Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is making waves for appearing on the Katie Miller Podcast and calling California’s plan to tax billionaires an “unconstitutional asset seizure.” He also made other bold claims, like AI not needing regulation.
The decision to appear on the right-wing podcast continues a strong tradition of Armstrong silencing his employees’ political voices while using the company’s coffers and his own money to support Donald Trump and other Republican politicians.
Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller (the current White House deputy chief of staff), is a Republican stalwart who briefly worked for Elon Musk’s disastrous Department of Government Efficiency and now has the singular job of “podcaster.”
Coinbase: Politics for me, but not for thee
Bad look, but who’s watching?
Armstrong’s choice to go on Miller’s podcast probably won’t win him any new fans, with the episode only being viewed by 2,000 people at the time of publishing this article. However, that’s likely not why Armstrong chose to appear.
Instead, what’s obvious is that Armstrong has been attempting to ingratiate himself with the Trump administration in any way he can.
This includes donating to the destruction of the White House East Wing, supporting a poorly thought out military parade in June, listing Trump’s memecoin on Coinbase, and supporting any crypto-related legislation that the president and his cronies have put forth.
Meanwhile, the Coinbase CEO repeatedly suggested a California wealth tax currently on the ballot is unconstitutional and that Coinbase was open to “any and all options in terms of relocation.”
But this isn’t the first time that Armstrong and Coinbase have threatened to leave California. In 2021, he stated it was “closing its San Francisco offices for good.”
For some reason, Coinbase chose to sign a four-year lease on 150,000 square feet of San Francisco office space in 2025.
Coinbase torched by crypto community for US army parade sponsorship
A lot of talking, little substance
Miller repeatedly tried to get Armstrong to flatter Trump, from suggesting the president understands crypto far better than Biden, to asking him what his favorite memecoin was — obviously angling for the Coinbase CEO to say Trump’s token.
Miller also criticized congressman Ro Khanna’s concept of taking a portion of a unicorn’s stock in lieu of taxing the founders’ unrealized gains, despite Trump’s administration taking large stakes in Intel, Westinghouse, and dozens of other companies.
Armstrong characterized the ballot measure as “feeling very third world” and stating it was the government “coming in and seizing private property.”
Armstrong made many completely fictitious claims during his appearance on the podcast.
For instance, he stated that “if you go back 100 years, people in the US’ average life expectancy was 35 or something and now we’ve more than doubled it.”
This is patently false. The average cohort lifespan for an individual in 1924 was 57 and it hasn’t doubled over the century since.
He also said that “there’s millions of crypto voters” whereas there are no anti-crypto voters, without providing any evidence for such hyperbolic claims.
The show of support by spending nearly any hour with Katie Miller undoubtedly has more to do with Armstrong’s desperate attempt to have the CLARITY Act passed this year, and the public is likely to see him making a marketing blitz over the next month to try to sway voters and politicians to push forward the legislation.
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