Trump and the Sport of Kings

Key Markets report for Monday, July 14, 2025

On Friday last week (11 July) I sat joined @CryptoRich podcast, for a chat with @EMBurlingame a battle-hardened Green Beret and researcher focused on deep state and 5th Generation Warfare which turned out to be a remarkably fascinating discussion during which we covered the controversy about Jeffrey Epstein client list and Donald Trump, the “Great Game,” the “Sport of Kings,” all within long-term historical context.

The Epstein controversy

The conversation started with the hot button issue Jeffrey Epstein and the list of his clients which, as we learned last week, won’t be made public, contrary to President Trump’s electoral promises. Many of Trump’s supporters now feel betrayed and deceived, to the point that it’s provoked a revolt in the MAGA movement. I never expected that the list would be made public, but I did expect that at least a number of minor players would be outed and drug through the mud to assuage the public.

Jeffrey Epstein, who was almost certainly an important MI6, CIA or Mossad asset, spent many years building up his network of high-level contacts and control files on some of the most powerful individuals in the world. The very reason to go through all that trouble is because such kompromat can be a very powerful weapon in the hands of those who aim to wield it. By making it all public, those who came into possession of such files would disarm themselves of that weapon. Few people in the political arena, if any, will do that in the name of justice or a sense of moral obligation.

Whatever agenda Donald Trump and his government are pursuing largely depends on their political power. For all the chaos they are navigating (and creating), their number one priority is solidifying their own power, and that battle is necessarily waged on the home turf. In that sense, whatever files or lists they obtained from Epstein’s magnum opus are disproportionately valuable. The disappointing aspect of their choice to keep the files secret isn’t even about justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his clients; it’s the way the administration went about it, resorting to vulgar deception and obfuscation.

The illusory justice in a two-tier system

The idea that Epstein’s victims would obtain justice was almost certainly a delusion. To begin with, we have a two-tiered justice system in the West: if you are an “insider” you can expect to skate for almost any offense; but if you are an ordinary person, you could face years in jail even for minor offences. Often, you don’t even need to be proven guilty: suspects are routinely pressured into plea-deals that still carry stiff prison sentences.

Jeffrey Epstein and his clients were all insiders, entitled to impunity. In 2021, Virginia Guiffre (Roberts) sought justice against her abuser and Epstein’s loyal friend Prince Andrew. After more than two years of legal proceedings, the case was settled out of court without a guilty verdict and today, Prince Andrew is a free man. Ms. Guiffre is dead. Of course, Epstein and Prince Andrew weren’t the only sinister degenerates out there. In the past we learned about the Franklin scandal in the Washington DC, Marc Dutroux in Belgium, King Chuck’s BFF Jimmy Saville in the UK, P. Diddy in Hollywood (to be fair, the system does occasionally produce a guilty verdict: Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell was tried and convicted, as was Marc Dutroux).

The Sport of Kings

But E. M. Burligame had a particularly fascinating perspective on Donald Trump and his role. As he put it, Trump is playing the “Sport of Kings,” played at a level above the “Great Game.” The Great Game would be what the “managerial class” runs: the statesmen, diplomats, military leaders, intelligence networks, media, etc. It includes domains like economics, trade, finance, politics, geostrategy and warfare. What EM Burlingame called the Sport of Kings entails the management of the managerial class: controlling those who run the Great Game without getting killed, overthrown, or having one’s family destroyed, compromised, or drawn into traps set by your adversaries.

The risk for “kings” is that, if anyone close to power can articulate that the king is making bad decisions, they will maneuver to sideline or eliminate him. The king is particularly vulnerable to those who are nearest to him and for that reason, much of what the king must do amounts to very tough tests of loyalty. EM believes that Trump is indeed playing the Sport of Kings, but that this is lost on the public in “democratic” West as we no longer recognize the nature of the relationship between the people and their princes. He thought that among today’s leaders only a few are adept at the Sport of Kings and named Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban (Hungary) and Aleksandar Vučić (Serbia).

Stupid like a fox?

In our discussion we also touched on the question of Trump’s intellectual capability, which is now widely in question. Again, EM’s perspective was unorthodox: Trump is at war, and this is a real war. Since wars are invariably waged by deception, Trump may be doing the same and playing dumb could be one of the most powerful ways of deceiving your adversaries. As a case in point, EM mentioned the case of Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, the patron of New York City’s Genovese crime family from 1981 until 2005.

For nearly two decades, Gigante evaded law enforcement by feigning mental illness, often wandering Greenwich Village muttering incoherently and wearing a bathrobe and slippers. This act delayed his prosecution until 1997. He was convicted of racketeering and conspiracy to murder. He admitted to the mental illness ruse in 2003. Gigante died on December 19, 2005, in a Springfield, Missouri federal prison. All this happened in New York City and Trump would likely have been aware of the story.

What war is Trump fighting?

Trump would not be feigning mental illness (25th amendment), but if we’re charitable, he’s not the most eloquent of leaders and comes across quite out of his depth on many issues. And if that’s deception, what war would necessitate it? EM believes that Trump’s objective is to dismantle the “superstructure” created over the centuries by the ruling oligarchy. That superstructure has resulted in a massive theft of commons, which Trump aims to reverse. Whether this is true or not, the assertion was corroborated to me a day earlier, also in a podcast discussion with Susan Kokinda (link, 90 min.), a Michigan-based organizer, author, and political activist affiliated with Promethean Action and the Lyndon LaRouche PAC.

Ms. Kokinda is very active in the Michigan Republican party and shared something Donald Trump said at an event where she was present: he called on the attendees to join him in what he said would be the ultimate battle against the global financier class. Kokinda shared another few stories that suggest that Trump understands the layout of the fault lines and really does appear to be playing the Sport of Kings. For example, she pointed out that, in a recent cabinet meeting Trump deliberately and repeatedly referred to US adversaries as “our so-called enemies,” and “people who are perceived to be our enemies.”

My discussion with Susan Kokinda is linked above. The full conversation with EM Burligame, which ran about 80 min. is available at this link. Whatever the naked truth of the matter is, it would appear that we really are living in an extraordinarily interesting time. If Trump really is playing the Sport of Kings, and doing it skilfully, rather than being lost at sea, we should expect many unexpected surprises through the rest of his term in office, unless it is somehow cut short.

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Today’s trading signals

With Friday’s closing prices we have the following changes for the Key Markets portfolio: