Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“The first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know, my personality changed or something.”

DANIEL:

Donald Trump will be president again by tomorrow, and while it might not be “everybody” who wants to be his friend, plenty do.

He’s broken the record for the amount of money that’s been donated to his inauguration fund with 200 million dollars coming in from billionaires and companies all wanting time with him.

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“We have a lot of great executives coming in, the top executives, the top bankers. They're all calling, and honestly, at first, I don’t know what it was.”

DANIEL:

And these funds, they’re not just for throwing a party. They can be used in secretive ways and are not subject to the same rules as campaign funds.

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From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James, this is 7am.

Today, Public Citizen’s lobbyist on ethics and campaign finance Craig Holman on who is giving Trump money, and what they’re getting out of it.

It’s Monday, January 20.

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DANIEL:

Craig, you’ve been tracking the money going into Trump’s inauguration fund. We know it’s record breaking. How does it compare to past funds?

CRAIG:

This is an all time record breaking inauguration. I mean, literally, we're expecting about $200 million in private money to be raised to pay for the party for Donald Trump to celebrate his victory. The previous record was the Trump administration, the first Trump administration in 2017, which was 107 million, and that broke all time records. With Obama and Biden, it got up to 50 and 60 million. But we've never hit these hundred million marks until Donald Trump. And now, I mean, the 200 million just blows everything out of the water.

DANIEL:

So what kind of rules is there around the expenditure of this money?

CRAIG:

You see, that's the problem. There are only two rules in place. One is foreign nationals cannot contribute to an inauguration, and the second is 90 days after the inauguration, the Presidential Inaugural Committee will release a disclosure report of donors of $200 or more. And those disclosure reports do not include any records of how the money was handled, how the money was spent, and if there's surplus funds, how those surplus funds are being disposed of. So it's pretty much the Wild West when it comes to financing the inaugural activities.

DANIEL:

Ok. And what are the inaugural activities? What are we about to see?

CRAIG:

The only one event that really is open to the American public for no fee whatsoever is a victory rally.

Hundreds of thousands of people show up to, you know, celebrate Trump's election. But after that, it all turns into, like exclusive parties and exclusive dinners for the very, very wealthy donors to the inauguration.

Trump has set up a series of tiers of donors. So, for instance, we're seeing a cabinet reception for tier one donors, and that means donors who gave $1 million or more get to actually meet all the different Cabinet nominees. Shake hands, visit with them, talk to them, lobby them, you know, try to convince them to carry through in certain policy matters.

There is the vice president's dinner where tier one donors get to sit down with the vice president and other cabinet officials and have a very intimate dinner with them, you know, rub shoulders, get to know them.

And then there's a candlelight dinner in which donors of $250,000 or more get to have dinner with Donald Trump. And then what's really breathtaking for the first time ever is an event called One America, One Light Sunday service, where donors of $100,000 or more get the privilege to pray with Donald Trump.

So those are the types of events that these people are paying for. The public is only invited to the major victory rally. Beyond that, it's all just a playground for the very wealthy.

DANIEL:

And so you’ve spoken about the various tiers. Who are the people paying for these dinners and access to Donald Trump and his administration? Do we know that?

CRAIG:

So Public Citizen has been tracking everyone who's made a pledge, a public pledge to help finance the inauguration. And we've found 31 people or companies or businesses or government contractors who have now pledged money to finance the inauguration. All of them have pledged $1 million or more.

And all of them, every single one of these donors has business pending before the next administration. So the big group of donors, cryptocurrency, they really want deregulation of the cryptocurrency industry. So we've got companies like Ripple that have given $5 million. Robinhood that's given $2 million. Coinbase, MoonPack, Kraken, all have given $1 million each. They're the number one industry right now.

They're closely followed by big tech. So you got Google, Microsoft, META, Amazon, OpenAI, all giving $1 million each to the inauguration.

And they're followed by Wall Street, where you got Goldman Sachs, Bank of America hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin, each giving $1 million. So these are all companies and individuals that actually want something out of the Trump administration.

DANIEL:

So does paying to get time with the president pay off? Have we seen examples of these types of donors getting favourable treatment after having Trump's ear in the past?

CRAIG:

Oh yes, indeed. We've seen various concrete examples Back in the 2016 election, for instance, Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, who are very concerned about Israeli interests, gave $20 million to the Trump superPAC. And they were asking for Trump to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. As soon as Trump won the election, sure enough, he moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

You got the whole cryptocurrency industry. I mean, they want to be fully deregulated. Trump is now saying, yes, let's get rid of any kind of regulations of cryptocurrency.

Yes, it buys favours, especially to a president who just worships money.

DANIEL:

Coming up after the break - Trump’s transition to the white house, and the security clearances he wanted to avoid.

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DANIEL:

Craig, we've been talking about the unprecedented amount of money flowing into Trump's inauguration fund. But Donald Trump has also been receiving huge donations towards his transition into the White House. So tell me about how presidential transitions typically work and why they cost so much money.

CRAIG:

Back in the 1960s. We passed legislation to make it a publicly financed effort, to smooth the whole transition process. And in that effort, the incoming president simply signs a memorandum of understanding and that commits the incoming president to a certain amount of public funds, office space security clearances, access to all the different agencies in exchange for limiting any private contributions to no more than $5,000.

Every president since the 1960s law has complied with that sort of smooth transition process. Until Donald Trump. He just did not want to participate in any of this, he didn't want his Cabinet nominees to be scrutinised for security breaches. And he did not want to limit contributions from private sources. And he especially did not want to tell the American public who his private donors are.

So he was just blocking the entire process until it became very clear that he's going to have a problem moving his new administration into office because they're not getting security clearances. So Trump eventually made his own memorandum of understanding saying, okay, I'll allow the FBI to do the security clearances. But he's not going to give up private financing of his transition team and he's not going to disclose where the money is coming from.

DANIEL:

So he’s dodged having any limits on how much people can donate to his transition fund. And he also doesn’t have to say where the money is coming from. So what can he use this money on? Can it be just used to line Trump's pockets, for instance?

CRAIG:

Well, it's a non-profit organisation. So the money is supposed to be used for this, the stated specific purpose of the non-profit organisation. But you know, that stated purpose of both the transition team and the inaugural committee are very, very ambiguous in general. I mean basically for the inaugural is to pay for a party. So what does that mean? What limits go with that? With the transition team, it's basically whatever Trump says he needs to do to make the transition.

Trump historically, in last inauguration, for instance, used the money to pay for Trump's services. So he rented out Trump Hotel, both in New York and D.C., paid for various Trump products and services with all these funds. That money goes into Trump's pocket. He's known for routing money, campaign money, public funds, into his own business empire to enrich himself.

DANIEL:

So Trump has re-written the book when it comes to transition finance and the inauguration. Could this change the way future transfers of power are handled?

CRAIG:

We'll see. Legislation has just been introduced in the House of Representatives to set up various regulations of how inaugural funds are used, not transition funds, but inaugural funds. And I'm contacting senators trying to get a companion bill introduced in the Senate.

This legislation would basically close all the loopholes that Donald Trump is exploiting. It would, first of all, prohibit donations to the inauguration from corporations, and that includes government contractors. It would limit contributions from individuals to $50,000. So you don't have someone like Zuckerberg and others throwing out millions to buy influence. It would require disclosure of how the money is handled and spent. So regulation is afoot. These bills, by the way, similar bills have been introduced earlier and they haven't gone anywhere.

However, what makes the legislation more likely this time around is the extent of the Trump abuses. I mean, $200 million for a party. Wow. I mean, that's going to get even a lot of Republicans in Congress saying, you know, this is getting a little out of control. We better rein this back.

DANIEL:

Craig, I got to say, I really admire your optimism, given that Trump has so much control. Why are you optimistic?

CRAIG:

Because reform has always come on the heels of scandal.

I mean, you know, we're seeing millionaires and billionaires buying immediate direct access to Donald Trump. Besides the fact that they financed his campaign, I mean, they're rampant throughout his transition team and now they have taken over his inauguration. We're going to see a federal government here in the United States almost entirely dominated by the very wealthy special interests.

And, you know, Trump is just bringing in billionaires and millionaires into his administration, most of whom have very little experience with the roles that are being asked to be put in.

And when you get that kind of moneyed operation, special interest going full fledged as we're seeing now, there is going to be scandal after scandal.

DANIEL:

Well, I have a feeling that we'll be speaking to you from time to time over the next four years, Craig. But for now, thank you so much for your time.

CRAIG:

Sure. It's a pleasure. Glad to talk to you Daniel.

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DANIEL:

Also in the news today,

A moderate tech executive with the backing of deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley and former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian has won pre-selection in the Sydney seat of Bradfield.

Salesforce executive Gisele Kapterian beat prominent “no” vote campaigner Warren Mundine, who had the backing of key conservative figures, including Tony Abbott.

The seat is being vacated by retiring senior moderate Paul Fletcher and is being closely watched as an early indicator of how the Liberal party plans to approach city seats, which deserted them in favour of the Teals at the last election.

And, Incoming US president Donald Trump has said he will “probably” hit pause on a law that would ban TikTok.

The law, which was passed last year, would ban the app until it cuts ties with its China-based parent ByteDance, due to national security concerns.

Donald Trump has indicated he’s looking at a 90 day extension for the company.

170 million Americans, almost half the population use TikTok.

I’m Daniel James, this is 7am. Thanks for listening.

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