US President Donald Trump delivers remarks at a midterm election campaign rally for incumbent US Senator Darline Graham (R-SC) at an event center in Rock Hill, South Carolina, US, October 29, 2026.
The cardinal sin of MAGA world appears to be grifting without giving President Donald Trump either a cut of it or permission from him to do it, said The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last and Catherine Rampell on the Friday episode of "Receipts."
The two began by discussing Alina Habba Mildon, who allegedly signed a contract with a Venezuelan family for $50 million while also working for the Justice Department, the New York Times reported. The contract was for a year working as general counsel for a the company started by the daughter of Julio Herrera Velutini. Herrera was seeking a pardon from Trump at the time of the contract.
Last joked that Herrera appears to have been pardoned for bribery with bribery.
"It's funny to me that the people in Trump's orbit don't understand that they need to be making him whole," Last said.
Rampell quibbled with the idea of "whole," saying that it "implies there's a deficit there. He is not rich enough. That he has not siphoned off enough public dollars or private dollars in the process of being president."
The Times report revealed that Trump was furious about the deal and its size. He ultimately said that the family shouldn't pay out the rest of the contract after they'd given her $10 million. The message got back to them.
Last talked about former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and her aide Corey Lewandowski, who were caught in a number of pay-to-play scandals and accusations. A friend's company handled a $220 million ad campaign. The commentators explained that, at one point, Lewandowski wanted to send a threatening letter, but realized it likely wouldn't be smart to put threats in writing, so he wrote down what he wanted a staffer to say and then sent the staffer. Last remarked that the whole situation was like "a mob movie."
Rampell said it was more like a satire of a mob movie. "This is bumbling people trying to emulate the mafia and the mob and failing and then pointing the finger at each other and sometimes making a lot of money but ultimately clowning themselves."
Last explained it like a drug deal where someone who works under a "boss" says they have a $15 million deal on something and would give the "boss" something to bless the deal. What Last said that Habba Mildon didn't do is give Trump a cut.
"None of these people seem to do that! Go to Eric. Go to Barron! Say, I'll throw $10 million into your stupid Trump coin so I can do this. Make sure the boss is ok," said Last. "And none of them do that!"
Others on the list include Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was recently fired after text messages revealed that she begged a Trump donor to pay her $100,000 American Express bill before her confirmation hearing for the Ambassador post.
Two others who recently surfaced were James Blair and Chris LaCivita. Both men were working for a pro-Russian government in a Balkan election, Bloomberg reported. The men traveled to Republika Srpska, a self-governing part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. There they "consulted" on voting issues ahead of Sunday's election for the nationalist party.
Rampell noted that she believes the reports said that gave much of the money to the Trump Presidential Library after the president got mad.
Brad Parscale, the former Trump campaign manager, had a falling out with the president when an ad from The Lincoln Project revealed how much money Parscale was making off of the campaign.
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