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Trump responds to criticism of his crypto earnings · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The president faces fresh scrutiny over new financial disclosures. They
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: show that he made over one billion dollars on crypto
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: ventures last year. So when asked about that on the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: way to North Dakota this morning, he said this, I.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Don't get involved in my personal We have funds that
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  Speaker 2: run my money.
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  Speaker 3: So you are benefitic.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I've made a lot of.
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  Speaker 3: Money before I became president, and they invest my money
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  Speaker 3: and I don't talk to them.
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  Speaker 2: I don't even speak to him. So I have many people.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know what they call it closed accounts or
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  Speaker 3: something you put your money in.
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  Speaker 2: And that said, I don't talk to them. They're big
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  Speaker 2: institutions and they run it. But yeah, I've had a
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  Speaker 2: great career in business. I've had a great career.
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  Speaker 1: And when asked when he had to say to critics
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  Speaker 1: who say he is profiting off the presidency with these
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  Speaker 1: crypto ventures, and the President responded with this, to critics
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  Speaker 1: who say.
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  Speaker 2: You're profiting off the presidency, Well, you know I have
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  Speaker 2: profiting because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting. If
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  Speaker 2: you have a four to oh one k, how was
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  Speaker 2: you four oh one k done?
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  Speaker 3: He's about up eighty five percent thank you, President Joe.
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  Speaker 2: So we're all profiting.
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  Speaker 3: I'm profiting because I have a lot of money and
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  Speaker 3: a lot of cash and I give it to institutions.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know if they know what they're doing or not,
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  Speaker 3: but they buy a massed array of things.
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  Speaker 1: All right, I want to bring in MarketWatch Washington correspondent
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  Speaker 1: Victor Rick Litis. Victor, great to be with you. You
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  Speaker 1: heard the president there. I'm curious, what's your response. Is
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  Speaker 1: his ventures in cryptocurrency a conflict of interest here?
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  Speaker 4: I mean past presidents have done blind trusts, they've divested
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  Speaker 4: from business interests, They've done really vanilla investments, meaning like
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  Speaker 4: treasury bonds, diversified mutual funds. It's really unusual to have
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  Speaker 4: a president have all these really specific interests. The disclosure
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  Speaker 4: was nine hundred and twenty seven pages. If you go
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  Speaker 4: through it, there's more than seventy items where he got
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  Speaker 4: a million in revenue or a million income for the year. So,
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  Speaker 4: you know, watchdog groups have all been kind of saying
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  Speaker 4: the same thing today. Just typically presidents do this differently.
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  Speaker 4: It's a problem when, especially with crypto administration has had
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  Speaker 4: crypto friendly moves, crypto friendly policies, and that's a huge
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  Speaker 4: part of his net worth now, So I think definitely
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  Speaker 4: watchdog groups are not buying what he's saying.
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  Speaker 1: Now, it's not just the president himself. World Liberty Financial,
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  Speaker 1: one of the companies the President reported income from, was
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  Speaker 1: actually co founded by his sons Eric and Donald Junior,
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  Speaker 1: along with the sons of US Special envoy and longtime
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  Speaker 1: Trump friend Steve Wifkoff. Is there a conflict of interest
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  Speaker 1: there even with his family members.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely. There's just still the perception that the family
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  Speaker 4: might have an inside track, it could be getting business
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  Speaker 4: because people want to curry favor with the administration. So
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  Speaker 4: having his sons in charge of the business doesn't really
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  Speaker 4: insulate from these concerns. Other presidents have just sold their
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  Speaker 4: business interests, or they've done blind trusts, or they've just
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  Speaker 4: had much more of vanilla style assets. And the numbers
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  Speaker 4: are really really big. I mean, World Liberty Financial, it's
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  Speaker 4: five hundred and twenty six million from token sales last year.
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  Speaker 4: There's sixty six million from sale of equity and World
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  Speaker 4: Liberty Financial. So it's really just an unprecedented situation.
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  Speaker 1: Speaking of other presidents, I once want to clarify that
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  Speaker 1: because presidents and their families. As you mentioned, they've had
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  Speaker 1: business ventures. This is not unheard of.
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  Speaker 2: George W.
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  Speaker 1: Bush was on the board of an oil company while
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  Speaker 1: his father was in the White House. President Lyndon B.
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  Speaker 1: Johnson's wife owned a profitable radio station. But President Trump
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  Speaker 1: and his family is different, are different from his predecessors.
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  Speaker 1: Can you dive into that a little bit more?
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  Speaker 4: Well, it's I think a lot of it is just
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  Speaker 4: especially with crypto. His administration is so much more crypto friendly.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, the securities an Extra Change Commission has gone
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  Speaker 4: from being focused focused on enforcement actions to trying to
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  Speaker 4: help the industry. He established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. He
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  Speaker 4: supported the Genius Act, which is a pro crypto law
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  Speaker 4: that was enacted a year ago. So you can just
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  Speaker 4: really connect the dots between administration stances on issues, and
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  Speaker 4: then he has direct investments in these issues, and that
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  Speaker 4: really has it. You haven't been able to do it
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  Speaker 4: on so many things before. I mean, the numbers are
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  Speaker 4: really big. You're talking about more than a billion in
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  Speaker 4: revenue from crypto. It's it's one point four billion total
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  Speaker 4: for twenty twenty five. Overall, it was more than two
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  Speaker 4: billion in revenue. I mean, there were many other undertakings
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  Speaker 4: as well, legal settlements, licensing deals. A lot of the
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  Speaker 4: licensing deals are in countries that have business with the
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  Speaker 4: United States or we're working on trade deals with the
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  Speaker 4: United States. So just the scale is really big. If
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  Speaker 4: you go through all night, all through all nine hund
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  Speaker 4: and twenty seven pages, it really just is unprecedented.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So what comes from all of this We say
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  Speaker 1: it's a conflict of interest, Does that mean it's going
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  Speaker 1: to be eventually end up in a courtroom or is
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  Speaker 1: it just kind of not a good look where is
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  Speaker 1: this land?
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  Speaker 4: Presidents are exempt from conflict of interest rules in a
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  Speaker 4: way that other federal officials aren't. So it's you know,
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  Speaker 4: in terms of what you're saying, it's it's more on
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  Speaker 4: than not a good look type of thing. It's you know,
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  Speaker 4: I think that maybe the foundering fathers didn't didn't think
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  Speaker 4: something like this would happen, so they didn't set up
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  Speaker 4: guardrails for it. So, you know, it's it's kind of
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  Speaker 4: amazing that presidents are except from these rules, but they are.
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  Speaker 4: You know, there's been a lot of attention on stock
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  Speaker 4: trading in Congress, and nothing's happened there in terms of
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  Speaker 4: stopping it, and part of that is because some members
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  Speaker 4: of Congress want to include the president in any kind
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  Speaker 4: of ban on stock trading. So just another
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  Speaker 1: Washington Victor, Rick Litis, thank you so much, good to
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  Speaker 1: be with you.