Shadowing Practice: How A Single Shell Company Drained $1.6 Billion From The Pentagon - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Five days after Donald Trump won the presidential election in 2024, great.
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These are our friends.
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We have thousands of friends on this his son Don Jr got a new job as well as a partner at a little known private investment fund called 1789 capital.
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since the election, the companies in that fund have won billions in federal government contracts.
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leading up to Trump's second term.
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These are what Don Jr and Eric's estimated net worth were, respectively.
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These numbers have changed drastically in the two years since, and I want to talk about Because we found that when you follow the money far enough, it stops going out and instead moves in a circle.
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By the end of this video, we're going to add it all up, and the number is going to shock you.
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When Trump announced he was running again, Don Jr found a partner, a man named Amid Malik.
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February 2025, both brothers became advisers to a company called Domino Holdings through dominance.
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They bought stakes in a US construction company called Skyline Builders, using a shell company called American Ventures.
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Skyline then merged with Cove Cars Capital, a mining company sitting on a tungsten deposit in Kazakhstan.
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Tungsten is critical to military equipment like armor piercing ammunition, hypersonic weapons, and F-35 engines.
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The sons invested in August 2025.
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One month later, Kazakh President Tokayev personally told Trump he was awarding the project to Cove CAS over competing bids from China and Russia.
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Trump and Marco Rubio gave direct assistance, according to the company's own investor presentation filed with the SEC.
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the project has been secured, up to $1.6 billion in U.S.
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government backed financing.
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we've only just scratched the surface.
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The Trump Suns also co-founded crypto and bitcoin companies that attracted hundreds of millions in investments from foreign governments.
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incredibly proud to be part of the crypto industry.
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More Perfect Union reported on this crypto network in a previous investigation.
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in the crypto industry.
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Now I'm going to walk you through a few more companies.
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And what happened to each of them after 1789?
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Capital invested.
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And I'll add it all up right here as we go.
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In July 2025, 1789, invested in a company called Hadrian Automation.
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Hadrian was founded in 2020 and had no significant government contracts.
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Eight months later, it won a $900 million Navy contract to build automated submarine factories and an $80 million Army contract.
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That's $980 million total, all to a company that had never won a major government contract before.
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Don Jr's fond invested in Here's another one.
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Firehawk aerospace, whose entire government contract history fits in a single line.
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It had just one contract in 2022, and then 1789 invests and suddenly there winning Air Force and Space Force deals worth $8.9 million, plus a land gift in Oklahoma.
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And sometimes the perk goes beyond the money.
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1789 invested in reflection AI in 2025, and by May 2026, it became one of only eight AI companies in the country allowed to deploy inside Pentagon classified networks.
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Here's a company called Andrew that makes the autonomous weapons systems that define modern warfare, like drones and AI powered surveillance towers, and after 1789, invested.
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In June of 2025, the company won a $367 million border surveillance contract and a $23.9 million Army deal.
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It also has a potential 20 billion. Yes.
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Billion with AB.
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Army consolidation deal in the works so big a number that it totally dwarfs everything else on this list, but we can't even count it.
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So I'll just do 367 million plus 23.9 million.
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of all of these, there's one example that stands apart because this is one where we have proof the white House directly intervened.
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Falcon elements, a three year old startup with 30 employees that makes rare earth magnets.
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In August 2025, 1789, invested in Vulcan as a part of a $65 million funding round.
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Three months later, the Pentagon gave them a $620 million loan.
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Rare earth magnets are vital to military technology, and as the name suggests, they are rare.
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China has complete dominance over the industry.
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Both Democrats and Republicans have tried to change that.
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So Trump isn't the first to consider a loan of this sort.
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it went out without competitive bids without the technical disclosures that are used to verify whether a project is even viable before public money goes in.
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That was waived.
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the push for this loan came directly from Peter Navarro, Trump's senior trade adviser and a close personal friend of Don Jr.
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So close that Don Jr visited Navarro in prison and was one of the few people Navarro's latest book was dedicated He's a friend legitimately can't believe that this is happening to him, One Pentagon employee told ProPublica that the call came, quote, from the white House.
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We have to get this done, Staff worked late nights for weeks to push the loan through when deals like this normally take months.
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the time of 1789, investment Vulcan was valued at around 200 million.
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After the Pentagon loan, the valuation jumped to nearly $2 billion.
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technically, this one's alone.
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Not a contract, but it's still $620 million of our tax money going to a three year old startup with fewer employees than your local target, with no competitive process in a phone call from the white House to push it through.
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So I'm going to count it So it turns out the fastest way to win a government contract is to put the president's son on your board.
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I want to bring us back to Eric, because this is where things get really egregious.
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Power us is a drone company that both brothers invested in, in April 2026, it won an Air Force contract to sell interceptor drones.
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How much was never disclosed.
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Then there's another drone company, Unusual Machines.
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Don Jr is an advisor with a financial stake in the company.
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An October 2025 at one what its own CEO called, quote, the largest government contract in the company's history.
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The amount was also never disclosed.
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Unusual machines signed a $5 million supply deal with powers, so government money flows to power.
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US powers, pays unusual machines, Eric gets paid and Don Jr gets paid twice.
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It's a loop.
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This is the type of mechanism that helps Don Jr go from 50 million to 300 million, and helps Eric go from 40 million to 400 million.
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The contracts don't go to them directly, but they do go to the companies and they own pieces of these companies.
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So every government contract makes those pieces worth much more.
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the fund is still growing.
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Currently managing $3.5 billion in assets with a stated goal of $10 billion.
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So how is any of this legal?
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If a mid-level contract worker at a Navy base owns stock in a company bidding for one of her contracts, she would lose her job.
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She would likely face criminal charges, too.
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for Don Jr and Eric, there's nothing.
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No law covers the president's children.
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There's no requirement to recuse themselves from decisions that benefit their investments.
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Este vídeo tiene 81 frases y 1149 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 9:18. El hablante mantiene un ritmo constante de unas 124 palabras por minuto, cómodo para el shadowing. El 82 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés; conviene repasar el resto antes de empezar.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
15 palabras del vídeo que vale la pena aprender, con su pronunciación y significado:
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| invest verbo | /ɪnˈvɛst/ | invertir, insumir |
| drone sustantivo | /dɹoʊn/ | zángano, abejón |
| unusual adjetivo | /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/ | inusual, inusitado |
| bid verbo | /bɪd/ | licitar, pujar |
| surveillance sustantivo | /sɚˈveɪ.ləns/ | vigilancia |
| stake sustantivo | /steɪk/ | estaca |
| disclose verbo | /dɪsˈkləʊz/ | descerrar |
| startup sustantivo | /ˈstɑɹtˌʌp/ | arranque |
| magnet sustantivo | /ˈmæɡ.nɪt/ | imán |
| element sustantivo | /ˈɛləmənt/ | elemento |
| shock sustantivo | /ʃɔk/ | choque |
| respectively adverbio | /ɹɪˈspɛktɪvli/ | respectivamente, respective |
| worker sustantivo | /ˈwɝ.kɚ/ | trabajador, obrero |
| compete verbo | /kəmˈpiːt/ | competir, competer (disused) |
| shell sustantivo | /ʃɛl/ | concha, caparazón |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Significado |
|---|---|
| go out verbo | salir |
| turn out verbo | resultar |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 10 contracciones y formas reducidas, como can't, I'll, I'm. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/, shock /ʃɔk/, shell /ʃɛl/, presentation /ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/, reflection /ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/, respectively /ɹɪˈspɛktɪvli/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, mechanism /ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/, technically /ˈtɛk.nɪˌkəl.i/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Haz shadowing frase por frase a velocidad normal, repitiendo cada una hasta que tu ritmo coincida con el del hablante.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como invest, drone, unusual.
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | has been secured · was founded · was waived |
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | have won · have changed · has been secured |
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.