Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Trump's $2B income in 2025 raises fresh questions about profiting off presidency

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Trump's $2B income in 2025 raises fresh questions about profiting off presidency · DEEP INSIGHT

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the News Hour. President Donald Trump's latest financial
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  Speaker 1: disclosure shows his various businesses generated more than two billion
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  Speaker 1: dollars in income in twenty twenty five, his first year
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  Speaker 1: back in the White House.
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  Speaker 2: That is more than triple he's reported income from the
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  Speaker 2: year before. The biggest gains came from the Trump family's
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  Speaker 2: cryptocurrency ventures. The president was asked about his finances this
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  Speaker 2: morning before leaving for North Dakota.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you saw the cash and you report the
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  Speaker 3: different things, and what they do is we gave it.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's called the blind account, but they basically
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  Speaker 3: they take it and I purposely I never speak to
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  Speaker 3: any of the people that run the money, but there
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  Speaker 3: are big institutions and they invest in whatever they invested from.
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  Speaker 2: More on this, we turned out to Eric Lipton. He's
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  Speaker 2: an investigative journalist for The New York Times and has
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  Speaker 2: reported on President Trump's business interests four years. Eric, thanks
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  Speaker 2: for joining us. Before we talk more broadly about his finances,
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  Speaker 2: I want to ask specifically about a big chunk of
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  Speaker 2: it that's from cryptocurrency. Specifically, the president made more than
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  Speaker 2: a billion dollars just from crypto businesses in his first
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  Speaker 2: year as President break that down for us. How did
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  Speaker 2: he do that?
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  Speaker 4: The two biggest chunks come from his meme coin, which
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  Speaker 4: he launched three days before his inauguration. It was kind
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  Speaker 4: of a collectible that surged in value initially and the
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  Speaker 4: people who quickly invested made a boatload of money, but
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  Speaker 4: then it crashed and hundreds of thousands of people then
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  Speaker 4: lost money. Trump made, you know, hundreds of millions of
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  Speaker 4: dollars from that gamble that he asked people to follow
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  Speaker 4: on him on and many of his followers ended up
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  Speaker 4: as losers. The second big chunk of revenue comes from
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  Speaker 4: World Liberty Financial, a company that he and his sons
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  Speaker 4: started in October of twenty twenty four. That company is
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  Speaker 4: now one of the biggest issues of what's called stable
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  Speaker 4: coins in the world, and it was bought secretly at
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  Speaker 4: half of it by the United Arab Emirates in January
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  Speaker 4: of twenty twenty five justice he was being sworn in
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  Speaker 4: to be president, and the UAE separately has invested two
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  Speaker 4: billion dollars into its stable coin at one of the
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  Speaker 4: biggest stable coined issuers in the world. So I mean,
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  Speaker 4: is it is really intensely tied up with a foreign
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  Speaker 4: government and the president is profiting from that foreign government's
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  Speaker 4: investment in his own business at the same time as
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  Speaker 4: he is acting as commander in chief and working with
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  Speaker 4: that foreign government to negotiate a war in the Middle East.
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  Speaker 2: And we should say it's not just crypto that's ruling
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  Speaker 2: the president's wealth. What other businesses and ventures and deals
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  Speaker 2: and settlements contributed to his income last year.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, there are new real estate deals in the
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  Speaker 4: Middle East, in Vietnam, in Romania, in the Maldives. He's
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  Speaker 4: you know, struck a bunch of deals that include some
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  Speaker 4: deals that are actually with foreign governments like the government
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  Speaker 4: of Saudi Arabia and in cutter as well. And then
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  Speaker 4: there are, as you mentioned, settlements from lawsuits and that
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  Speaker 4: are being paid to him from media companies. And there's
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  Speaker 4: also money in there from Milania, from Jeff Bezos and
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  Speaker 4: Amazon for the documentary. I mean, there's just, you know,
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  Speaker 4: it's quite a crazy array of sources of revenue going
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  Speaker 4: to a sitting president. There's nothing like this in American history.
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  Speaker 2: And more than eighty million in settlements according to your
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  Speaker 2: reporting there from some various networks and others. What about
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  Speaker 2: what we just heard from the president, There about how
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  Speaker 2: his finances are structured. He says, his investments are run
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  Speaker 2: by other people. It's in a blind account that he
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  Speaker 2: doesn't talk to the people making those investments. Is that
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  Speaker 2: all true?
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  Speaker 4: He was referring there specifically to his stock trades, and
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  Speaker 4: his stock trades are handled by a professional investors who
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  Speaker 4: they assert to my colleague Ben protest that they are
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  Speaker 4: making those individual stock purchases, and there are thousands of them,
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  Speaker 4: but they are making them without consulting with President Trump
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  Speaker 4: or his family. So that specific quote that you pulled from,
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  Speaker 4: he was referring only to his stock in trades, which
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  Speaker 4: there are, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars worth
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  Speaker 4: of stock trades. Again, unheard of that a president is,
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  Speaker 4: at least in his name, is seeing this much buying
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  Speaker 4: and selling of stocks while he's president of the United.
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  Speaker 1: States, you know.
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  Speaker 2: In a statement to our White House correspondent Liz Landers,
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  Speaker 2: the White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said this in part.
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  Speaker 2: She said, neither the President nor his family has ever
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  Speaker 2: engaged or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest. All
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  Speaker 2: actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in
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  Speaker 2: the best interest of the American people. Eric miss The
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  Speaker 2: big question here is if mister Trump was not president,
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  Speaker 2: could he or would he have made the same amount
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  Speaker 2: of money that he did.
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  Speaker 4: It's hard to imagine that if he were not president
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  Speaker 4: that there would that his meme coin, or it would
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  Speaker 4: be as profitable as it has been, or that there
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  Speaker 4: would have been the scale of investment in World Liberty
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  Speaker 4: Financial on the stable coin it is. It seems as
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  Speaker 4: if his status as president is like intimately intertwined with
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  Speaker 4: the success of those companies. And I mean the fact
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  Speaker 4: that he launched the meme coin as they were gathering
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  Speaker 4: at a an auditorium in d C. Three day inauguration
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  Speaker 4: for what was called the Crypto Ball. It was a
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  Speaker 4: bunch of crypto executives and administration you know, soon to
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  Speaker 4: be administration officials there to celebrate his inauguration. And that's
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  Speaker 4: the night he launched it. And it was like follow
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  Speaker 4: me as I lead the world. These things are so intertwined.
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  Speaker 4: I think it's hard to imagine he would have made
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  Speaker 4: as much money. He's never made this much money in
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  Speaker 4: his entire life as he's made in this one year.
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  Speaker 4: So I think that's part of your answer right there.
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  Speaker 2: And unless than minners are we have left. How does
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  Speaker 2: that compare to how past presidents have handled their finances
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  Speaker 2: while in office?
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  Speaker 4: Again, nothing anything remotely like this from any president in
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  Speaker 4: the history of the United States. Other presidents, for the
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  Speaker 4: most part, have attempted to disassociate themselves from investments that
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  Speaker 4: could create conflicts of interest. Famously, Jimmy Carter put his
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  Speaker 4: peanut farm into an independent with an independent trustee. You know,
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  Speaker 4: Lady Bird Johnson sold off radio stations. I'm sorry, had
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  Speaker 4: hired an outside lawyer to run radio stations when her
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  Speaker 4: husband became president Andrew Kennedy was killed. I mean again
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  Speaker 4: and again. We see, you know, George W. Bush sold
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  Speaker 4: his steak in the Texas Rangers. We see presidents who
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  Speaker 4: are looking for ways to avoid conflicts, whereas President Trump
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  Speaker 4: has embraced all kinds of new businesses that bring conflicts.
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  Speaker 2: Eric Lipton, investigative journalists for The New York Times, joining
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  Speaker 2: us tonight. Eric, Thank you so much.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you