The Daily Populous Monday July 27th, 2026 day edition
Authored by variety.com and submitted by darealunrealspader

On Sunday night, John Oliver returned to the desk of “Last Week Tonight” from his summer hiatus, and there was, naturally, plenty to discuss.

The HBO host, whose contract is up at the end of 2026 — and whose parent company is facing a probable acquisition by Paramount Skydance, putting the lefty comedian directly in the crosshairs of a pro-Trump owner who’s already implemented a number of administration-friendly changes to CBS News — focused nearly the entirety of the show on President Trump, who’d previously called crypto “a disaster waiting to happen” that “may be fake” on Fox Business, but now refers to himself as “the first crypto president.”

“Trump realized just how much money he personally could end up making from dealing with a speculative asset because it’s turned out to be a lot,” Oliver said. “His recent financial filings show that in just his first year back in office, his personal income surged to more than $2.2 billion, most of which came from his family’s crypto businesses, which brought in about $1.4 billion. In fact, crypto has become the family’s dominant business interest, overshadowing their real estate empire and every other business they have ever had.”

As Virginia Canter, a prominent ethics attorney, stated, “This is like a perfect vehicle to funnel money to [Trump] and his family to enrich them.”

Oliver then broke down two of the Trump family’s main crypto ventures: his meme coins (or jokes converted into crypto that purely have novelty value) and World Liberty Financial.

“Most meme coins, seemingly by design, basically follow the trajectory of pump-and-dump schemes. They spike in value when they first come out and then immediately crash with insiders selling at the peak,” explained Oliver.

You see, Trump and Melania launched meme coins just prior to his second inauguration, which skyrocketed in value and then plummeted. By the following December, Trump’s meme coin was down 92% in value while Melania’s was down 99%, but Trump walked away with $636 million. Trump even went as far as hosting an intimate private dinner for the 220 top holders of the Trump meme coin, thus offering “access to the White House in exchange for an investment in one of [Trump’s] crypto ventures,” reported The New York Times. Meanwhile, nearly 1 million people lost money in the Trump meme coin with their losses totaling $3.8 billion, according to the Times.

“But Trump’s meme coin is just the tip of the iceberg here,” said Oliver, before segueing to the Trump family’s biggest crypto venture, World Liberty Financial.

One way you can buy into World Liberty Financial is by purchasing a governance token, $WLFI, which merely allows you to vote on how the token is run, with 75% of purchases flowing to the company as a fee. And a number of sketchy deals have ensued involving World Liberty Financial. For one, Justin Sun invested $45 million in World Liberty Financial and then the SEC settled a fraud case being brought against him for $10 million with no wrongdoing admitted.

If that weren’t enough, an Emirati investment fund pledged to invest $2 billion in World Liberty Financial. At minimum, Trump’s company netted $187 million from the deal. And two weeks later, Trump traveled to the UAE and announced they’d be able to buy hundreds of thousands of advanced AI chips from Nvidia (whereas the Biden administration had issued restrictions on the export of advanced AI chips to the UAE over security concerns).

“It sure seems like Trump is exploiting crypto sketchiness for maximum profit,” declared Oliver.

Trump is now pushing the CLARITY Act, which will shift crypto regulation from the SEC to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a small federal agency with little to no enforcement power.

“If these conflicts of interest were as easy to understand as Jimmy Carter and his peanut farm I think there would be a lot more alarm about just how flagrantly corrupt and compromised Trump looks here,” Oliver maintained. “That is why we badly need proper guardrails going forward.”

Maeglin75 on July 27th, 2026 at 06:15 UTC »

In the past this guardrail was believed to be democracy. Who would vote for an openly corrupt politician? What party could afford to support and protect such a corrupt politician?

Turns out, millions of voters don't care. Feed them with enough propaganda, make them fear and hate everyone else and they believe the obvious lies of the politician/party over what they see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears.

George Orwell knew what he was writing about.

Choice-of-SteinsGate on July 27th, 2026 at 06:08 UTC »

The narrative that Trump has charitably sacrificed his net worth for the sake of running the country is a load of bullshit.

The White House's whole "war on fraud" campaign serves two distinct purposes: scapegoating immigrants and minorities, and distracting Americans from the "fraud" and corruption actually worth investigating.

Starting with how Qatar "gifted" Trump a luxury plane originally valued at $200-400 million, then nearly $1 billion more in taxpayer funds to renovate (Qataris Trump has accused of funding terrorism no less).

The value of the plane totals more than the cost of all foreign gifts bestowed on every former president COMBINED.

In return for this BRIBE, Qatar is receiving US security guarantees, economic and defense deals, and approval for a Qatari military training facility in Idaho.

Then there's Trump's own latest financial disclosures showing more than 3,600 market transactions during the first quarter of 2026 alone! The scale of the activity is ENORMOUS, and the timing of these trades is criminally suspicious.

The Trump family and associates have so far monetized the presidency to the tune of BILLIONS; engaging in massive insider enrichment; cryptocurrency scams; and theft, bribery and extortion.

Don Jr. is the "financial advisor" for the two top prediction markets, Kalshi and Polymarket.

Both of Trump's sons are exploiting their relationship with their father to pursue lucrative business deals with the Pentagon and unsavory foreign benefactors.

That's not all...

The Trump Family have also profited immensely from their cryptocurrency schemes; raking in hundreds of millions in trading fees alone while everyday investors have collectively lost billions.

Foreign parties have also stated that they've invested in Trump family meme coins to literally purchase influence with the president.

Trump is accepting lavish gifts, bribes, and contributions from foreign governments, CEOs, special interest groups, corporate sycophants, right-wing "tech bros," private donors and overseas monarchs in exchange for political and economic favors.

Trump officials are using privileged knowledge to make insider trades and wager on government actions through the same prediction markets that Don Jr "advises."

The DoD recently spent $93.4 billion in a single month, mostly on nonessential gratuities, accommodations and luxuries for government officials.

Worse yet, while Americans are struggling to make ends meet, Trump is using taxpayer money to fund his personal vanity projects gone awry and even sued his own government for a massive taxpayer funded payout into a slush fund for his co-conspirators and violent followers that he was going to secretly control.

The fate of the fund is still ambiguous, but as part of the "settlement," the IRS is now barred from auditing the Trump family's tax crimes; allowing Trump to save millions in unpaid penalties.

Republicans, however, are demanding that you blame immigrant and minority communities for stealing your tax dollars.

The DOJ now operates as Trump's personal legal arm, the FBI as his own crime unit, and the FCC as his tool for silencing his critics.

These agencies and their officials are being directed by Trump to shift the public focus away from the REAL fraud and corruption worth investigating

Yes, the White House is trying to divert your attention away from the kleptocratic thieves picking your pockets, and towards immigrant "invaders" and vulnerable communities of people who don't have the political, social or financial capital to be orchestrating anything resembling to kinds of schemes that Trump and his corrupt allies are profiting from.

Part II: Trump The "Business (Con) Man:"

Trump is a notorious financial fraud who has bankrupted or crippled many of the businesses, products, and services that he's tried to slap his name on.

Here's a list of some of Trump's business failures:

• Trump Casinos and Hotels • Trump University • Trump Magazine • Trump Airlines • Trump Beverages • Trump "The Game" • Trump Mortgages • Trump Steaks • Trump Travel Site • Trumpnet • Trump Tower Tampa • Trump Vodka • Trump Fragrances • Trump Mattress • Trump Network • Tour de Trump • Trumped! • Trump Media

Trump has also been involved in over 4,000 legal cases, many of which include financial crimes.

Trump has profited off of screwing over small businesses and financial associates.

He has also profited off of lying about his wealth and the value of his properties; he even lied to get on the Forbes list. Let's not forget Trump's felony convictions for falsifying business records in order to conceal a crime.

While back in the 80s, Trump had lost more money than any other American taxpayer. But he continued borrowing money from his father and from banks; avoiding paying income tax for many years. He amassed unsustainable debts and dumped them onto others.

After squandering his riches, Trump received his lucky break, The Apprentice. The show played a significant role in boosting his income and public image.

During his first term, Trump was forced to pay more than `$2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds at the Trump Foundation for political purposes

As part of the settlement, Trump was required to acknowledge his personal misuse of funds at the Trump Foundation and it was forced to shutter its doors and dissolve under court supervision.

Then there's Trump University:

In 2013, A lawsuit was filed by New York's AG accusing Trump of defrauding thousands of people who attended Trump University. New York regulators forced Trump to stop using the term "university" to describe the scheme, calling Trump's use of the word, "misleading and even illegal."

Former students recount being pressured to provide high approval ratings for the courses they were taking, or have their graduation certificates withheld. Thousands of students sought course refunds and claimed that they never received any benefits from the courses.

There was also a separate class action lawsuit against Trump University. Trump's counterclaims were dismissed and he even tried to file a defamation suit against one of the students who made her experiences at the "university" public. Trump was eventually found to have defrauded students and was forced to pay $25 million in restitution.

Trump is also known infamously for not paying what he owes. This includes hundreds of millions in loan forgiveness and legal penalties, and unpaid bills for rally costs at cities around the country.

As president, Trump directed taxpayer money towards his businesses. The secret service and other government parties were forced to overspend at Trump properties.

Trump also booked events for foreign governments at locations he owns in order to curry favor with his admin.

Prior to his inauguration, Trump met in private with several billionaires who pledged millions of dollars towards his presidency, evidently in exchange for laxity, and were invited to sit in the VIP section at his inauguration while his supporters stood out in the cold. How symbolic.

Trump is a notorious grifter. Selling everything from hats, T-shirts, clothing and accessories, to watches and jewelry, NFTs and digital collectibles, commemorative medallions and coins, Trump currency and trading cards, tacky sneakers, overpriced Bibles, cologne and perfume, among other Trump branded merchandise that he continuously suckers his followers into buying, and money that typically gets reserved for his legal fees.

Soloact_ on July 27th, 2026 at 05:59 UTC »

He called crypto fake until he figured out how to make money off it lol.