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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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 81 sentences and 1149 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:18. The speaker talks at a steady 124 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| invest verb | /ɪnˈvɛst/ | To spend money, time, or energy on something, especially for some benefit or purpose; used with in. |
| drone noun | /dɹoʊn/ | A male hymenopteran (ant, bee, hornet, or wasp), whose sole primary function is to mate with the queen. |
| crypto noun | /ˈkɹɪptoʊ/ | A secret supporter or follower. |
| unusual adjective | /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/ | Not usual, out of the ordinary. |
| bid verb | /bɪd/ | To make an offer to pay or accept a certain price. |
| surveillance noun | /sɚˈveɪ.ləns/ | Close observation of an individual or group; person or persons under suspicion. |
| stake noun | /steɪk/ | A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay. |
| adviser noun | /ædˈvaɪ.zɚ/ | One who advises. |
| disclose verb | /dɪsˈkləʊz/ | To uncover; physically expose to view. |
| dominance noun | /ˈdɑmɪnəns/ | The state of being dominant; of prime importance; supremacy. |
| startup noun | /ˈstɑɹtˌʌp/ | The act or process of starting a process or machine. |
| magnet noun | /ˈmæɡ.nɪt/ | A piece of material that attracts some metals by magnetism. |
| element noun | /ˈɛləmənt/ | One of the simplest or essential parts or principles of which anything consists, or upon which the constitution or fundamental powers of anything are based. |
| shock noun | /ʃɔk/ | A sudden, heavy impact. |
| respectively adverb | /ɹɪˈspɛktɪvli/ | In a relative manner; often used when comparing array lists, where the term denotes that the items in the lists correspond to each other in the order they are… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. |
| lead up to verb | To set in motion; to act as a causal or preparatory event or sequence of events. |
| stand apart verb | (intransitive, To distinguish oneselves) |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 10 contractions and reduced forms, such as can't, I'll, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/, shock /ʃɔk/, shell /ʃɛl/, presentation /ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/, reflection /ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/, respectively /ɹɪˈspɛktɪvli/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, mechanism /ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/, technically /ˈtɛk.nɪˌkəl.i/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like invest, drone, crypto.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | has been secured · was founded · was waived |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have won · have changed · has been secured |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.