Snapshot · Pod Save the World
The Trump administration preliminarily approved $1.6 billion in federal financing for a Kazakhstan tungsten mining project that benefits the Trump and Lutnick families financially.
Where this was said
At 26:20 · chapter starts 25:38
Tommy lays out the anatomy of the Kazakhstan deal: a company called Kaz Resources gets access to the world's largest untapped tungsten reserve after Trump-level diplomatic pressure on Kazakhstan's president; a Trump sons-affiliated firm called Dominari Securities takes a 20% stake; Howard Lutnick's kids at Cantor Fitzgerald raise $210M and pocket millions in fees; and the administration then approves $1.6B in federal financing for the project. The Times found this is not an isolated scandal — the Trump and Lutnick families have financial ties to at least 14 similar mining deals. Ben Rhodes connects the dots historically, tracing the template back to post-Soviet oligarchic capitalism in Central Asia, where political power and natural resources were bundled into family business from day one. He notes Trump literally hosted a Central Asian summit — held while Crooked Con was in the same hotel — that now reads as a deal-structuring event. The parallel corruption of Donald Trump Jr.'s Vulcan Elements investment, which 10x'd after a $600M Pentagon injection, confirms the pattern. Rhodes names it directly: this is the Epstein class running America's defense supply chain.
The Kazakhstan tungsten story isn't a one-off scandal — it's the template. Trump pressures Kazakhstan to open the world's largest untapped tungsten reserve to a US company; Trump sons' firm takes a 20% stake; Lutnick's kids raise $210M in fees; the Trump administration then approves $1.6B in federal financing for the project. The New York Times found at least 14 similar deals.
The Trump and Lutnick families have financial ties to at least 14 companies actively working with the federal government on critical mining deals, per the New York Times.
Ben Rhodes traces the Kazakhstan corruption story back to its roots in post-Soviet oligarchic capitalism, where resources were gifted to whoever had political power. Fast-forward to 2025: the Trump and Lutnick families are doing the same thing — using the Pentagon's trillion-dollar budget as a piggy bank, cutting no-bid deals with Central Asian autocrats for minerals essential to US military hardware.
Donald Trump Jr.'s VC firm took a stake in Vulcan Elements at a $200M valuation; after a $600M Pentagon injection, the company's valuation rose to $2 billion — a 10x return.
The Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship — but barely. The 6-3 ruling is more like 5-4 because Kavanaugh agreed with the outcome but not the majority opinion and has signaled a path to eliminating it later. Tommy and Ben note the absurdity of celebrating a ruling that simply upheld the plain text of the 14th Amendment.
Despite months of meticulous preparation, Starter Story's initial launch attracted zero users — a humbling reminder that building alone guarantees nothing.
A single Reddit link post quickly drove 100 visitors to the Starter Story website, igniting the founder's belief in social traffic.
After reformatting content as a native self-post (no direct link spam), the post exploded with hundreds of upvotes and thousands of readers.
By posting again and again with the native-content strategy, the founder's posts repeatedly hit Reddit's front page, reaching millions of readers.
Before Reddit banned his domain, the founder converted his viral traffic into an email list of tens of thousands — a self-owned audience independent of Reddit.
Redditors eventually organized a petition to ban starterstory.com posts, effectively ending the Reddit growth channel — but the email list was already built.
The Reddit attention strategy ultimately served as the foundation for a million-dollar business, proving that free distribution channels can replace paid marketing.
The key tactic was keeping content fully on-platform (no direct link spam), then adding a small link at the post's end for users who wanted more.
With a thriving email list and a self-owned audience, the founder quit his six-figure New York City salary job to go all-in on Starter Story.
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