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White House, Trump Should Release Guest List of Saturday’s Latest Million Dollar-a-Plate Candlelight Dinner Featuring Elon Musk
New Video Shows Trump & Musk Side-By-Side
The White House and President Donald Trump should release the guest list of the Million Dollar-a-Plate candlelight dinners Trump is holding at his Florida estate, including one on March 1 and a new one this past Saturday, March 15, Public Citizen said today. In addition to attendee Elon Musk, the guests could be other government favor-seekers such as federal contractors or the CEOs of companies previously under investigation until the Trump administration stopped enforcement.
A Trump supporter posted a video online showing Trump sitting next to Musk and talking with dinner guests.
“This exorbitant level of payment for presidential access raises serious concerns about the possibility of corruption by candlelight,” said Jon Golinger, democracy advocate for Public Citizen. “The American people have a right to know who was there and whether the Million Dollar Dinner menu for fat cats included a deep dish of juicy government contracts, a side of tasty tax breaks, or a sweet dessert of ending investigations and enforcement actions against their companies.”
A news report today from WIRED revealed the Million Dollar dinner invitation for the Saturday, March 15 dinner from the MAGA Inc. SuperPAC said: “You are invited to a candlelight dinner featuring special guest speaker President Donald J. Trump . . . $1,000,000 per person.”
MAGA Inc., or Make America Great Again Inc., is a SuperPAC that spent nearly half a billion dollars backing Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets. It is seeking to raise millions more to push Trump’s agenda, according to press reports.
“These pay-to-play dinners are only possible because of Citizens United and shows how desperately we need to fix it,” Golinger added. “These dinners demolish the fiction of independent expenditures that the Supreme Court relied on 15 years ago to justify its Citizens United decision, which abolished reasonable limits on campaign spending.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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'Constitutional Crime': Outrage as Trump Fires Democrat FTC Commissioners
"The FTC is an independent agency founded 111 years ago to fight fraudsters and monopolists," said fired commissioner Alvaro Bedoya. "Now, the president wants the FTC to be a lap dog for his golfing buddies."
Mar 18, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump said he fired the two Democrats on the Federal Trade Commission Tuesday, a move blasted by consumer rights and democracy advocates as yet another illegal abuse of power by the twice-impeached Republican felon.
The White House announced the termination of Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya from the FTC, a five-member body tasked with enforcing civil antiitrust law and protecting consumers.
"Today the president illegally fired me from my position as a federal trade commissioner, violating the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent," Slaughter said in a statement. "Why? Because I have a voice. And he is afraid of what I'll tell the American people."
Just got a statement from Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democratic FTC commissioner, who was unlawfully fired today, furthering a showdown in the courts over control of independent agencies.
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— David Dayen (@ddayen.bsky.social) March 18, 2025 at 2:22 PM
"The administration clearly fears the accountability that opposition voices would provide if the president orders Chair [Andrew] Ferguson to treat the most powerful corporations and their executives—like those that flanked the president at his inauguration—with kid gloves," Slaughter continued, referring to multibillionaire tech CEOs Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg.
Last month, Ferguson endorsed the fringe legal theory that the president can terminate commissioners without cause—despite federal legislation against this. Bolstered by obsequious Republicans in his administration and Congress as well as a Supreme Court that critics say has granted the president king-like powers, Trump has moved to assert greater control over the federal government, including agencies meant to be independent.
Bedoya
wrote on social media: "The president just illegally fired me. This is corruption, plain and simple."
Full statement of @bedoyaftc.bsky.social, in my opinion the best FTC commissioner ever to commish, who was just fired by Trump
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— Evan Greer (@evangreer.bsky.social) March 18, 2025 at 2:22 PM
"The FTC is an independent agency founded 111 years ago to fight fraudsters and monopolists, our staff is unafraid of the Martin Shkrelis and Jeff Bezos of the world. They take them to court and they win," Bedoya continued. "Now, the president wants the FTC to be a lap dog for his golfing buddies."
"I'll see the president in court," he added.
Responding to Trump's move, Jeff Hauser, founder and executive director of the watchdog group Revolving Door Project, said that "on the surface, this constitutional crime is about law and process and other abstract topics people often tune out—but underneath, it is motivated by good old-fashioned greed that will hurt every one of us who isn't a corrupt financier."
"Americans are rapidly losing their defenders against corporate fraud and malfeasance," Hauser continued. "First, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was gutted illegally by billionaire Elon Musk and his lackeys. Now, Trump is attempting, without a legal basis, to fire the FTC's two Democratic commissioners."
"As antitrust enforcement dies out and a handful of corporations accumulate even more economic power, Americans will only have one person to blame for the new fraud economy: Donald Trump," he added.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, the corporate power director at Demand Progress Education Fund, warned: "President Trump's illegal attempt to fire Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter opens the floodgates to unfettered corruption and self-dealing. This reckless attack on the FTC invites a return to the rampant, corporate graft that brought on the Great Depression."
"Billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos paid a lot for their concierge access to the White House and now President Trump is repaying their investment," she continued. "The FTC is currently investigating or suing many of the biggest corporations—including Google, which announced a multibillion-dollar merger just this afternoon."
"These illegal firing attempts put these investigations in doubt and could seriously curb the agency's power and responsibility to protect everyday Americans and honest, Main Street businesses from being scammed and trampled by megacorporations," Peterson-Cassin added. "With this action, the president is choosing to please his billionaire cronies, wreck the rule of law, and do generations of damage to a critical consumer protection agency."
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'I Am a Political Prisoner': Mahmoud Khalil Shares Letter From ICE Detention
"My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night."
Mar 18, 2025
"My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner."
That's the beginning of a letter from a former organizer of pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University who is fighting the Trump administration's effort to deport him. The letter, which he dictated from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Louisiana where he is now detained, was posted on social media Tuesday by groups representing him in court.
Khalil finished his graduate studies at Columbia in December. He is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent and was living in the United States with a green card when he was arrested by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers in New York City earlier this month. His family—including his wife Noor, who is a U.S. citizen and expecting their first child—shared a video of the arrest on Friday.
"DHS would not tell me anything for hours—I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation," Khalil said Tuesday. "At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request."
"My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night," he continued. "With January's cease-fire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom."
Khalil also called out administrative leaders at Columbia for not only enabling his arrest but also "the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students—some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation—and the expulsion" of Grant Miner, president of United Auto Workers Local 2710, which represents thousands of student workers, on the eve of contract negotiations.
"If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation," Khalil said. "Students have long been at the forefront of change—leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice."
The letter came a day after Khalil's attorneys filed a motion asking the federal court in the Southern District of New York to immediately release the "recent Columbia graduate student, activist, soon-to-be father, and legal permanent resident."
Samah Sisay, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said Monday that "as a result of the federal government's unlawful decision to detain and transfer Mahmoud Khalil to Louisiana in retaliation for his support for Palestinian rights, he faces the loss of his freedom, a profound silencing of his speech, lack of meaningful access to legal counsel, separation from his pregnant U.S. citizen wife, and the prospect of missing the birth of his first child. We filed an emergency bail motion because these extraordinary circumstances require Mr. Khalil's release—and the court has inherent authority to release him and send him home."
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'What Oligarchy Looks Like': Trump Reportedly Picks Union-Busting Lawyer for Labor Post
Crystal Carey is a partner at Morgan Lewis, the "top choice of union-busting rat bastards everywhere," one labor journalist said, highlighting how "Amazon has taken full advantage of their evil talents."
Mar 18, 2025
Amid widespread frustrations with U.S. President Donald Trump's attacks on working people, including his pursuit of an economic agenda "of, by, and for billionaires," the Republican is reportedly considering yet another betrayal: installing a partner at "a go-to union-busting law firm" as the next general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board.
That's according to David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect. Shortly after taking office in January, Trump fired NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo—and Democratic board member Gwynne Wilcox, who is fighting her ouster in court. Dayen exclusively reported Monday that Trump plans to replace Abruzzo with Crystal Carey from "the notorious anti-union law firm Morgan Lewis."
Carey is "a former NLRB attorney with experience on both the general counsel and board sides of the agency," according to her biography on the firm's website. Now, "she represents employers" across a wide range of industries for collective bargaining, labor law counseling, and NLRB investigations and litigation.
Since the 1950s, her firm has been "involved in some of the most prominent labor battles in America... from the 1981 air traffic controllers strike to efforts by McDonald's to resist the Fight for $15," Dayen explained. "One of Morgan Lewis' biggest current clients is Amazon, which used algorithmic management and surveillance tactics to prevent unionization at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, in 2021. Amazon also has an active lawsuit that seeks to declare the NLRB unconstitutional."
While Dayen's multiple sources didn't know when a formal announcement would be made and the White House did not respond to a request for comment, the journalist—and many readers of his report—highlighted that "the selection would confirm that any talk of the second term of President Trump being in any way pro-labor was largely lip service or sheer fantasy."
The Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO said on social media: "Union-busting is disgusting, especially when it's coming from the highest office. When unelected billionaires have the ear of an already corrupt president, workers and working families will continue to be on the chopping block. This is what oligarchy looks like, folks."
Labor journalist Kim Kelly sarcastically said, "More great stuff from the 'pro-worker' administration."
"To emphasize how much this sucks, Morgan Lewis is *the* top choice of union-busting rat bastards everywhere and Amazon has taken full advantage of their evil talents to harass and intimidate low-wage workers in the South out of organizing," she added.
Jimmy Williams, general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, said Trump's reported selection of Carey "comes as a complete shock to No ONE."
Some critics took aim at International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O'Brien, who has repeatedly faced backlash for cozying up to Trump's GOP since he spoke at the Republican National Convention last summer. He also came under fire for praising Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump's labor secretary pick, who was confirmed last week.
Dayen noted that "labor secretary is not a big policymaking job, at least not compared to the NLRB general counsel. The general counsel sets priorities for NLRB cases, which govern union elections and rights in the workplace. The Labor Department has important priorities as well, but the work to end the slide in union density in the United States really begins at the NLRB."
In response to Dayen's reporting, Emma Lydon, managing director of government relations at Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said: "Great work, Sean O'Brien. Cozying up to fascists and billionaires really worked out well for all of us."
Jonathan Cohn, political director for Progressive Mass, similarly quipped, "Congratulations to Sean O'Brien!"
The labor podcast Work Stoppagesaid: "Thanks Sean O'Brien for claiming Trump wants to help U.S. workers! He just gave the most powerful labor law post in the country to one of the lawyers fighting the Teamsters at Amazon."
"Allying with the right didn't work for Teamsters" under former Presidents Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan, the podcast's account added, "and it won't work now."
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