Alabama's Morning News with JT
Erin Real on funding for Trump's campaign and the travel surge
Judy was boring. Hello. Then, Judy discovered Chumba Casino.com. It's my little escape. Now Judy's the life of the party. Oh baby, mama's bringing home the bacon. Whoa, take it easy, Judy. The Chumba life is for everybody. So go to ChumbaCasino.com and play over a hundred casino-style games. Join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prices. ChumbaCasino.com. No purchase necessary for your prohibited by law, 18-plus, terms, and conditions apply. See website for details. Aaron Rial joins us now a little bit more on the presidential campaign for Donald Trump, and he's got a bunch of money as well. Let's not forget that Kamala Harris, not the only one raising a bunch of money. Donald Trump's doing pretty well himself, and apparently now, cryptocurrency is part of that big fund of cash for him. Well, is it really cash? Aaron, good morning. Welcome in. It is when you convert it to such, which is what he appears to be doing with the crypto that he has taken in donations. So Trump is actually the first major presidential candidate to accept donations of digital tokens. He does not discriminate. He will take Bitcoin, or Ether, or Ripple, or Dogecoin, like all of them. He's into it. Actually, the Winklevoss twins, they led the charge. They gave him a million bucks in crypto, but actually, their contribution, it surpassed the 844,000 you're allowed to give, so they had to, they were funded some. But the point being, they gave as much as they could, Krakenbander. He gave the same amount, that 840 number. And then many other big names, and also, so interesting, is that lots of individuals, like not crypto billionaires, but just people. Cryptocurrency, when he gets that, do they automatically, hey, let's get this in cash team before it drops? I mean, they pretty much convert quickly, don't they? They do. They're mostly converting these contributions into USDC, that's a type of stablecoin, and then they liquidate those donations. In some cases, they're holding it in the USDC, but yes, it's interesting. They are converting it. And it's not just from crypto billionaires. They actually have contributions from 12 states and many backgrounds, this is all according to SEC filings, they have a homemaker, a painter, a security technician, someone from the State Department. All of these have given donations via crypto, which is fascinating. Yeah, it is fascinating how times have changed, but hey, if it's, you know, translatable and transferable over to a cash, bring it on. All right, let's talk about what's happening with the travel industry now. The airplanes have been packed since the end of COVID. Everybody's saying, forget about it. I'm going out. Let's go. It's starting to calm down a little bit. Yep. This revenge travel boom is definitely seen a pullback. Now the cracks are largely coming on these shorter routes in the US in economy class. The more expensive seats, the business, the first class, they're less affected. But it's a massive turnaround from this period of like very high airfarers. Travelers were desperate to travel. They pent up for years and they just were willing to go into debt to do it. That is not the case anymore. So experts say that this is kind of what the industry should be prepared for. This normalization post pandemic, beginning to unwind and the airlines are adjusting accordingly. So we just saw a big blip because everybody was so upset about the lockdown and they said, I got to get out. I got to stretch. I got to get some air. Let's go. I want to travel. So when you said return to normalcy, it's not dipping below where we were pre-pandemic. It's just, you know, the honeymoon, I guess, is over and it's okay. It's kind of back to normal. Does it have anything to do with the economy and the fact that people's budgets and, you know, monthly household incomes can only afford so much with inflation? Oh, for sure it does. For sure. And again, that desire at all costs to travel has abated as well. So when you don't have people in this position where it's like, we must go. We must go now when they're feeling a little bit more, okay, what we must do is eat and pay our bills and not add to the to the debt burden that you see this huge pullback. Absolutely. Well, Aaron, thank you so much for the updates. I appreciate you have a great weekend. Hello. It is Ryan and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on Chumba Casino.com. I looked over the person sitting next to me and you know what they were doing. They're also playing Chumba Casino. Everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumba Casino is home to hundreds of casino style games that you can play for free anytime anywhere. Sign up now at ChumbaCocino.com to claim your free welcome bonus at ChumbaCocino.com and live the Chumba life sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group void were prohibited by law 18 plus terms and conditions apply.