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This week’s Substack Live with Don Lemon was short and to the point. The $1.776 billion “DOJ weaponization” fund dropped this week, and we went straight at it, from every angle we could find.
We started with the framing that more folks in mainstream media need to be stating clearly: this is not just a grift. It is a continuation of the January 6 plot. A payout for co-conspirators. A potential funding mechanism for future crimes. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s own admissions of who could apply confirmed it on national television.
Then we got into a question I had for Don, and he genuinely sat with it: should he apply? He was targeted by a weaponized DOJ. If this fund is really what they say it is, he has a case. And the exercise of applying and watching them deny him would expose the entire thing for what it is more effectively than any op-ed could.
And then we got into the can of worms nobody wants to open. If this DOJ weaponization fund exists for anyone to apply to, what about the crack epidemic? What about the war on drugs? What about the Black people still sitting in prison for weed offenses while cannabis millionaires profit? Don called it reparations for white people, and I couldn’t contest it. It’s very clear, at the very least, that it's reparations for MAGA.
We closed on Trump’s stock portfolio, and I’ll just say this: a president who owns NVIDIA while greenlighting chip sales to China, and owns Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics while waging an unnecessary war, is not running a blind trust. That is an insider trading risk on a scale we have never seen.
You can watch our full conversation above and read key takeaways below.
The $1.776 Billion Slush Fund: A Continuation Of The January 6 Conspiracy
This should be framed as nothing other than a payout for the people who helped Trump attempt to overturn an election, and Todd Blanche’s own words confirmed that people who stormed the Capitol are eligible to apply.
The fund should be framed as a continuation of the January 6 plot, not just a grift. I made this point directly on the live: it is a payout for co-conspirators who helped Trump with his crimes. Trump pardoned them. Now he is rewarding them financially. And because Todd Blanche would not deny that oath keepers could apply, it could also fund potential future crimes. This is not hyperbole. This is the logical extension of what Blanche himself said on camera.
Todd Blanche’s admissions were damning and under-covered. When asked whether people convicted of hurting police officers would be eligible, Blanche said people who hurt police officers get money all the time. Don noted the identical response Blanche gave in a Senate hearing. The nation’s top law enforcement official casually dismissing violence against police as a disqualifier for a taxpayer-funded payout is not a gaffe. It is a policy position. And Don made the point that Blanche also claimed this is exactly what the American people want their money spent on, a claim that every piece of available polling directly contradicts.
A Republican congressman in Pennsylvania called it bad news and said he would try to kill it. Don flagged this as the first time he could recall a Republican publicly dumping on one of Trump’s major priorities. I noted that if enough Republicans get on board, a discharge petition could force a vote on it, the same mechanism being used in other fights. The reason this congressman is speaking out, I argued, is because the fund is so transparently a grift that it is difficult even for loyal Republicans to defend it with a straight face.
Should Don Lemon Apply To The Weaponization Fund?
This is not a joke question. Don was targeted by Trump’s DOJ. If the fund is genuinely open to anyone who believes the DOJ was weaponized against them, Don Lemon has a case. And applying would be an effective piece of journalism.
I made the argument that applying could be a legitimate journalistic exercise. The play is simple: apply, watch what happens, and use the outcome to expose the hypocrisy either way. If they approve Don, or James Comey, or Letitia James, that validates the argument that the DOJ was genuinely weaponized against Trump’s political opponents. If they deny those applications while approving January 6 defendants, that proves the fund is purely political. I said on the live that I think they would deny Don 100%, because approving him would validate the very argument they are trying to avoid.
Don’s case is stronger than most people realize. I pointed out that they are using the KKK Act to target Black journalists. If that is not weaponization of the DOJ against a Black journalist, I do not know what is. Don weighed both sides honestly: applying risks legitimizing something illegitimate, but it also has the potential to expose the hypocrisy more powerfully than any commentary could. He landed on it being worth considering if the courts do not stop it first.
The fund’s stated terms create an impossible contradiction. A Trump administration official told the New York Post that Hunter Biden’s team could apply if they believe the DOJ was used as a weapon against him. Blanche said similar things publicly. If that is true, then the fund is either genuinely open to Trump’s political enemies, which would be an extraordinary admission, or it is not, which proves it is a partisan slush fund. Don said it plainly: if they deny him, they are calling themselves incompetent. If they approve him, they are validating his entire argument. There is no good outcome for them.
Reparations For MAGA & The Can of Worms This Opens
Don called it reparations for white people, and I could not contest it. But the deeper argument is about the can of worms a fund like this opens once you accept the premise that DOJ weaponization deserves financial compensation.
The crack epidemic and the war on drugs are the obvious starting points. I raised it directly: if the DOJ can be weaponized against people, what about the Black people who were targeted in the crack epidemic, while wealthy white people did cocaine without consequence? What about the people still sitting in prison for marijuana offenses while cannabis millionaires make profit? Don noted that some of those people are still incarcerated right now. If the standard is that DOJ weaponization deserves compensation, the case for those communities dwarfs anything January 6 defendants could claim.
Don called it reparations for white people, and the framing is accurate. This is taxpayer money being funneled to 1,600 people who attacked police officers and laid siege to the Capitol on Trump’s behalf, while the communities most consistently targeted by DOJ overreach throughout American history have never seen a dime. The selective application of the weaponization argument is not an oversight. It is the point. I said it on the live: this is reparations for MAGA, paid for by the American people.
The polling makes the political calculation even more insane. Americans already opposed pardoning the January 6 defendants. The idea that they want their tax dollars turned into a payout for those same people, while their prices are rising and their wages are stagnant, is a political miscalculation that Don and I both think will backfire badly heading into 2026. Don was direct: this is on the legislative branch for allowing it, and it is on the voters who put Trump back in office.
Trump’s Suspicious Stock Trades
The slush fund is brazen. What Trump is doing with his personal stock portfolio is part of the same self-dealing pattern. I walked Don through the details, and his reaction said everything.
Trump owns NVIDIA while greenlighting chip sales to China and taking the NVIDIA CEO to Beijing. I laid out the portfolio on the live: NVIDIA stock, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman. These are not passive investments. These are the companies that benefit most directly from the policy decisions Trump is making in real time. Owning defense contractors while waging an unnecessary war is not a conflict of interest. It is insider trading. Don’s response was that at least Nixon had the decency to try to hide it.
The 3,600 stock trades in Q1 alone suggest this is not a blind trust. I said on the live that I do not believe someone is making 3,600 trades without information being fed somewhere. The Polymarket angle adds another layer. The sheer volume of trading activity, combined with the policy decisions that directly move the value of those holdings, points to what I called potentially the most insane insider trading grift in American history. Don called it mob-level grifting and asked whether a RICO statute could apply. I agreed it fits the pattern.
The IRS lawsuit settlement is the connective tissue that ties all of it together. Trump tried to take $10 billion from the IRS by suing his own government. When that became untenable, the DOJ settled it by creating the $1.776 billion weaponization fund, which funnels taxpayer money to his allies and co-conspirators. One robbery begat another. And in the middle of all of it, Trump is raising prices through tariffs and an unnecessary war, making stock trades in the companies that profit from that war, and asking the American public to be grateful for it. Don put it simply: this is the most brazen heist of the American people’s money we have ever seen. I think he’s right.
Bottom Line
The $1.776 billion fund is not a policy dispute. It is a payout for insurrectionists, a potential funding mechanism for future crimes, and the settlement of an attempted $10 billion robbery of the American taxpayer. Meanwhile, the president owns stock in the defense contractors benefiting from his war and the chip companies he is selling advanced technology to. Don called it mob-level grifting. I called it potentially the most insane insider trading operation in American history. Neither of us is exaggerating.
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