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MY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

    “Trump Heads to the Middle East With a Single Goal: Deals, Deals, Deals.” That’s the headline of a New York Times piece our next guest contributed to as he follows the dealings of the Trump administration. Eric Lipton is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter with The New York Times, where his latest pieces are headlined ”Auction to Dine With Trump Creates Foreign Influence Opportunity” and ”Trump Sons’ Deals on Three Continents Directly Benefit the President.”

    Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Eric Lipton. Well, why don’t you start there? We’re looking at this first major international trip President Trump is taking, first stop Riyadh. We’re looking at the line of American CEOs and others who are shaking the hands of Mohammed bin Salman and President Trump, very prominently, of course, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, the Trump ally.

    ERIC LIPTON: The Middle East is the nexus of the Trump Organization’s global business operations at the moment. It’s really their single most important profit center by far. And it relates to the fact that there is such enormous wealth there. It’s the oil and gas revenues over many decades have been stuffed into the sovereign wealth funds.

    AMY GOODMAN: So, talk more about Eric and Donald Trump. In the first administration, we saw them all the time. They were front and center. But right now we’re not seeing them. You write an article, maybe that’s because they’re making deals on three continents that directly benefit the president. But also, the financial relationship between President Trump and his two older sons?

    ERIC LIPTON: I mean, you know, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were in the White House in the first term, but Don Jr. and Eric Trump were never a part of the administration. They were part of the political operation, and they have always been a part of the political operation.

    AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk more about cryptocurrency? And I think there’s a problem in the United States, that a lot of people don’t even understand what it is. But earlier this month, the founder of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture said Thursday that a fund backed by Abu Dhabi will make a $2 billion investment in the crypto exchange — you pronounce it Binance? Talk more about that and how exactly President Trump is financially benefiting from this.

    ERIC LIPTON: Yeah, so, there are at least three different ventures, and you could argue that there are four, that the Trump family has recently embraced relative to crypto. There’s the memecoin, which is the one that the president is having the auction that ended yesterday in order to — the more of his memecoin that you buy, you can get invited to a dinner and even a tour of the White House.

    AMY GOODMAN: So, finally, Eric Lipton, you’re an investigative reporter. You focus on powerful people and the influence they have over American society and the world. You’ve been a reporter for more than three decades. Your work has received three Pulitzer Prizes. What has surprised you most in reporting on the Trump administration and this whole pay-to-play approach of the presidency so far?

    ERIC LIPTON: It’s just how unrestrained it is. You know, during the first term, they were reluctant to be so brazen. They tried to appear to be more respectful to conflicts of interest and norms and standards. And I think that — and I’ve talked to Eric Trump about this, because Eric Trump and I have had a very respectful relationship for over a decade now.

    AMY GOODMAN: Eric Lipton, I want to thank you for being with us, three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, investigative reporter at The New York Times. We’ll link to your latest pieces at democracynow.org.