the swamp and getting things done? The answer is, no. It isn't. It isn't. If you want President Trump to succeed, this kind of skeezy stuff needs to stop. And here's the thing, it's already having an impact. It's already having an impact.
...
Y'all remember President Trump launching dollar sign Trump crypto three days before taking office as president. Trump himself announced the Trump crypto on X. On Truth social, he described it as a meme coin, meaning it had no inherent value. It was just there for the kind of bleeps and giggles. The price spiked to a trading value of nearly $13 billion dollars making it the 19th most valuable cryptocurrency on planet Earth. And then it proceeded to plummet, like, really, really dive.
The project allegedly netted people associated with it, meaning the Trump organizations associated with the Trump crypto, some $350 million. 80% of the outstanding supply of that meme coin is still held by insiders, presumably members of the Trump Organization. Overall, according to data shared with CNBC, there were 2 million wallets that that bought that Trump meme coin. 764,000 of them lost money. 58 wallets made more than $10 million bucks.
And then in April, that Trump meme coin announced that the top 220 holders of the meme coin would would be invited to an intimate private dinner with President Trump at his golf club. The top 25 were invited to a VIP White House tour. According to Bloomberg News, 19 of the top 25 holders of that Trump meme coin that have registered on the website's leaderboard have bought the coins using foreign exchanges that claim to exclude US customers, which means that foreigners are buying a lot of meme coin and then getting meetings with President Trump, like VIP White House tours and all the rest.
This raises the question of influence peddling. If you basically buy a bunch of Trump meme coin and and then funnel money to organizations associated with President Trump so you can have dinner with Trump. That doesn't look great. Democratic senators, of course, immediately announced that they wanted an ethics probe. They sent a letter saying, quote, this latest action raises grave ethics and legal concerns, including the severe risk that President Trump and other officials may be engaging in pay-to-play corruption by selling presidential access to individuals or entities to include foreign nationals and corporate actors with vested interest in federal action while personally enriching the president and his family.
That might be overstated, but let's be clear, some people do seem to be investing in the Trump meme coin for the access. I mean, there was literally a CEO of a company called Freight Technologies that just bought $20 million dolars worth of Trump meme coin, which I gotta say is not like the most solid investment. What was the explanation quote? We believe the addition of the official Trump tokens are an excellent way to diversify our crypto treasury and also an effective way to advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and The United States. It's like to impact policy. Again, not the least skeezy thing I've ever heard.
Now listen. Maybe all of this is overblown. Maybe it's all nonsense. Maybe some of it's not true. And I understand some of it's being reported by legacy media outlets. But, again, here is the question: Does any of this help advance the president's agenda? You know the agenda that we all voted for, the agenda we want to see implemented. Does this make his presidency stronger or weaker? Now I'm gonna repeat again, I don't know whether this activity is criminal in any way, but things do not have to be criminal to hurt the agenda.
If you want President Trump's agenda to succeed, taking jets from Qatar is not the way. Taking real estate deals from Qatar is not the way. The largest obstacle to any administration is scandal. From Watergate to Whitewater, scandal-plagued administrations have a really tough time gathering the political capital necessary to actually effectuate their agenda. And that's why it's unbelievably important that the Trump administration avoid scandal. That is the reason I am worried about this stuff.
Yes, I think inherently it is bad. I do not think this is good. I think if we switch the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we'd all be freaking out on the right. Let's say if Qatar was giving Joe a $400 million jet for his use at his presidential library after his presidency, or if Hunter launched a crypto firm with the son of Antony Blinken and then launched a series of crypto products in which mysterious strangers, including foreigners, were investing, all while that crypto firm was being regulated by Joe's administration, we'd all have been pretty upset on the right. We might have said that it was worthy of some coverage.
Now as I say, again, it could be all of these reports are — all of them. Maybe it's all just a misreading of perfectly innocent business. Sure. It's possible. But the point is this. President Trump has enemies all over the place. He has people seeking to take advantage of their proximity to his power. His media outlets that would love nothing better than to set him up for another impeachment.
And I promise you, I promise you, if these issues begin to dog his administration, Republicans will lose Congress. It's that simple. Republicans are this close to losing Congress anyway. And then whatever President Trump hopes to do, whatever agenda we all voted for will be DOA. The investigations will never end. There will be more impeachments. All of that will happen.
The administration's policy is too important for this sort of activity. President Trump promised to drain the swamp. This is not, in fact, draining the swamp. President Trump was elected based on the American people being sick and tired of the swamp, tired of Hunter, tired of the Clintons, tired of the Biden crime family.
Why in the world would President Trump be well-served by this sort of vulnerability? Again, more importantly, why would those of us who voted for him, who gave to his campaign, who stumped for him, campaigned for him, be well-served by this? The answer is we aren't, and that's why it needs to stop.