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For Immediate Release
January, 07 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Sam Quigley at Sam@patrioticmillionaires.org.
Patriotic Millionaires Statement on Biden Nomination of Gina Raimondo and Marty Walsh
"Bold, decisive action to reorient our economy around the needs of working Americans and support their rights to organize is the only way to save this country."
WASHINGTON
In response to the Biden administration's announcement of Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo as Commerce Secretary and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh as Labor Secretary, Morris Pearl, the Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and a former managing director of BlackRock, Inc., issued the following statement:
"The violence at the Capitol on Wednesday is a direct result of a Trump presidency that is itself the direct result of a decades-long effort by amoral fascist plutocrats and cynical politicians to rig the economy in favor of the rich, destroy the middle class, and exploit human vulnerabilities for political gain.
The areas of the country with the highest levels of despair - suicide, opioid addiction, and death - are the areas of the country that demonstrate the most ardent support for Trump. If we are to have any chance to begin healing our nation, our government must do everything possible to meet the urgent needs of our people.
A tremendous amount of the relief and support that the American people need is going to have to flow through the Departments of Commerce and Labor. The Patriotic Millionaires congratulate Governor Gina Raimondo and Mayor Marty Walsh on their nomination to important positions in President-elect Joe Biden's cabinet, and we hope that they recognize the responsibility they now have. Bold, decisive action to reorient our economy around the needs of working Americans and support their rights to organize is the only way to save this country."
The Patriotic Millionaires is a group of high-net worth Americans who share a profound concern about the destabilizing level of inequality in America. Our work centers on the two things that matter most in a capitalist democracy: power and money. Our goal is to ensure that the country's political economy is structured to meet the needs of regular Americans, rather than just millionaires. We focus on three "first" principles: a highly progressive tax system, a livable minimum wage, and equal political representation for all citizens.
(202) 446-0489LATEST NEWS
Republican Suggests Americans Who Can’t Afford Steak and Lobster for July 4th ‘Don’t Work as Hard as I Do’
"Affordability?" said Rep. Troy Nehls. "What are you talking about?"
Jul 01, 2026
Republican Rep. Troy Nehls, a leading defender of President Donald Trump, didn't seem too concerned when asked on Tuesday about Americans' struggles to pay for food on the Fourth of July, saying they may just not work as hard as he does.
As Nehls (R-Texas) prepared to depart for the holiday recess, a pair of reporters—Pablo Manríquez of Meidas Touch and Julian Andreone of Drop Site News—caught him on the steps of the Capitol and asked how Republicans planned to address the high cost of living, which voters consistently say is their top concern entering midterm election season.
Manríquez asked Nehls how House Republicans planned to "make the case that you're fighting for affordability when you go back to your districts?"
Nehls responded: "Affordability? What are you talking about?"
Unprompted, he proceeded to brag about his plans for the holiday: "I'm gonna go there tomorrow. I'm gonna get me a couple of big lobster tails. I'm gonna get me some nice rib-eyes. I'm gonna sit in my backyard with my family and my neighbors, and we're going to be enjoying the Fourth, celebrating 250 years... celebrating the greatest president of my lifetime, Donald J. Trump."
According to the latest Consumer Price Index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, annual inflation has surged to 4.2% after Trump's war with Iran caused energy costs to spike and prices to soar throughout the economy.
High inflation has affected the cost of many holiday staples. According to a report out Tuesday from the Groundwork Collaborative, the cost of ground beef has surged more than 20%, and Ball Park brand hot dogs have climbed 13% in price since last summer.
"Everybody understands, you're going to see a little increase in energy prices because of Iran," Nehls said Tuesday. "I mean, come on, people aren't stupid, you realize that when you have a conflict in Iran."
Though oil and gas companies are reportedly set to make an additional $700 billion this year on the backs of consumers beyond what they would have made without the war, Nehls credited Trump with taking on "price gouging." And though gas prices are still projected to remain elevated through the year's end despite a possible end to the war, he said the high costs were a "temporary issue."
Andreone then asked Nehls, "Do you think the 60% of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck can afford lobster tails and rib-eyes and all of that?"
"Maybe not," Nehls responded. "Maybe the 60% of Americans don't work as hard as I do, neither, I mean I don't know."
With Trump's approval rating on the economy in shambles—a record low 33% of American adults said they approve of his performance in an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll last week—Nehls' comments were perceived as yet another sign that Republicans were hopelessly out of touch with Americans' needs.
It was not the only one. At a time when more than three-quarters of Americans said the cost of housing was an important issue, Trump justified his refusal to sign a piece of bipartisan housing legislation on Monday by saying: "I don't want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up."
Trump has previously described the concept of affordability as a Democratic "hoax" and said that when making decisions related to the Iran War, "I don't think about Americans' financial situation."
While Nehls is retiring and won't have to face voters' wrath in November, his tin-eared surf and turf boast could provide more ammunition to Democrats hammering on affordability as they hope to take back the House and Senate, in part by gaining ground in his home state of Texas.
Responding to the video of Nehls, journalist and commentator Mehdi Hasan said, "Democrats should turn this into an ad."
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'Brazen Crypto Corruption' Helps Trump Pocket $2.2 Billion During First Year Back in Office
One expert who has studied presidential wealth called Trump's windfall "completely unprecedented" in American history.
Jul 01, 2026
Annual financial disclosures released Tuesday reveal that US President Donald Trump pocketed at least $2.2 billion—more than half of it from his family's crypto grift—during his first year back in the White House, a windfall that experts say is without precedent in American history.
The disclosure report shows that Trump pulled in $635 million in royalties from Celebration Coins, an entity linked to the president's meme coin. The president also disclosed around $527 million in proceeds from token sales by World Liberty Financial, the Trump family crypto venture spearheaded by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
“It is completely unprecedented,” Megan Gorman, a tax attorney who has studied the history of presidential wealth, told The New York Times of the president's windfall.
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement that "Trump’s obscene income is driven by various cryptocurrency schemes, leveraging his political position to exploit a scam-driven industry that he once said was nothing more than a racket."
"In doing so, he’s ripping off investors—to the tune of billions—who want to get in on the game with him, or think that buying his crypto products is an innocent means to show their support," said Weissman. "Most troubling, Trump’s personal profit interest has now aligned him with the crypto industry, paving the way for dangerous legislation that will facilitate mass rip-offs and even threaten financial system stability."
Trump's massive profits from an industry he's tasked with regulating represent what the watchdog group Campaign Legal Center (CLC) described as an "unprecedented" conflict of interest, notwithstanding the White House's laughable claim that "neither the president nor his family has ever engaged—or will ever engage—in conflicts of interest."
"We have never seen a president have direct conflicts of interest with his financial holdings and the policies he supports, and it’s another example why we need widespread ethics reform now," Kedric Payne, CLC's senior director of ethics, told The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal noted that, in addition to crypto profits, "Trump reported $4.7 million in income last year from Trump-branded watches, as well as $1.9 million in royalties from his 'Save America' book."
"Multimillion-dollar licensing deals linked to real-estate developers stretched from Romania to India to across the Middle East. A $6,484-a-month pension from the Screen Actors Guild continued paying out," the newspaper observed.
The disclosures also include tens of million dollars in legal settlements stemming from Trump's lawsuits against major companies, including ABC, CBS, and Meta.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said Tuesday that lawmakers must add language to the upper chamber's crypto legislation that prevents "the president, vice president, senior administration officials, members of Congress, and their families from profiting off the crypto industry."
"If it does not," the senator warned, "it will only turbocharge Donald Trump’s brazen crypto corruption."
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'Beginning of a New Phase': Hottest June Ever Recorded for World's Oceans
"With ocean temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we are likely to see more temperature records fall in the coming months."
Jul 01, 2026
A new report released Wednesday shows that surface temperatures of the world's oceans hit a record for June, sparking fresh warnings of grave “consequences for weather patterns, global climate and marine ecosystems” across the globe.
The analysis by the European Union’s Copernicus Marine Service, and confirmed by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), finds that “record global sea surface temperatures” of 21.0° Celsius (69.8° Fahrenheit) in June of 2026 beat the previous record in the same month broken in 2023 and again in 2024.
C3S director Carlo Buontempo warned that the "current conditions" of the oceans "could indicate the beginning of a new phase, leading, once more, to uncharted territory."
"With ocean temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we are likely to see more temperature records fall in the coming months," Buontempo warned. "That Copernicus Marine data reaches the same conclusion through independent methods speaks to the strength of European science—and to why open, robust data matters now more than ever.”
According to a statement from Copernicus, warmer oceans have wide-ranging impacts on natural systems and human infrastructure, noting that "higher ocean temperatures keep the atmosphere warm for longer, provide extra energy to storms and increase evaporation, thus enhancing the potential for extreme precipitation and flooding. Ocean warming also contributes to sea level rise and ice melt, and stresses marine ecosystems."
With the onset of a new El Niño cycle—which tends to trigger more pronounced weather events worldwide—the continued increase of ocean temperatures is a serious concern of scientists.
Wednesday's report on ocean temperatures also arrives as record-breaking heat waves hit both Europe and North America, offering more evidence of the perils of an ever-hotter world that is being pushed to the brink by the burning of fossil fuels and the failure of governments worldwide to finally act against the fossil fuel industry that is driving the crisis.
Surging ocean surface temperatures are "not unexpected,” Michael Meredith, an ocean scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, told CNN in response to the Copernicus report. “But the pace of warming we are now seeing is alarming.”
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