David Cay Johnston Quotes

To the addicted, money is like cocaine: Too much is never enough.

Trump applauded Putin throughout the campaign... [which] paralleled the language... of mob soldiers speaking about their bosses.

I don't think Mr. Reagan intended what happened. ...Mr. Reagan had a clearly defined set of values, but what we got was not conservative. What we got were radical changes that have... turned out to work to our detriment.

[C]rowds of young people... filled the Trump Tower auditorium in June 2015, interrupting with applause forty-three times as Trump announced his campaign with vicious s of Mexicans, Muslims, and the media. ...A day later news broke that the crowd was not ...voluntary ...Many ...were actors paid fifty bucks apiece. ...[S]uch dishonesty continues a pattern that traces back throughout the life and career of Donald Trump.

[T]hroughout his adult life Trump sought out—and worked closely with—more than a score of criminals, including Mafia associates, Russian mob associates, violent felons, con artists, swindlers, and most significant of all, the embezzler and mob associate Joseph Weichselbaum, a thrice-convicted felon. ...[W]hen Trump was the big man in Atlantic City, he got his helicopters to bring his high-rollers in and out of town through a company formed by Weichselbaum. ...Spy ...reported that Weichselbaum ...personally piloted the Trumps [in the Ivana, Trump’s personal helicopter]. ...Weichselbaum also had another business: importing drugs from Colombia...

This is the anti-education presidency.

In every place where there is no real tax system, such as Honduras or Afghanistan, there is no widespread wealth.

The Trump presidency is about Trump. Period. Full stop.

[O]ur Consitution... is designed to be slow and hard to change. It takes six years to get rid of all the scalawags in office today. ...[I]t's designed to be conservative, and it has a very interesting backstop. ...The has a second purpose... to have an ultimate backstop if the people went for a zealot, or a crazy person, to be president of the United States. ...[T]hat [the elector] would vote [his] conscious and say "No, the popular will here is wrong. This person will destroy our democracy."

Trump has left the vast majority of positions under his control vacant.

When I became a reporter in the 60s in California, one of the very first lessons I learned was, your supposed to be watchdogging the government.... looking out for the taxpayers. If the politicians want to spend more money, why? What's it for? Why am I going to give up more of my sustenance to the government? If the government needs it, let's hear the case for it. ...[N]ow we have city councils in big cities in the United States where no reporter goes for months at a time to the meetings; where the city budget doesn't get covered at all.

[T]he majority of Americans are being duped into supplementing the incomes and extravagant lifestyles of the rich and powerful. ...[O]ur current tax system is manipulated for profit by the wealthy and well positioned.

I want to do things that are beyond the scope of the daily newspaper, as good as it is and as important as it is... beyond the scope of even a great newspaper like The New York Times.

Since the imperfect rules of the marketplace actually reward dangerous risk taking, the only thing that could prevent this lethal gamble is effective government regulation.

Lawsuits accusing Trump of violating the Constitution's s have been filed by attorneys general from sixteen states and by 196 senators and representatives,... a bipartisan ethics watchdog organization called ... and a growing list of business owners who compete with Trump hotels and restaurants.