SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
apple
'Stuttering Speechlessness' by Jim Cramer Seen as Telling Reaction to Suspicious Trump Stock Trading
"Cramer here is having what should be the normal reaction to Trump actively insider trading on his own decisions," said journalist Ryan Grim.
May 18, 2026
One of Wall Street's most recognizable gurus, Jim Cramer, became notably tongue-tied on Monday after President Donald Trump’s recent stock-trading spree entered into a televised conversation with his colleagues on CNBC.
Disclosures published by the US Office of Government Ethics last week revealed that Trump in the first quarter of 2026 carried out over 3,700 stock transactions, including over 30 stock purchases worth $1 million or more.
As noted by The Financial Times, Trump's investments included transactions involving Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Meta, Visa, Citi, Boeing, Qualcomm, and GE Aerospace, whose executives all accompanied the president on his trip to China last week.
When CNBC co-host Carl Quintanilla brought up these trades during Monday's edition of "Squawk on the Street," Cramer spent ten straight seconds mumbling incoherently.
This promoted co-host David Faber to reassure viewers that "we're not having technical difficulties here," even as Cramer appeared to short circuit.
OMFG the CNBC anchors were puffing up the value of chipmaker Intel, they brought up Trump doing personal trades in the stock, and Jim Cramer stuttered for 15 seconds straight and then was quiet.
Was Cramer shocked by the corruption or mad Trump was picking better stocks? pic.twitter.com/oCl3ypNids
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) May 18, 2026
Journalist Ryan Grim said that Cramer's reaction to mention of Trump's trades was understandable given that some of the companies whose stocks he traded have been direct beneficiaries of the president's illegal war with Iran and other policies.
"Cramer here is having what should be the normal reaction to Trump actively insider trading on his own decisions," remarked Grim. "Just sputtering speechlessness."
Journalist Judd Legum on Monday published an analysis of the Trump stock trades in which he identified multiple instances where the president purchased stocks of companies shortly before—or in some cases, on the exact same day—that he publicly singled them out for praise.
Specifically, Legum found that Trump bought tens of thousands of dollars' worth of shares in biotech firm Thermo Fisher Scientific on the same day he took a tour of one of its manufacturing facilities, and hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of shares in Apple on the same day he delivered a speech calling it "a great company," while saying then-CEO Tim Cook has "done a good job."
Trump also bought up shares in Micron Technology and then described it as "one of the hottest companies" during an interview with Fox News just one day later.
And nine days after buying millions of dollars' worth of shares in Dell, Trump delivered a speech in Georgia where he told his audience to "go out and buy a Dell computer."
In analyzing the trades, Legum explained how Trump has destroyed any remaining guardrails preventing US presidents from using their office to personally enrich themsleves.
"If Trump wanted to legally remove himself from investment decisions he could do so by creating a qualified blind trust," Legum wrote. "Instead, before returning to the White House, Trump transferred his assets in a trust that is managed by his son, Donald Trump Jr. There are no legal or practical barriers preventing Trump from being involved in the management of his assets."
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) warned Trump that details of his assorted stock trades would eventually come to light.
"This smells like blatant and criminal insider trading," Goldman wrote in a social media post. "Even worse, Trump is personally profiting off of his illegal deportation dragnet. Since we know congressional Republicans will pretend like they never saw this and won’t do a thing, anyone involved in these trades should preserve their records for my investigation in January 2027."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Apple Removes ‘ICEBlock’ App That Let Users Report Local ICE Sightings After DOJ Pressure
"Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move,” the app's developer said.
Oct 03, 2025
Caving to what the developer described as "pressure from the Trump administration," Apple has removed an application that allowed users to report and track US Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in their area.
"ICEBlock," which has over 1 million downloads, allowed users to report sightings of ICE agents within a "5-mile radius of your current location" to alert immigrants and others in the community fearful of being swept up in President Donald Trump's "mass deportation" crusade.
Its developer, Joshua Aaron, told NBC News that he created it in April because he felt like he was “watching history repeat itself” when he saw things like “5-year-olds in courtrooms with no representation” and “college students being disappeared for their political opinions.”
“When I saw what was happening in this country, I really just wanted to do something to help fight back,” he said.
Downloads of the app surged in June as the administration accelerated its deportation efforts, aiming for a daily quota of 3,000 arrests. That's also when CNN published a piece about the app that caught the attention of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said she was "working with the Department of Justice to see if we can prosecute them [CNN]" for reporting on the app, which she said was "actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities, operations."
Courts have long held that recording the actions of law enforcement is protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Aaron contended, in a statement emailed to 404 Media, that "ICEBlock is no different from crowd-sourcing speed traps, which every notable mapping application, including Apple's own Maps app, implements as part of its core services."
Fox Business reported Thursday that Apple had removed ICEBlock following direct pressure from the Justice Department, including Attorney General Pam Bondi.
"We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store—and Apple did so," Bondi said in a statement. "ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed."
Following the shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas last week, which resulted in the deaths of two detainees and the critical injury of another, federal officials claimed that the shooter had used ICE tracking apps; however, they stopped short of naming any specific app or claiming that he used it to plan the shooting. Aaron has dismissed these charges as politically motivated.
Aaron shared a copy of Apple's email informing him that ICEBlock had been removed with 404 Media. It said the program violated the App Store's policy against "objectionable content," specifically its section banning "defamatory discriminatory, or mean-spirited content, including references or commentary about religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, national/ethnic origin, or other targeted groups, particularly if the app is likely to humiliate, intimidate, or harm a targeted individual or group.”
The email then said, "Information provided to Apple by law enforcement shows that your app violates Guideline 1.1.1 because its purpose is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group.”
Aaron disputed this characterization, saying: “Apple has claimed they received information from law enforcement that ICEBlock served to harm law enforcement officers. This is patently false.”
Apple has said it also removed "similar apps" from the App Store, citing law enforcement concerns.
The removals come as immigration operations around the country have drawn increasing national scrutiny, with a number of high-profile acts of brutality in just the past week.
On Tuesday night, just hours after Trump said US soldiers should use American cities as "training grounds," federal law enforcement agents descended upon an apartment complex in Chicago where witnesses told the Chicago Sun-Times they broke down residents’ doors, smashed furniture and belongings, and dragged dozens of people, including children, into U-Haul vans as part of an operation that nabbed 37 people.
Last week, an agent was filmed throwing an Ecuadorian asylum seeker to the ground shortly after her husband was detained in front of their family at an immigration courthouse in New York City, where they'd come for an immigration hearing. DHS briefly put the officer on leave, calling his conduct "unacceptable," before returning him to the job three days later.
On Tuesday, a photojournalist had to be hospitalized after an ICE agent pushed him to the ground at the same facility, leading him to hit his head on the floor.
“I am incredibly disappointed by Apple's actions today. Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move,” Aaron wrote. “We are determined to fight this with everything we have. Our mission has always been to protect our neighbors from the terror this administration continues to [rain] down on the people of this nation. We will not be deterred. We will not stop. #resist."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Top Human Rights Group Makes Case for Countries to 'Break Up' Big Tech
Amnesty International says Big Tech's consolidation of power "has profound implications for human rights, particularly the rights to privacy, nondiscrimination, and access to information."
Aug 28, 2025
One of the world's leading human rights groups, Amnesty International, is calling on governments worldwide to "break up with Big Tech" by reining in the growing influence of tech and social media giants.
A report published Thursday by Amnesty highlights five tech companies: Alphabet (Google), Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple, which Hannah Storey, an advocacy and policy adviser on technology and human rights at Amnesty, describes as "digital landlords who determine the shape and form of our online interaction."
These five companies collectively have billions of active users, which the report says makes them akin to "utility providers."
"This concentration of power," the report says, "has profound implications for human rights, particularly the rights to privacy, nondiscrimination, and access to information."
The report emphasizes the "pervasive surveillance" by Google and Meta, which profit from "harvesting and monetizing vast quantities of our personal data."
"The more data they collect, the more dominant they become, and the harder it is for competitors to challenge their position," the report says. "The result is a digital ecosystem where users have little meaningful choice or control over how their data is used."
Meanwhile, Google's YouTube, as well as Facebook and Instagram—two Meta products—function using algorithms "optimized for engagement and profit," which emphasize content meant to provoke strong emotions and outrage from users.
"In an increasingly polarized context, the report says, "this can contribute to the rapid spread of discriminatory speech and even incitement to violence, which has had devastating consequences in several crisis and conflict-affected areas."
The report notes several areas around the globe where social media algorithms amplified ethnic hatred. It cites past research showing how Facebook's algorithm helped to "supercharge" dehumanizing rhetoric that fueled the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar and the violence in Ethiopia's Tigray War.
More broadly, it says, the ubiquity of these tech companies in users' lives gives them outsized influence over access to information.
"Social media platforms shape what millions of people see online, often through opaque algorithms that prioritize engagement over accuracy or diversity," it says. "Documented cases of content removal, inconsistent moderation, and algorithmic bias highlight the dangers of allowing a handful of companies to act as gatekeepers of the digital public sphere."
Amnesty argues that international human rights law requires governments worldwide to intervene to protect their people from abuses by tech companies.
"States and competition authorities should use competition laws as part of their human rights toolbox," it says. "States should investigate and sanction anti-competitive behaviours that harm human rights, prevent regulatory capture, and prevent harmful monopolies from forming."
Amnesty also calls on these states to consider the possible human rights impacts of artificial intelligence, which it describes as the "next phase" of Big Tech's growing dominance, with Microsoft, Amazon, and Google alone controlling 60% of the global cloud computing market.
"Addressing this dominance is critical, not only as a matter of market fairness but as a pressing human rights issue," Storey said. "Breaking up these tech oligarchies will help create an online environment that is fair and just."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular