Ask A Genius 1540: Trump’s Legal Battles, Peter Thiel’s Hypocrisy, and America’s Fractured Heart

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/10/10

How does Rick Rosner interpret the moral decay surrounding Trump’s political maneuvers, Peter Thiel’s advice to Elon Musk, and the broader disillusionment of American farmers and citizens?

In this candid exchange, Rick Rosner reflects on Donald Trump’s ongoing legal troubles, alleged corruption, and the normalization of unethical behavior in American politics. He critiques Peter Thiel’s advice to Elon Musk against charitable giving as emblematic of billionaire arrogance and moral emptiness, contrasting it with Bill Gates’s philanthropic pragmatism. Rosner connects these issues to America’s agricultural collapse—where misguided trade policies and blind political loyalty devastate farmers—and to cultural dissonance that fractures the nation’s conscience. His analysis portrays a society seduced by power and spectacle, losing sight of empathy, reason, and accountability.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What’s been bothering you lately—or today?

Rick Rosner: Always wasting my life. Those are the two big ones. That’s it.

Jacobsen: What’s the latest with Trump?

Rosner: He’s been lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize, which would be controversial if he got it. Most of what he’s doing now is trying to avoid, as many people say online, the consequences of his actions—and continuing to raise money through political and business ventures. He and his family have been involved in a number of business deals, including ones tied to cryptocurrency. Presidents and former presidents are not supposed to make financial deals connected to their time in office, especially ones that could create conflicts of interest. He’s widely seen as corrupt, and people have become so used to it that it’s barely treated as news anymore. It’s bad for the country that this kind of behavior has been normalized.

Jacobsen: Let’s pull up some news. What are your tasks today?

Rosner: Typical home repair tasks.

Jacobsen: Getting ready for Halloween? You put on a construction outfit, knock on the door, and Carole says, “All right, hottie, let’s do this,” and then gets you to do all the things she’s always wanted done around the house?

Rosner: No. I ordered some special drill bits from Temu, a Chinese e-commerce site where tools are inexpensive. I drilled through a metal support beam on our gate. The two sides move differently depending on how recently it’s rained. When it’s been dry, the latch doesn’t line up with the hole it’s supposed to go into. 

So I drilled a new hole in the metal to create a proper housing for the latch. That worked out, and then I installed our Ring doorbell. Carol handled all the software—the app download and setup on her iPhone. I did the wiring and mounting. I actually enjoy that kind of work. Jews are stereotypically not known for being handy, but I’m reasonably handy.

Jacobsen: News time: Letitia James, the New York Attorney General who filed a civil fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump, is still in office and has not been indicted for mortgage fraud. Any thoughts?

So, Letitia James is the one who brought the civil fraud case against Trump, which resulted in a $355 million penalty—later reduced to about $175 million pending appeal—but not a criminal conviction. 

Rosner: He wasn’t convicted of any counts, and of course, he became president before that civil case concluded. Now, he’s trying to retaliate against her with his own legal actions.

This new claim was reportedly turned down by several state prosecutors—people even appointed or supported by Trump—because they found no legal basis for it. Some prosecutors resigned rather than pursue it. Eventually, Trump installed one of his personal lawyers, a woman with no prior experience prosecuting a case, in a position where she could file charges against Letitia James. She couldn’t get any other prosecutors to sign off on it. Normally, indictment papers are signed by multiple attorneys, but in this case, only she did.

That’s always a bad sign when prosecutors in an office resign rather than take part in a case. A grand jury did reportedly return an indictment—two counts, I think. But the thing about grand juries is that they don’t decide guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard is a preponderance of the evidence—basically, whether there’s a reasonable chance the accused might be guilty. It doesn’t need to be unanimous; just a majority is enough. The old saying goes, “A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.”

Grand juries can be presented with selective evidence. In this instance, the supposed case is based on mortgage documents. The alleged “fraud” Trump keeps accusing his opponents of involves whether someone improperly claimed more than one property as a primary residence. You can only legally designate one property as your principal home because it affects mortgage rates—typically by about half a percentage point—and sometimes minor property tax exemptions. For example, designating our home as our primary residence gets us about seventy dollars off our property taxes.

Trump’s argument is that his political enemies falsely claimed multiple homes as their primary residence. But mortgage paperwork is notoriously dense—dozens of documents, hundreds of checkboxes, and frequent clerical mistakes. If someone combs through all that, they might find a missed box or inconsistent wording. That’s not evidence of intent to defraud.

In Letitia James’s case, the evidence reportedly shows she clearly marked in a note that one of the properties was not her primary residence. Most legal experts expect the case to go nowhere, both because it appears politically motivated and because it lacks substance.

That note Letitia James wrote—clarifying that the property wasn’t her primary residence—was probably never shown to the grand jury. But she added it precisely to make sure everything was clear in case the document was confusing or she made a mistake. It’s easy to make an error when filling out legal forms, especially ones that are poorly worded.

To illustrate, I just voted early in California’s November special election, which could flip a few congressional districts from Republican to Democratic. That’s the opposite of what Trump tried to pressure Texas to do. When I filled out my ballot envelope, I accidentally signed it in the wrong place—the spot where a witness is supposed to sign if the voter can’t physically sign their own name. I had to write a note on the envelope saying, “Oops, I signed this in the wrong place.”

People make mistakes on documents all the time. But in Letitia James’s case, she actually wrote a note clarifying that the property wasn’t her primary residence. It’s hard to imagine how anyone could prosecute her for something she explicitly corrected in writing. Everyone who isn’t a partisan extremist agrees this case is going nowhere.

Ideally, the judge should impose sanctions on the prosecution for pursuing a frivolous case.

As for hypocrisy, look at Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas—one of the most openly corrupt politicians in the country. He’s claimed three different homes as his primary residence, yet he’s not being prosecuted because it’s Texas, and he’s a Republican.

Jacobsen: So Peter Thiel, in a talk where he discussed the idea of the Antichrist, said he told Elon Musk not to give his wealth to charity. He advised Musk to quit the Giving Pledge, under which billionaires commit to donating most of their wealth to charitable causes. This comes from transcripts and audio recordings of Thiel’s lectures that Reuters obtained. Thiel told Musk that if he didn’t, his wealth would end up going to “left-wing nonprofits chosen by Bill Gates.” What are your thoughts on that? This is Reuters.

Rosner: My thoughts are that the past five years—especially since COVID—have revealed just how much wealth and power billionaire tech figures have accumulated. That period has also shown that many of these so-called visionaries are what one essayist, King Daddy, aptly called “smart stupids.” They’re intelligent or lucky enough to make billions but are naïve, arrogant, or morally blind in other areas of life.

Many of them act like entitled adolescents with god complexes. Peter Thiel is a prime example—a highly influential, ultrarich tech magnate with staunch conservative leanings. He helped elevate J.D. Vance to national prominence and supports a worldview steeped in elitism and contempt for egalitarian values. This recent revelation about him advising Musk not to donate wealth to charity only reinforces that characterization.

Thiel has taken on a kind of twisted religiosity—Christianity drained of compassion and replaced with self-justified greed. Musk, meanwhile, reportedly exposed this exchange with Thiel to make him look bad, which is ironic, since Musk himself often behaves in similarly arrogant and destructive ways.

These people are as fallible and self-serving as anyone else—perhaps more so when you hand them ten billion dollars and no accountability.

By contrast, Bill Gates—while certainly rigid, socially awkward, and probably on the autism spectrum—has directed the majority of his wealth through philanthropic channels, notably the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He’s committed vast sums to eradicating malaria, improving global health, and developing sustainable agricultural programs. Gates has tried to make his money do measurable good in the world.

So when someone like Thiel attacks Gates for giving away his fortune, it exposes a deep hypocrisy. Thiel’s stance contradicts the very Christian ethics he claims to value. Gates may be imperfect, but in moral and humanitarian terms, he’s miles ahead of Thiel.

Jacobsen: The USDA has halted the release of grain export sales data based on a crop report. This disruption prevents confirmation of potential soybean sales to China. Traders and farmers are now uncertain about U.S. corn and soy output, so they’re essentially flying blind in terms of market trading.

Rosner: I looked up the data, and while you’re trying to get away from Trump topics, this connects directly to his policies. Over the past five years, 30 to 50 percent of U.S. soybean sales have gone to China. Last year, American farmers sold about $18 billion worth of soybeans there. This year? Practically zero.

If you grew soybeans this past year, you’re in trouble. A third of your market has vanished because China, due to trade tensions and tariffs, isn’t buying from the U.S. The price of soybeans has dropped roughly 25 percent, and most farmers don’t even have that much profit margin to lose. So all the work they did this season is likely to result in a net loss.

This same thing happened under Trump’s first term—he imposed poorly planned tariffs that hurt farmers, then had to bail them out with billions in subsidies. Even so, American farmers now have a suicide rate three times higher than the national average. They’re supposed to be the heart and soul of America, and yet Trump’s policies—past and present—keep devastating them economically.

Jacobsen: What does that do to the heart and soul of America?

Rosner: It creates massive cognitive dissonance. Farmers believe Trump fights for the working class and that Biden is the one destroying America, yet they’re watching Trump destroy their livelihoods. In economics, there’s a principle called the “sunk cost fallacy.” It means you have to learn to walk away from failed investments rather than keep throwing good money—or loyalty—after bad. But psychologically, that’s incredibly hard.

People who have invested their identities and pride into Trump can’t admit they’ve been deceived. They keep holding out hope that he’ll somehow make things right, even as their finances collapse. Twitter often mocks this dynamic with a meme: a ribbon labeled “Got Fooled Again Prize.” Every time Trump betrays his base, that meme resurfaces.

So, what happens to the heart of America? It fractures. People grow frustrated, fearful, and disillusioned, but they can’t let go because doing so would mean admitting their hero ruined them.

Jacobsen: The Nobel Peace Prize should be announced soon. 

Rosner: Trump’s name has been floated because of his role in the temporary ceasefire between Israel and Gaza. People—especially liberals like me—worry that the Nobel Committee might give it to him as an appeasement gesture, thinking it might encourage him to act more responsibly.

Most Nobel Prizes are awarded in Sweden, but the Peace Prize is an exception—it’s given by a separate committee in Norway, as per Alfred Nobel’s will. It’s one of the later-established prizes, distinct in how it’s managed.

The fear is that, given past precedents, the committee might award it based more on symbolism than substance. The classic example is Barack Obama’s Peace Prize in 2009—awarded before he’d even accomplished much in office. It was seen as a hopeful gesture, a prize for “not being George W. Bush.”

That kind of decision makes people nervous because it blurs the line between aspiration and achievement.

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