Trump must be accountable like any other president
Amid the good work Donald Trump has done since reentering the White House in January, here are three worrying issues that can't be overlooked.
It would have been nice to take a nice victory lap after Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last night, but I can’t. For four years we yelled and complained about the Biden family, Nancy Pelosi, and blue state governors like Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer overreaching their powers and engaging in naked corruption. There was indeed much to hate about the Biden Administration from a conservative or libertarian perspective, and some of the effects of his tenure cannot be reversed. But as a person Joe Biden has virtually vanished from the public eye as if he’s a distant memory. Does anyone even talk about him anymore? Corporate media personalities like Jake Tapper are attempting now to shift the blame for ignoring the problems of the past four years like Biden’s cognitive issues, on the media as a whole and not themselves as individual. The Democratic Party is a shambles and its leading figures are resorting to each reading from the same script. The best advantage Trump has is that his opposition has done a greater job of destroying themselves in the process of going after him, to the point that they don’t seem to have any position besides being against whatever he is for.
I included that preamble because those of us on the other side cannot allow that to happen under Trump 2.0. He cannot run for reelection, which means that criticising his administration is all the more important to making sure it doesn’t make monumental errors like the 2020 lockdowns and Operation Warp Speed. Sadly, I fear there are three such issues (Ukraine deserves its own article) that have to be addressed, because they could become compounding errors.
1. The cryptocurrency reserve
Donald Trump himself and several members of his family such as First Lady Melania Trump, Don, Jr. and Eric are involved deeply in the cryptocurrency market. My view has always been “to each their own”. But they should gamble with their own money without the American government serving as a crutch.
“Taxation is theft,” wrote Joe Lonsdale, founder of venture firm 8VC and a vocal Trump supporter, in a post on X. “It should be kept to a minimum. It’s wrong to steal my money for grift on the left; it’s also wrong to tax me for crypto bro schemes.”
If there is one thing that will reignite the public against Donald Trump it is a scheme to get him rich while in office, especially if it is one that goes south as crypto has been fluctuating sharply for the past few days.
2. Epstein will not disclose himself
The botched rollout of the Epstein files, including a pathetic gaggle of approved influencers who received paper copies of the documents, has only served to deepen cynicism about whether the deeper truth about Jeffrey Epstein will be revealed. It was a needless screw-up by Attorney General Pam Bondi, who already has earned scorn for previous support for red-flag laws and her being the second choice for the position after Matt Gaetz’s nomination was withdrawn. Her office has claimed that more documents were turned over to her by the FBI’s New York office today. Hopefully she expedites their disclosure and does not allow this erosion of trust to snowball.
3. Aiding sex traffickers
It is arguable whether this is an issue where Trump personally involved himself, but what is known is that his Special Envoy for “Special Missions”, former Director of National Intelligence and US Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, helped secure the release of Andrew and Tristan Tate from pre-trial travel restrictions in Romania. The Tates have been credibly accused with sex crimes and have even admitted to them on video on numerous occasions.
It is definitely of some consolation that since the Tates have returned to the US there was a new criminal investigation launched against them — but it was by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office not the US Department of Justice. The Tates’ release from house arrest and permission to travel abroad followed a long charm campaign where he hoodwinked conservative influencers like Benny Johnson and Alina Habba into hosting him for fawning interviews.
It’s sad that there are these sordid affairs going on so early in Trump’s term, but now that he’s won the presidency he must bear the responsibilities of one who governs, while we have to be the critics not for our own sakes, but because we want the country to succeed under him.