dana bash c o s CNN

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MMA

August 13, 2025, edition of CNN's Inside Politics

DANA BASH (HOST): This week, the Trump family's crypto firm announced a $1.5 billion dollar digital coin deal, another investment in a venture that's already raked in millions for President Trump and his family. But crypto is just one of many ways the first family is making money: there are merch sales, a meme coin, social media platform, of course, real estate projects in the Middle East. It's a dizzying number of deals that leave a huge question, quote "The number, How much is President Trump pocketing off the presidency?" That is the title of the piece you see there in The New Yorker, where staff writer David Kirkpatrick tried to answer that question. And David joins me now. Thank you so much for being here. Did you get an answer to your question? What is the number?

DAVID KIRKPATRICK (NEW YORKER): I came up with the best answer I could at press time, and it was $3.4 billion dollars. Astonishingly, it's probably gone up since then.

BASH: Okay, so let's break down that eye-popping number. More than $3 billion with a B. Crypto, that's where you identify most of the profits. How much have the president and his family made in crypto, and how?

KIRKPATRICK: Well what's most remarkable is the number of transactions, the number of deals, the number of ways that the family has sought to make money. And I should tell you, when I set out my method here was first look at some stream of income and decide one, Is it coming from the presidency? Does it depend on the presidency? And two, how much are they made out of it? So in that category, Truth Social and the company that holds it, Trump Media and Technology Group, is definitely depending on the presidency.

In the last month, the biggest chunk of what I'm calling their money from crypto has come through Trump Media and Technology Group. It has a stock that is basically a kind of financial indicator of the mood about the president. It's a meme stock in other words — stock trades only on how people feel about the president. But they've taken that meme stock and they've swapped it for cash and Bitcoin. So they have $3.1 billion dollars of cash and Bitcoin on the books. The president holds 42% of that company. His share of that is, you know, more than a billion dollars. So that's a that's a $1 billion bump in his net worth just in the last couple of months.

BASH: Eric and Donald Trump Jr. responded to your reporting about all of this. They were on Fox this morning. I want to play what they said and get your response.

[START CLIP]

ERIC TRUMP: It is infuriating. We had nowhere to go. Capital One stripped 300 bank accounts from me, 300 in the middle of the night. We didn't have a damn choice.

DONALD TRUMP JR: Trump was the only guy that was actually a businessman before that. Are we supposed to stop running our businesses? Are we supposed to stop doing anything? He's not involved in these things. We are running those businesses as we have.

[END CLIP]

BASH: David.

KIRKPATRICK: Well, you know, those are those are points that the families made before in the first part, in a kind of a garbled way, what Eric Trump saying there is that they got into crypto because they feel they were blackballed by the big banks. What he's leaving out is the banks that stopped doing business with the family did so after the attack on the capitol of January 6th, and other banks did step in.

The other point that Don Jr. is making, which is that, you know, they're a business family, they should be able to stay in business. When I went through their income streams, I set aside all the money that's their old business, you know, the hotels, things like the hotel, all the deals that grew out of their old business. Okay, fine. You know, a lot of people might say they should have divested from that, but fine.

But I'm only talking about ways that they're trying to monetize the presidency, ways that in one way or the other, they're trying to cash in specifically on the fact that Donald Trump is in the Oval Office. Nobody's done that before. And that's what's so exceptional here.

BASH: That is such an important distinction. I'm glad that you differentiated between the fact that, as Don Jr. said, he was a businessman. Of course he was. And the businesses he had before he ran for office. And what they have done since.

Speaking of that, there are a lot of big real estate deals that you wrote about. There are smaller ventures as well. Private merch sales. In fact, you point out in your piece, you can buy a $40 MAGA hat here on his official campaign site, which that money goes to the campaign. Or you can buy it via the Trump organization for $55. That money does not go to the campaign. I don't think I realized that you can buy it on Trump or, you know, as part of his business, the clearly political merch.

KIRKPATRICK: Yeah, I was really dumbstruck when I realized that on his financial disclosure forms, disclosing his personal income, he's including sales of what looked like campaign merchandise, the kinds of things that were I, a Trump supporter, I would buy thinking I was supporting the MAGA cause and his candidates. But it's actually going into his own pocket. That's, I'm pretty sure, unprecedented.

You know what readers are going to want to know after they read the article is, you know, all these payments. Is any of them an effort to buy influence, a kind of quid pro quo? And those things are very, very hard to prove. But for me, the takeaway is that given the astonishing rate at which they're making this money, given the obvious zeal to make more money, it does make the question more pressing: If you're making a payment to them, do you have reason to believe that they're going to give you something in return?

BASH: David Kirkpatrick, just fascinating reporting.

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AHA mebbe // gubmint, trump admin fail tern 2 always biden/ his admin fault: air traffic, fema notif texas flood noem, bessant defiicit

AN 7 25

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is facing backlash after accusing Democrats of "blowing out the deficit in 2020" — a year when Donald Trump was president.

In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday morning, Bessent blamed the Democratic Party for the 2020 deficit crisis, despite the fact that the Republican Party controlled the White House at the time.

His comments quickly sparked criticism and mockery on social media, with many pointing out the contradiction.

Singer-songwriter Ricky Davila wrote: "MAGA fraudster Scott Bessent falsely accused the Democratic Party of blowing out the deficit in 2020. Problem with that bulls--- accusation is that the orange felon was in office in 2020, not President Biden. They literally lie about everything."

IFrame Content

Democratic activist Lucas Sanders wrote: "Scott Bessent: 'The Democratic Party blew out the deficit in 2020.' WHAT? Can someone tell him who was the president in 2020?"

"Does the Treasury Secretary know who controlled the White House and Senate in 2020?" wrote a user.

"MAGA always drop to the Ad Hominem attack when they're unable to defend their horrible policies," said a user on X.

"Who wants to remind him who the president was in 2020? Also, Trump is now blowing up the deficit even more than Biden ever did," wrote another.

"They love trying to rewrite history. Biden became president in Jan 2021. All the stuff they complain happened with Covid started in 2020, and they always blame that on Biden too," said another X user.

Many also criticized the host for not fact-checking Bessent.

"This is WHY Americans are so ill informed. She didn't correct him! She just ignored that and moved on. When the media talking heads don't correct the record the zombies just beleive what they hear!" remarked a user.

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an beware 2 25

CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday delivered a succinct retort to United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem after the Trump Cabinet member said, "you can't trust the government anymore."

As Bash correctly put it, "you are the government."

Bash spoke with Noem on CNN's “State of the Union,” in part about Elon Musk’s work at DOGE, “a program the administration calls the Department of Government Efficiency," as the *New York Times* describes it.

As Dash noted in her interview with Noem, the Washington Poston Saturday reported that “a small team that does not have security clearance has access to FEMA’s network, which contains the private and sensitive information of tens of thousands of disaster victims.”

“Have you authorized Elon Musk and his team to have access to Americans’ personal data that is housed inside DHS [Department of Homeland Security]?”

Noem replied she’s “working with [Musk’s team] at the president’s direction” and described Musk’s work as “an audit of the federal government, which is very powerful and needs to have happen.”

As Noem went on to discuss “appropriators in the Senate and the House," Bash brought the conversation back to whether Musk has access to sensitive personal information.

“The president has authorized him to have access,” Noem replied.

“And you feel comfortable?” Bash asked.

“Absolutely,” Noem said.

“I remember a time when Republicans were very careful about, and worried about, the government — particularly un-elected people," Dash began to say.

“Oh, we can't trust government anymore,” Noem interjected.

“But you are the government,” Bash replied.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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The good, the bad, and the ugly of Sunday morning political shows’ coverage of Hurricane Helene misinformation

Impacted states are pleading for bad actors to stop spreading deliberate misinformation

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Allison Fisher

Published 10/07/24 mma

Misinformation related to the ongoing response to Hurricane Helene, which has created widespread devastation across six states and left at least 232 dead, is disrupting relief operations, and a number of local and state officials are calling on bad actors and the Trump campaign to stop spreading the lies.

The Sunday morning political shows attempted to address this hurricane misinformation with varying degrees of success. With the exception of Fox News Sunday, all the shows rightly pointed out the threat misinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories pose to the response efforts while flagging some of the most prevalent lies polluting these efforts.

The most prevalent misinformation has centered on the distribution of Federal Emergency Management Agency aid, specifically the false claims that federal assistance is limited to $750 per affected individual and that FEMA funds are lacking due to spending on immigrant assistance. Bad actors have also pushed an overarching falsehood that the response has been a failure.

Both ABC and CBS hosted good-faith actors who debunked the falsehoods while also confirming that the federal efforts have been strong. CNN and NBC hosted bad actors who refused to acknowledge the misinformation and continued to push the false claim that the federal efforts have been a failure even in the face of repeated fact checks by the anchors.

Even though the misinformation appears to be constructed to attack the response of the Biden-Harris administration, none of the networks provided the context that former president Trump has a track record of doing what he accused the federal government of, such as withholding hurricane disaster relief to North Carolina and Puerto Rico allegedly for political reasons or the recent revelations that Trump “refused to approve disaster aid for California after deadly wildfires in 2018 because of the state’s Democratic leanings.”

Material to misinformation around the adequacy of FEMA funds is the fact that Republicans, just days before Hurricane Helene made landfall, voted down additional FEMA funds requested by the White House, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has declined Biden’s request to convene Congress to consider a special relief package for impacted states. However, these facts were also absent from the coverage.

The good: ABC, CBS focused on misinformation and officials’ explanations that it can hamper recovery efforts

ABC’s *This Week* foregrounded an interview with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell by reporting that “in North Carolina, they are still working to survey the damage and to reach survivors as a wave of misinformation from the former president and his allies hampers the recovery effort.”

They added: … “In the wake of Trump's various claims, FEMA launching an anti-rumor tool this week to combat those messages, with local officials calling on people to ignore online falsehoods. … Law enforcement is monitoring threats towards public officials prompted by disinformation and conspiracy theories, including specific individuals linked to FEMA and other recovery agencies.”

Video

CitationFrom the October 6, 2024, edition of ABC's This Week

In the interview, ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Criswell whether they had the resources they needed. She responded:

“Absolutely, George. We, again, we moved resources in before this storm happened. We embedded our staff in the state to work side by side so we could quickly employ those resources to where they were needed, and as we continue to see how long we're going to have to provide this level of sustained support, we will continue to do that.”

Criswell also lamented about the misinformation that “we're putting politics ahead of helping people,” while emphasizing the danger. “I need to make sure I can get the resources to where they’re needed, and when you have this dangerous rhetoric like you're hearing, it creates fear in our own employees,” she said.

On CBS’Face the Nation, moderator Margaret Brennan reported that a North Carolina state senator had been “posting on Facebook asking people to stop conspiracy theory junk” and asked Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), “Who or what is fueling that kind of misinformation and do you think it is harming recovery efforts?” He responded in part:

“Many of the observations are not even from people on the ground. I believe that we have to stay focused on rescue operations, recovery operations, clearing operations, and we don't need any of these distractions on the ground. It’s at the expense of the hard-working first responders and people that are just trying to recover their life.”

Brennan also questioned Tillis on the misinformation that Trump and others in right-wing media are spreading, such as falsely claiming that money intended for hurricane relief was being diverted to immigrants.

Tillis expressed disapproval of the administration’s border policy but capitulated that it was not impacting the hurricane response, saying: “We have the resources that we need. We're going to have to go back and pass more resources. We could have a discussion about the failure of this administration's border policies and the billions of dollars it’s costing. But right now, not yet is it affecting the flow of resources to Western North Carolina.”

“It has not been a factor, to be clear,” Brennan emphasized.

### The bad: CNN, NBC brought on Trump campaign spokesperson Lara Trump and Sen. Tom Cotton, and both spread misinformation

On CNN’s State of the Union, anchor Dana Bash tried to fact-check Trump’s misinformation in an interview with Lara Trump, but the Trump campaign spokesperson persisted in her false claims.

Bash brought up specific misinformation spread by the right-wing media and Trump, including that “FEMA is only offering $750 to Americans who have had their homes destroyed.”

“That's not true,” she clarified. “He's also echoing conspiracy theorists online who falsely claimed that the administration is redirecting disaster money for undocumented immigrants.”

In response, Trump doubled down on the false claims and repeatedly insisted that there is a relationship between the migrant crisis and the hurricane response, falsely claiming, “You have migrants being housed in luxury hotels in New York City. We have paid so much money from our tax dollars into the crisis that didn't need to happen. We could redirect money to help people immediately on the ground.”

Video

CitationFrom the October 6, 2024, edition of CNN's State of the Union

While Bash repeatedly fact-checked Trump’s response, she still provided a platform for the Trump campaign to push hurricane response lies and create the impression that the federal government’s relief efforts have been lacking.

Similarly, on NBC’sMeet the Press anchor Kristen Welker questioned Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) about hurricane misinformation, stating, “We know former President Trump has made, quite frankly, a series of baseless claims, including that the Biden administration is intentionally withholding aid from where Republicans live, also saying that FEMA funds are being redirected to migrants. Both those claims have been debunked. They’re false.”

Cotton twice claimed that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is calling the response “lackluster,” even after Welker corrected that Kemp “said we got what we needed.”

Cotton also falsely claimed that it took days to deploy helicopters and claimed that “there's not enough money left in the fund” while suggesting that the reason is because billions of dollars have been spent to put up migrants “in hotels and give them room service and maids.”

Welker fact-checked his response, saying, “Those funds are coming from a different federal fund, not from disaster relief, just to be clear. And what DHS Secretary Mayorkas said is that it has the money it needs for now, but not necessarily through the end of the year for future hurricanes.” But Cotton doubled down, saying:

“It is true that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security have been spending billions of dollars on migrants. … I would note that this administration seems to have no problem finding money when they want to spend it on their priorities. When they need hundreds of billions to pay off student loans for graduate students in gender studies programs, they somehow find it. When it's trying to get helicopters to deliver food and water and cellular service and life-saving medicine into the mountain valleys, they somehow can't seem to find the money.”

Welker reiterated that the funds are different and that millions have already been distributed to those impacted.

In his newsletter, media critic Oliver Darcy asked about Cotton, “Why do news networks continue to invite the dishonest GOP senator on to abuse their platforms in the first place?”

Darcy was referring to Cotton continuing to lie about the 2020 election, but the point stands for his refusal to set the record straight on FEMA funding as well. Darcy went on to add:

As Jake Tapper — who also recently invited Cotton on his program — said years ago in the aftermath of the insurrection, “If you’re willing to lie about [the election], what else are you willing to lie about? And why should my viewers listen to you?”

### The ugly: Fox News Sunday glossed over misinformation and aired an inaccurate Trump statement without context

Fox News Sunday’scoverage of Hurricane Helene failed to cover the ongoing issue of misinformation altogether, instead focusing on the two presidential candidates’ recent comments on recovery efforts, reporting that Vice President Kamala Harris returned this week to North Carolina and “pledged ongoing federal support” and “former President Trump has said the current administration has done a lousy job.”

The show punctuated the statement with a clip of Trump saying: “They are doing the worst job on a hurricane than any administration has ever done.”

Video

CitationFrom the October 6, 2024, edition of Fox News Sunday

This is false: While the storm, made worse by climate change, is among the most deadly to hit the United States mainland, the response started even before the storm made landfall and is ongoing.

The Biden administration has approvedfederal assistance for multiple states, including Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, and Georgia. On September 29, the White House released an updated fact sheet detailing the administration's “continued response efforts to Hurricane Helene,” noting that tens of thousands of state and federal personnel are helping victims across several states. This includes 50,000 personnel helping to fix power outages, 3,300 personnel allocating federal resources and helping with search and rescue operations, and 200 medical responders providing health services.

On October 2, Biden approved deployment of up to 1,000 active-duty soldiers to support the delivery of food, water, and other critical commodities to impacted communities.

September 10, 2024, edition of CNN's Debate Night in America - Post-Debate Analysis

DANA BASH (CO-ANCHOR): Can we just cut through to what it is? It's not about the media not reporting on immigration. This is something that is racist. This is a racist meme. The reason why we are covering the memes isn't because we're covering the underlying allegation about immigration. What we are covering are allegations --

JAKE TAPPER (CO-ANCHOR): Republican public officials lying.

BASH: Lying, but lying also suggesting that people of color are eating your pet. That's racism.

an 6 23

bad faith clear by shit eating fratboy grin: fact do not matter, just what base THINKS?

during an extensive interview most notable for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) refusing to stop talking and allowing host Dana Bash to fact-check him, the CNN host was finally forced to cut off the conservative lawmaker and point out he was rambling instead of answering her questions.

Asked on to discuss the37-count federal indictment that former president Donald Trump is facing, Jordan ranted about the politicization of the Department of Justice -- a central theme of hearings in the House Judiciary Committee he heads -- and then launched into diatribes about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Pressed about a Trump admission on a recently revealed tape that he possessed sensitive documents that he had not declassified -- a central part of the DOJ's case -- Jordan stated, "Not if he declassified it when he was President of the United States, for goodness' sake."

"He is saying point blank in this audio tape he did not declassify it," Bash interjected. "What you're saying just doesn't make sense on its face."

"Dana, what this truly is, Dana, is an affront to the rule of law," Jordan attempted.

"It is an affront to the consistent application of the law," he continued. "You haveSecretary Clinton who had classified material on a server. She was not President of the United States. She was Secretary Clinton. You have that happen and nothing happens to her."

"The only one indicted is the one who was president and did it the right way," he later insisted. "Oh, my goodness. That is what the American people see."

fail?

mma 2 23

cNN’s State of the Unionand host Dana Bash held a Sunday roundtable discussion about the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment featuring CNN political commentator David Urban, who said that “there's plenty of blame to go around on this” and pivoted to criticizing the Biden administration. CNN never disclosed or asked Urban about his work for Norfolk Southern, which paid him and his then-lobbying firm over a million dollars.

Urban was until 2020 the president of the lobbying firm American Continental Group, where he lobbied for Norfolk Southern on “transportation issues related to railways” starting in 2009, according to federal disclosure forms. He and his firm collected at least $1,140,000, according to a calculation of federal data by ProPublica.

The Republican commentator is now the managing director for BGR Group, a leading lobbying firm that presents countless conflicts of interest for his on-air work. In its most recent lobbying quarter, BGR has continued to lobby on transportation issues. Its website also states: “Our clients in the aviation, automotive, rail, shipping and mass transit industries rely on BGR to educate political leaders about how vital these industries are to domestic and international commerce.”

Urban also played a key role in the election of former President Donald Trump, who weakened safety regulations in the rail industry.

He appeared on the February 26 edition of CNN’s State of the Union,where he participated in a panel discussion about East Palestine. CNN identified him on screen as a CNN political commentator and former Trump campaign adviser.

During the segment, Bash said that the Trump administration rolled back regulations, to which Urban replied: “There's plenty of blame to go around on this, on these kind -- when these kinds of things happen. But what's important is what we do moving forward, right, to take care of the people in these towns and communities.” He then went on to criticize the Biden administration for allegedly “sloughing off” the crisis.

CNN and Bash didn’t disclose Urban’s work for Norfolk Southern and BGR’s connections to the railroad industry. And Bash didn’t challenge him on whether any of the “blame” should go to Norfolk Southern or about his own work for the company. Norfolk Southern, specifically, lobbied against safety regulations.

CNN has continued to employ Urban despite a dizzying array of ethical problems. For example:

Urban urged a military strike against Iran without any disclosure that he worked for defense contractors.
Urban praised then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper without the network disclosing that he personally lobbied the Defense Department on behalf of defense contractors.
Urban repeatedly attacked environmental protections without disclosing he lobbied for fossil fuel-related clients including Norfolk Southern, which transports coal.
Urban repeatedly pushed for the passage of a trade agreement on-air after he was hired to lobby for it. The network didn’t disclose the conflict of interest.
Urban touted a lobbying client’s opposition to a tax bill without any disclosure that they paid him.

an 4 23

during an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" to praise House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for getting his budget proposal passed by a very slim margin, a member of his caucus was confronted by hostDana Bashabout how the proposal will hurt his own constituents.

Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) was on to make the case that it is up to President Joe Biden to meet with McCarthy to resolve their differences which led the CNN host to dig into the details of how the proposed budget will impact the state he represents

"Let me quickly look deep inside what you did get passed this past week," Bash began. "The bill would cut all non-defense discretionary funding by 22% — that is a lot of money and I want you to look at what the administration would say it would mean for your home state of Minnesota."

Putting a graphic up, she continued, "Thousands would lose food, rental assistance, and they would pay more for college. Outpatient VA appointments for veterans could be cut. This will make a big difference if, what you want, this bill actually would become law. A big difference in the lives of Americans, especially those living paycheck to paycheck. What do you say to them?"

"Well, I actually challenge it," Emmer bristled. "You know, you've got a president who was just told by the Washington Post that his claims on the deficit get 22 Pinocchios."

"They're just not true and what you just said is just not true either," he accused. "You should scrutinize what the administration is talking about."

Watch below or at the link:

During a conversation about the mass shooting in Los Angles that took place late Saturday night and claimed at least ten lives, CNN "State of the Union" host Dana Bash called out at GOP lawmaker who attempted to brush off the need for new gun laws by pointing out gun violence in Chicago -- a favorite rightwing talking point.

Sitting down with McCaul to discuss what to expect now that Republicans have majority control of the House, Bash first asked about the latest gun-related bloodshed in California.

"I was a counter-terrorism federal prosecutor and I was chair of Homeland Security," the Texas Republican replied. "Chicago has probably some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, yet the highest murder rate. The way I look at it is we need the intelligence, we need information sharing, we need to connect the dots."

"Every one of these cases, and I guarantee you'll see it in this one as well, the shooter had warning signs along the way," he continued. "We just didn't respond or pick it up. In my judgment we can create a system. I introduced a bill that we can take published information on the internet, have an algorithm to stop the threat before it happens. That is a smart approach rather than violating Second Amendment rights. So, look, I hope we can get that passed -- we're seeing this movie way too many times."

"What about a red flag law? A federal red flag law?" Bash asked.

"In a way what i'm talking about are red flags," McCaul replied before adding, "Chicago, Illinois has red flags --"

"You keep bringing up Chicago, which I understand," the CNN host interjected before adding, "But the guns in Chicago come in from other places because there is a patchwork of laws across the country, there's no federal law."

'Right. Again, we stopped ---," he backtracked. "I saw it when I chaired Homeland, so many terror attacks because we got the threat information in advance and we stopped it. We can use the same formula here domestically, although it's a little different.The Constitution didn't apply overseas, but we can do that here and stop these threats before they happen."

Watch below or at this link:

Pence chief of staff rants wildly about anti-Trump conspiracy at DOJ — gets promptly shut down on CNN

Tom Boggioni / Raw Story

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” with fill-in host Dana Bash, the chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence argued the Justice Department is rife with officials who are biased against Donald Trump.