Inviting Leaders to a United Approach

 

Trusted leaders across professions, parties, 

& communities speaking clearly and together
about the nation's serious challenges, and how 
we can meet them together.

We've prepared conversations — clear, nonpartisan, and ready to use as they are, or adapt them to your own experience and the audience you know best — so you can bring a shared message to the people who already trust you. 

Across our state and across the nation, we are ready for clarity and honesty. Take this moment to join others and use your voice to make clear what's happening in our country — and what we can do about it. 

A Break in the Public’s Trust?

A Simple Standard

Most of us learned a basic rule early in life: when

someone puts their trust in you, you don’t betray

that trust to enrich yourself and your friends.

Besides friends and family, this rule applies to

police officers, to judges, to teachers — to anyone

who holds a position of authority, especially to the

highest offices in the land. What would you think

about a judge who rules in favor of someone who

just hired her spouse? A public official who steers a

government contract to his own family’s company?

We recognize these things as corruption. The

power of office comes from the people it serves, to

be used on their behalf. Not to enrich the person

who holds it.

The Founders wrote the Constitution to make sure

that no President could abuse that public trust to

benefit themselves, their family, or their friends.

Are those protections holding? I want to walk

through four situations with sourced facts you can

check for yourself. As we review them, ask

yourself, does this look right?

One: Pardons in Exchange for Donations

The president has the power to pardon people

convicted of federal crimes. That power is real and

legal.

Trevor Milton founded Nikola, an electric vehicle

company. A federal jury convicted him of lying to

investors. The court was moving toward ordering

him to repay roughly $680 million to the people he

defrauded. But Milton and his wife had donated at

least $3 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign —

documented in Federal Election Commission filings. Before the court could act, Trump pardoned

him.

Congressional investigators consider this a serious

issue. A bipartisan group has sent letters to 17

pardon recipients, asking about their financial

connections to the president. 

The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, described the pattern as reflecting “an increasingly casual perspective on public corruption.”

The question isn’t whether he had the power to

pardon. He did. The question is what this tells us

about whose interests are being served.

Two: The Crypto Coin

Three days before his inauguration, Trump launched his own cryptocurrency, $TRUMP. He personally profits from it by collecting a fee on every trade.

In April 2025, he announced that the top 220 investors in the coin by May 12 would be invited to

dinner with the president. The top 25 would receive

a private reception and White House tour. The

price jumped more than 50 percent. Some buyers

said outright they purchased it hoping for political

favors in return.

A Bloomberg analysis found that 19 of the top 25

coin holders were likely foreign nationals. Charles

Dent, a Republican and former chair of the House

Ethics Committee, said the arrangement was

“completely out of bounds” for ethical, legal, and

constitutional reasons.

Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis found that

the Trump family and partners earned more than

$320 million in trading fees — acquired in mere

months from a coin he created while occupying the

Oval Office.

Three: The Trump Sons and a Father’s Influence

Four separate business deals share one recurring

sequence: Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump invest

in a company; their father’s administration shapes

that industry through executive orders, diplomatic

negotiations, or federal purchasing decisions; a

significant federal financial commitment follows;

and requests for congressional oversight go

unanswered.

(1) In August 2025, Trump Jr.’s venture firm took a

stake in Vulcan Elements, a rare earth magnet

startup. Three months later, at the personal

direction of White House adviser Peter Navarro —

a close personal friend of Trump Jr.’s — the

Pentagon issued the largest loan in its strategic

capital office’s history: $670 million, approved in

weeks rather than the months normally required,

without the independent technical review that a

Trump executive order had waived. Vulcan’s

valuation jumped tenfold.

(2) Beginning in late 2024, Don Jr. and Eric began

advising and acquiring shares in companies positioned to profit from government drone projects

— Don Jr. in Unusual Machines, and both brothers

through Dominari and American Ventures. In June

and December 2025, President Trump signed

orders prioritizing domestic drone production and

banning imports of foreign-made drones. In October 2025, Unusual Machines received U.S. Army orders for drone motors and components. Through subsequent mergers, the brothers’ investment gave them an interest in Powerus Corp, a military drone company. Unusual Machines also invested in Powerus and became a supplier of its parts. On April 30, 2026, the Air Force awarded Powerus a contract — value undisclosed —through a limited procurement order rather than competitive bids.

(3) In August 2025, the brothers invested in Skyline

Builders, which through mergers became Kaz

Resources. In September 2025, President Trump

personally joined a call with Kazakhstan’s

president and helped secure for that group the

rights to the world’s largest undeveloped tungsten

deposit. The U.S. government committed up to

$1.6 billion to back the project.

(4) The Trump administration has also proposed —

not yet finalized — significant rollbacks on gun sale

regulations, including allowing licensed dealers to

ship firearms directly to buyers without in-person

background checks. Donald Trump Jr. has sat on

the board of GrabAGun, an online firearms retailer,

since December 2024, and holds a 1.1 percent

stake. GrabAGun’s CEO said the proposed

changes could be “the most significant change to

firearms retail distribution in decades,” and that the

company is “uniquely positioned for this

opportunity.”

Kathleen Clark, Professor of Law at Washington

University and a government ethics expert,

described what she sees across all of these

situations: 

“It’s bribery. It’s graft. It’s exploitation of

public power for private financial gain.”

Four investments. Taxpayer and consumer dollars

steered toward sectors where the president’s

family held private stakes. Congressional subpoenas blocked. No competitive bidding. No disclosure. No accountability. A clear pattern emerges. Does this look right?

Four: The DOJ Agreement

On January 29, 2026, Trump filed a $10 billion

lawsuit against his own government — the IRS and

Treasury Department — over a contractor’s leak of

his tax returns. He withdrew the lawsuit on May 18.

That same day, Acting Attorney General Todd

Blanche — Trump’s former personal criminal

defense lawyer — announced an agreement in

Trump’s favor.

So, first Donald Trump personally sued the

government he controls. Then he dropped the case

before any judge could look closely. And

immediately afterward, his own appointee signed

an agreement in his favor. It was called a

“settlement.”

Andrew Weissmann, a lead prosecutor on the

Mueller investigation, described it on NPR: “It was

entirely collusive. This is just one party making an

agreement with the same party.” In plain terms:

Trump dictating terms on both sides — escaping

tax investigations, and creating a fund to reward

those whose loyalty he depends on.

The agreement did two things. First, it created a

$1.776 billion fund, drawn from the U.S. Treasury

— your tax dollars — to pay people who believe

they were targeted by the government. The

President appoints, and can remove, five people to

manage the fund. Weissmann noted that Blanche

would not rule out January 6th defendants —

convicted of attacking the Capitol, then pardoned

by Trump — applying for payments from that fund.

Second — and this stopped legal experts cold —

the IRS was permanently barred from conducting

any future tax examinations of Trump, his family,

and the Trump Organization.

Thirty-five former federal judges asked the court to

reopen the case. In response, U.S. District Judge

Kathleen Williams asked Trump’s legal team: was

this ever a real lawsuit at all, or was it filed just to

make a backroom agreement look like something a

court had blessed? Were the court and the public,

in the judges’ own words, “the victim of a fraud”?

A second federal judge, Leonie Brinkema of the

Eastern District of Virginia, has ruled the fund

unconstitutional — finding it bypassed Congress’s

authority over public spending — and blocked it by

court order.

What’s to Be Done?

The answer can be seen in every House and

Senate seat on the ballot this November. The

people who can tighten the laws and penalties for

graft, monitor and enforce ethics rules, assure

ethical appointments to federal offices, and curb

unchecked presidential power — they sit in

Congress. They write the laws. They hold the

hearings. They control the purse.

You hire them. You can fire them — with your vote, your voice, and your presence at the polls.

Make sure you and everyone you know is

registered and ready to vote by checking at

vote.org.

In November, vote as if it’s the most important vote

you’ll ever cast. Because for the safety and stability

of this country, it may be.

Thank you.

Broken Government

Who's Taking Down What America Built? 

A Speech on What We All Depend On

Think about the last time you fed your family without worrying whether the food was safe. The last time your child needed a doctor and help was there. The last time a flood struck your community and emergency workers showed up ready. What made those things possible? Who was keeping watch?

For most of our lives, the answer has been a web of programs — built by America across generations— not perfect, but always present. Programs that tracked illness before it spread. Inspectors who caught fraud and waste inside government. Health coverage that kept working families from going without care. Emergency systems that picked up when disaster struck. These are not political favors. They are what America built — because experience taught us that without them, people suffer.

So here is my concern — and I want to share it honestly, because I think you deserve to know what is happening, and I trust you to think it through.

What Has Changed

Beginning in January 2025, the federal government undertook a rapid and sweeping dismantling of agencies, programs, and the people who run them. Some reductions were called efficiency. Some reorganization. But when you look at what was actually eliminated — and who was affected — a different picture comes into view.

The inspectors whose job was to catch waste and fraud inside government agencies were fired —in violation of federal law, as federal courts have found. The national program that tracked dangerous food-borne illnesses across 54 million Americans was cut from eight pathogens to just two. The Department of Justice eliminated more than 4,500 positions, with plans before Congress to cut an additional 1,500 FBI

positions. The DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis — the only federal agency legally mandated to share threat information with state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement — announced plans to cut 75% of its staff.

What does it mean when the systems designed to protect us are taken apart, one by one?

Real People. Real Consequences.

These are not abstractions. They are our neighbors — and our law enforcement partners. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, County Sheriffs of America, and the Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies wrote directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security, warning that cutting the intelligence office would create "dangerous blind spots in our homeland security network" and leave local officers unable to "detect and prevent threats before they occur." This was not a partisan warning. It came from America's own law enforcement community. 

Dr. Jason Deen, a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Washington, said in February

2025: 

"Medicaid cuts would mean that

thousands of children in Central and Eastern

Washington would have very poor access to

subspecialty care. These babies could die,

frankly, because they wouldn't be able to get

diagnosed and they wouldn't get the care that

they need." 

Mat Slaybaugh, CEO of Garfield County

Hospital District: 

"Even a small reduction in our Medicaid reimbursement… would push our facility into the red and could put us at risk of closure." 

Cathy Bambrick, administrator of Astria

Toppenish Hospital: 

"We're struggling to keep our doors open… the only thing left to cut is the hospital itself."

 Washington Governor Bob Ferguson estimates at least 250,000 Washingtonians will lose Medicaid, and another 150,000 will lose affordable coverage from the exchange. KFF —the Kaiser Family Foundation — projects Washington State will receive roughly $41 billion less in federal Medicaid funding over the next ten years, a reduction of nearly 20%. 

The Harms Are Already Here

Measles cases have exploded — from 58 confirmed cases in 2023 to 2,288 in 2025, with 2,073 more confirmed by June 11 of this year. Kindergarten vaccination rates have fallen below the level needed to keep children safe. A disease that America worked for generations to eliminate is back, partly because federal vaccination outreach weakened.

The CDC's FoodNet program — the only system

tracking multiple foodborne illnesses across ten

states — was cut in July 2025 from eight pathogens to just two. 

As Dr. J. Glenn Morris of the University of Florida said: 

"If you want to make food-borne disease go away, then don't look for food-borne disease." 

On July 4, 2025, the President signed H.R. 1 into law. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects the law will increase the number of uninsured by 7.5 million through Medicaid cuts, rising to 10 million including Marketplace changes. The administration also canceled $3.6 billion in disaster mitigation grants already awarded to communities nationwide; a federal court ordered the funding restored in December 2025, and compliance remains uncertain. During the July 4th Texas flooding, Government Executive reported nearly two-thirds of calls to FEMA's emergency line went unanswered. This is only a sampling. The damage is widespread across government.

Check It Yourself

Every assertion here has a source. CDC: cdc.gov.

FoodNet: nbcnews.com. Medicaid: kff.org and ccf.georgetown.edu. DHS cuts: cbsnews.com.

FEMA court order: ctmirror.org, December 12,

2025. Governor Ferguson's statements are on

the public record. Please — check it out. The facts are available and they belong to all of us.  

Communities Are Fighting Back

Here is something important: your community is not standing still. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia took the FEMA grant cancellations to court — and a federal judge agreed with them. Local health departments across Washington are filling gaps. State legislators are pushing to protect Medicaid. Hospital associations are speaking up. Pediatricians are calling Congress.

Faith communities are organizing. Law enforcement agencies across the country are writing warning letters. The doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, food safety inspectors, and emergency managers who built and maintained these systems understand what is at stake. They are asking us to pay attention alongside them.

Where Do We Go From Here?

What America built across generations belongs to all of us. Use the tools of democracy to protect it. Ask your members of Congress — restore Inspector General oversight; to protect Medicaid, local health departments and rural hospitals; and to protect children's health coverage. Ask directly: What are you doing to protect what America built?

Talk about it. At your kitchen table. At church. At community events. Ask the people around you: Did you know this was happening? What do you think about it? And finally, vote. The people who hold oversight hearings, who provide funding and rules for how services are provided — while curbing unchecked presidential power — they sit in Congress. You hire them. You can fire them. With your vote. In November, vote like it's the most important vote you'll ever cast. Because for the safety and stability of this country, it may be. Make sure you and everyone you know is registered and ready to vote by checking at vote.org.

Thank you for being here — and for thinking

this through with me.