Justin Sun, a Chinese national accused of fraud, sent Donald Trump $18 million last week.

The newsletter Popular Information reports that Sun, most recently famous for spending $6.2 million on a banana and then eating it, paid $30 million for cryptocurrency tokens from World Liberty Financial, which is backed by Trump. In a pinned post on his X profile, Sun bragged about the purchase, saying his own blockchain start-up, TRON, was “committed to making America great again and leading innovation.”

Until Sun’s purchase, Trump’s crypto start-up appeared headed for failure with only $22 million in tokens sold, far short of its goal of $300 million in sales. The purchase not only keeps the WLF going, but also guarantees a windfall for Trump. A filing from the venture in October states that “$30 million of initial net protocol revenues” will be “held in a reserve … to cover operating expenses, indemnities, and obligations.”

After that reserve is met, a company owned by Trump is then entitled to 75 percent of WLF’s revenues from the sale of all other tokens. As of Sunday, WLF has sold $24 million in tokens, giving Trump a solid $18 million payoff. Sun’s purchase has also gotten him an advisory position in Trump’s venture, making him business partners with the president-elect.

And influence with Trump may be the only benefit to Sun’s transaction. Right now, Sun’s tokens don’t have any monetary value unless they “are unlocked through protocol governance procedures in a fashion that does not contravene applicable law.” Plus, Sun is also under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud.

In March 2023, the SEC charged Sun, as well as three of his companies, for marketing unregistered securities and “fraudulently manipulating the secondary market” for a cryptocurrency token “through extensive wash trading.” Wash trading is “the simultaneous or near-simultaneous purchase and sale of a security to make it appear actively traded without an actual change in beneficial ownership,” according to Popular Information.

Sun was also charged with “orchestrating a scheme to pay celebrities to tout” cryptocurrency “without disclosing their compensation.” Under federal law, people who endorse securities have to disclose their compensation as well as how much money they received. Sun apparently got Jake Paul, Soulja Boy, and Lindsey Lohan to endorse his crypto tokens.

The charges against Sun took place under the current SEC chair, Gary Gensler, who will be gone after Trump is sworn in next year. Trump’s new SEC chair, whoever that may be, could easily make those charges disappear. Trump stands to rake in much more money from cryptocurrency, and the industry spent a whopping $180 million on political campaigns during the 2024 election cycle. The president-elect is almost certain to help the crypto industry, his new benefactor Sun, and himself make more money in his second term as president.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has advocated to remove all fluoride from public water within the first month of Donald Trump’s presidency, once sold bottled water flush with the very stuff he imagines is toxic.

Kennedy, whom Trump nominated to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, claims that fluoride is “an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.”

In fact, fluoridation helps prevent teeth from rotting out of our heads and children from getting deadly infections in their mouths. It’s been lauded as one of the 10 great public health achievements of the twentieth century by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—which Kennedy will soon oversee! (Can probably expect that statement to disappear from its website soon.)

For as much as Kennedy seems to fear the effects of fluoridated water, he seemed to have no qualms about bottling and selling it for years, according to a story published Monday by The New Yorker.

In 1999, Kennedy co-founded Keeper Springs bottled water to help fund his Waterkeeper Alliance—a strangely hypocritical venture, as his plastic-packaged product was meant to aid the preservation of public clean water.

In any case, Keeper Springs bottled water contained up to 1.3 milligrams of fluoride per liter, according to a 2009 chemical analysis. That’s a significantly higher concentration of the mineral than what’s found in most tap water—for example, New York City’s tap water contains only 0.2 milligrams of fluoride per liter. Keeper Springs stopped production in 2013.

Chris Bartle, a Keeper Springs co-founder, told The New Yorker that Kennedy wasn’t always the fluoride skeptic he is now, and that he’d “never heard it mentioned.” Bartle said that the fact that there was so much fluoride in their bottled water was “hilarious.”

Texas Senator Ted Cruz had a crude image in mind while thinking about Morning Joe anchors Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who—after spending years accusing Donald Trump of being a fascist and comparing him to Hitler—jointly travelled to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president-elect last month.

During a discussion on Fox News Monday night about the MSNBC duo’s trip, Cruz joked that their stunning reversal was less akin to bending the knee than it was to a full-blown sexual favor.

“You have Joe and Mika go to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring and suck up to Donald Trump, you can’t make that story up,” said Fox’s Sean Hannity.

“Well, I’m not even sure they were kissing the ring. I think they were kissing a little bit lower than that,” Cruz tossed back.

Hannity: You have Joe and Mika going to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring and suck up to Donald Trump,

Cruz: I’m not even sure they were kissing the ring. I thank they were kissing a little bit lower than that.........

© New Republic