In Conversation with Brian Karem

26 May, 2026

[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]

I had a chat with my friend and fellow Nerd Avenger, Brian Karem, about Donald’s patriotic $1.776 billion slush fund. Brian had just returned from France, where his documentary was screened at the Kharkiv Film Festival. While he was there, a Romanian reporter asked him a question for me: whether I still have hope for the future of America. So check it out.

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Brian Karem: Donald Trump is now throwing taxpayer money at January 6 rioters through what he calls an anti weaponization fund. It is not enough that he pardoned them. Now he wants to reward them financially as well.

Mary Trump: And just to prove how corrupt this is, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general and Donald’s personal defense lawyer turned government official, said the amount was arrived at by carefully calculating damages. It just happens to total $1.776 billion. They are not even trying to hide it anymore. This is all happening in plain sight because they know they are going to get away with it.

Brian Karem: The fund was supposedly created to hear and redress claims from Americans who suffered from “lawfare” and government weaponization. According to their definition, it means people unfairly targeted by the government. Well, you and I have both been targeted. Can we file claims too?

Mary Trump: Apparently anybody can apply, including people who violently attacked police officers on January 6. That tells you everything you need to know about how much this regime actually supports law enforcement. It is another scam. And remember, there will be a committee deciding who gets money, and every single member is appointed by Todd Blanche, which means Donald.

Brian Karem: Harry Dunn told me to say hello, by the way.

Mary Trump: He is terrific.

Brian Karem: Harry and other Capitol Police officers put their lives on the line that day. Yet Republicans are still trying to rewrite history and claim the attack was staged or never happened. I was there. I saw it. It was one of the most documented riots in American history.

Mary Trump: We all watched it happen in real time. But Donald has always believed he can convince enough people not to believe their own eyes. It is obscene.

Brian Karem: You have often said there is no bottom with Donald Trump. It always gets worse. So how much worse can this get?

Mary Trump: Use your imagination. Donald is deteriorating psychologically, emotionally, and cognitively every single day. As that happens, he becomes even more desperate, more ambitious, and greedier.

The slush fund itself is proof of that. Donald did not come up with this idea. He is not capable of strategic thinking. The people around him are designing new ways for him to enrich himself, enrich his useless children, and consolidate more power. They are helping him enact even crueler policies and feed his imperial fantasies. One day he wants Canada, then Greenland, then Cuba. He wants to rule everything.

Donald is an empty, desperate man, and the people around him know exactly how to exploit that weakness. They keep feeding his worst impulses because it benefits them too. Every Republican enabling this shares responsibility.

Brian Karem: One thing the documentary I worked on points out is that all of this was planted during the first hundred days of Donald’s first administration. The pardons, the corruption, the normalization of criminality. What we are seeing now is just an extension of that.

What frightens me most is watching so many institutions cave to him, especially parts of the media. Reporters and executives are showing fealty to Donald and people like Stephen Miller and Susie Wiles instead of confronting what is happening.

When I was in France recently, someone told me they still loved Americans and American culture, but our government now frightens them more than Turkey’s. I never thought I would see something like this happen in the United States.

Mary Trump: We are Orbán’s Hungary at this point.

And the consequences are becoming impossible to ignore. People cannot afford groceries anymore. Hunger is growing. The economy is collapsing for ordinary Americans while Donald and his allies continue enriching themselves.

Brian Karem: Reporters Without Borders now ranks the United States sixty fourth in press freedom. Donald Trump is cited as one of the major reasons why.

What concerns me even more is the way he accuses everyone else of weaponizing government while openly doing exactly that himself.

Mary Trump: That is how he operates. Every accusation is a confession. He constantly claims nobody has ever been treated more unfairly than he has, or that January 6 rioters were victims, or that his free speech has been violated.

Meanwhile, look at what has happened to the Department of Justice. The Civil Rights Division barely exists anymore.

Brian Karem: It has become the Trump Rights Division.

Mary Trump: Exactly. The DOJ is now Donald’s personal law firm. The rule of law has effectively disappeared. Hearing him accuse others of corruption while he openly destroys democratic institutions is infuriating. But we also cannot let every blow land emotionally because none of us will survive that.

Brian Karem: A filmmaker in Romania asked me whether there is still hope for the United States. I told her I would ask you.

Mary Trump: Of course there is hope. If there were not, none of us would still be here doing this work every day.

But hope depends on whether we are willing to reckon honestly with how we got here. We need leaders who are willing to make difficult choices about what America must become moving forward. That includes holding establishment Democrats accountable as well. We cannot pretend this crisis appeared out of nowhere.

America also has to take responsibility for the damage caused globally by Donald and his allies. Elon Musk dismantling USAID alone created catastrophic consequences around the world.

Brian Karem: The real fight in this country is not simply left versus right. It is the wealthy and powerful versus everyone else. How do we build a coalition strong enough to stop this?

Mary Trump: Unfortunately, things probably have to get worse before enough people wake up.

I hate saying that. I wish people responded more strongly to the suffering of others. I wish the deaths caused by the destruction of USAID or ICE terrorizing communities were enough. But for many Americans, what finally gets their attention is when gas prices rise or groceries become unaffordable.

That is tragic, but it is reality.

Brian Karem: Donald keeps claiming the economy is thriving even after firing officials who produced economic data he did not like.

Mary Trump: The stock market is being artificially manipulated because it is one of the only numbers he still cares about besides polling. But people know the truth the second they go grocery shopping or fill up their gas tanks.

There will always be a core group of supporters who remain loyal no matter what. But that group is not large enough to sustain Republican power long term. They know they will lose if elections remain free and fair.

Brian Karem: What gives me some hope is hearing from people who voted for Donald Trump and now regret it because they realize he lied to them.

Mary Trump: Of course he lied to them. He promised no more wars and transparency around the Epstein files. Instead, he launched an illegal and unconstitutional war against Iran while doing everything possible to bury the Epstein files.

And look at the consequences. The United States is weaker now. China is stronger. Russia is stronger. Iran is stronger. Donald’s reckless decisions have destabilized everything.

Brian Karem: Any final thoughts on what comes next?

Mary Trump: I think we are learning that our government is no longer functioning properly. Senate Republicans are not going to stop this. We are watching people who attacked our democracy receive taxpayer funded rewards while this country still refuses to provide reparations to the descendants of enslaved people.

Brian Karem: We cannot even provide decent education for children anymore.

Mary Trump: There is barely a Department of Education left.

Brian Karem: What would you like to plug?

Mary Trump: People can subscribe to my newsletter, The Good in Us, on Substack. We also have the Mary Trump Media YouTube channel and are still trying to survive across social media despite the fascist takeover of so many platforms.

Brian Karem: Mary, thank you so much for being here.

Mary Trump: Thanks, Brian.

Mary Trump vs. Donald's slush fund