Money Buys Access, Everyone Else Gets Left Behind: GovBrief #331

Money has always bought access in Washington. It’s never been this naked.

A cannabis CEO spent 18 months cutting seven-figure checks to Trump’s political groups, attended fundraisers billed at $1 million per guest, and landed a two-hour Oval Office meeting where a Florida sheriff watched the president chat about Palm Beach real estate and golf courses. She walked out with marijuana rescheduling, overriding Speaker Johnson, 22 Republican senators, and the religious right. “It was a little surreal,” she told the Wall Street Journal.

Bradford County (FL) Sheriff Gordon Smith describing the Oval Office meeting where Trump decided to loosen marijuana restrictions and tried to post immediately about it, to the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, 65% of Americans earning under $50,000 disapprove of Trump. Consumer confidence just hit its lowest point since April, flashing recession warnings. And the president is posting about marble armrests for the Kennedy Center while telling you there’s “no inflation” despite food prices up 2.6%.

If you can write a seven-figure check, you get the meeting. If you can’t, you get lied to.

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Today's Quote

The lawyers and his staff, they started yelling, ‘No sir, you can’t yet; there’s a 30-day period, it’s gotta go through this and that.' They had to stop him from posting.

Bradford County (FL) Sheriff Gordon Smith describing the Oval Office meeting where Trump decided to loosen marijuana restrictions and tried to post about it immediately, to the Wall Street Journal.