Crypto, Bibles and watches: how Trump made over $2bn last year – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:11You know, Trump is selling Trump and his personality and everyone else is taking on the risk. If they win, he wins. If they lose, he still wins. Well, you know why I'm profiting? Because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting. Trump licenses image to the sneaker company, just like he licensed his image to the meme coin. Trump has just run roughshod over any kind of institutions that could check him. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth. So at the start of 2025, Donald Trump, the US president, announced that he wanted the US to be the crypto capital of the world.

0:48A year later, we've learned the extent to which that he has made that a reality for himself and for his family. Aisha Downey, you're a Guardian reporter. We've had these figures released on how much Trump has made from crypto and also his other business ventures, which we'll come to. But what have we learned about crypto in particular? So he's got four crypto ventures, more than a billion dollars that he's made through that. It's a little it's actually a little strange because this was a mandatory government disclosure where he had to kind of come out with all of his interest to every other president.

1:24Yeah, it was a 927 page disclosure where, you know, his four main crypto interests, which include World Liberty Financial, which is a crypto company owned by Trump and family that, you know, sells crypto products. The Trump meme coin and a Bitcoin mining more than a billion. Right. Worth noting here, like Trump was always a crypto president. First term, Trump was like crypto is a scam. But there is sort of the Biden administration, at least this is sort of how I understand it, went hard into regulating crypto, made a lot of problems for a lot of the crypto, you know, enterprises, billionaires, among them, the founder of Binance, CZ.

2:04And they, in a way, turned to Trump or Trump saw an opportunity to make money by rescuing them, which he's basically done in his past administration. The start of a very beautiful friendship for all involved, Aisha. It's worth saying that it's not just Trump, but it's also his wider family, right? It's his sons in particular. I'm just wondering how he has made all this money from crypto and from what sources, because it's both his own coin, Trump coin, which we gather from this over 900-page discloser has made him a whopping figure of$635 million. Although I now understand that the coin is tanking.

2:48So some bad news for the Trump warehouse. But where's it all coming from? Is it loans? Is it donors? Is it his own coins? It's actually, and this is, I think, a key thing for not just his crypto, but for his other merchandise. He holds the crypto. And just to kind of, you know, back up for crypto in the room, what is crypto? Crypto is a virtual, unregulated currency. It's traded in a special way and managed in a special way so that in theory, you know, it's not controlled by a central note or, you know, a Federal Reserve who can sanction a country or an individual. But whatever, virtual currency.

3:21Yeah. Now, if Trump were a crypto purist, you could kind of argue that he would hold a lot of his own crypto. And I think indeed he does. But things like the meme coin, it's actually, I think there's been reporting that kind of calls into question how much of Trump's meme coin Trump still has. Right. What all this means? Trump charges transaction fees on the meme coin. Right. Just as Trump's family or company on World Liberty Financial, they get a cut of every transaction made. And so backing up what that means, World Liberty Financial can go up or down as long as there's volume being traded in there.

4:01He's going to make money. You're selling the pickaxes and shovels to the gold rush, right? You're running the infrastructure. I think for the meme coin, he didn't even set up that infrastructure. Now, I don't mean to get wonkish here, but you do need like a blockchain and whatever, blah, blah, blah, to run a virtual currency. He didn't make that. That's not even his company. I would be amazed if Trump had built his own blockchain. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. He licenses his image through one of his companies. He licenses his image to another company that made the meme coin. Yeah. And then he gets a licensing fee.

4:33But it's not just crypto, is it? Because it's also his very lucrative merchandise business, which is, I think, very unique to the Trump presidency as a concept. I've just had the pleasure prior to our conversation of having a look through what's available on the Trump merch site. We've got Trump Bibles. We've got Trump sneakers, which sort of kind of resemble Converse sneakers, but are very bright gold. We've also got watches, which we understand a loan of an emma profit of$4.7 million. So that's also forming part of this picture. I mean, how on earth is this able to happen? So how is one question?

5:13But I think worth just noting here, like the phone and the sneakers are a good metaphor. The phone, the Trump phone. Yeah. Tell me about the phone. I didn't actually know about the phone. OK, the Trump phone. It was supposed to be made in America, right? Yeah. American made. OK, America doesn't make those silicon chips. I'm sorry. But maybe it makes some intel. Anywho, phone was made in Taiwan and then it was plated with gold. The sneakers and the Bible, right? It's not like Trump has a sneaker company giving jobs to hardworking sneaker employees in Arizona, right? Trump licenses image to the sneaker company, just like he licensed his image to the meme coin.

5:48What that is, is Trump doesn't take the risk of the sneaker failing or not failing. He doesn't take the risk of like, I don't know, getting sued because the sneakers turn out to be made of asbestos, right? Or they catch on fire. No, no, like the licensing fee model means that, you know, Trump is selling Trump and his personality and everyone else is taking on the risk, just like those investors are buying the coin and actually owning World Liberty Financial and the Trump meme coin, whereas his money, like if it goes down, they lose. But Trump, because he's taking a cut on the transaction fees, he wins anyway.

6:23He wins no matter what. How has he accomplished this kind of naked corruption? I mean, a good one came out in The New York Times recently where I think the CFTC, one of the U.S. regulators, Climate Futures Trading Commission, they were supposed to regulate a bunch of prediction market companies tied to Trump, so polymarket among them. All the people kind of investigating those were put on internal leave or, you know, investigated internal, basically saw their careers end. And then the chair of the CFTC then later went to work for Polymarket. I think it's just worth saying, I mean, it's easy to lose track of how unprecedented this is from a sitting U.S.

7:02president. I mean, I was thinking about Jimmy Carter, who gave up his beloved peanut farm to avoid any perception that there might be a conflict of interest there. I don't know if he was able to make any profit on the resale of his tattered cardigans. I assume not. But it is totally unprecedented. So why are the safeguards, why are the protections against conflicts of interest not applying to this presidency? I mean, we've just seen it's kind of hard for, I think, you know, US reporters, any reporters who follow this to kind of characterize the depth the depth and the extent through which Trump has just run roughshod over, you know, any kind of institutions that could check him.

7:46So, you know, the SEC, I think he cut funding from that agency. I think a number of people were sacked. The CFTC, as we just went into. But he's just run roughshod or defunded or threatened kind of all institutions that could stop him from doing this and brought them under his control. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's been a very bruising year for Trump, hasn't it? With a very, very unpopular war in Iran that has sent his approval ratings absolutely spiraling downward. I'm just wondering how this sort of profiteering during a presidency goes down with his MAGA base. Like, is it perceived as an astute businessman who knows what he's doing and a family that is good at making money and therefore that represents something about the American dream?

8:34or do you think there are increasing numbers of people within that MAGA base who feel like actually this isn't sitting well with me? I imagine the people who have been personally ripped off, some of them may have reconsidered. But I think the MAGA base views it as like, yes, Trump may be corrupt, or he may have this sort of thing. He's our guy, you know, the democratic elite, the institutions, everyone else is also corrupt. Like Elon Musk, You may call that corruption, but maybe he was just fighting dirty against a dirty system. It's a very with us or against us kind of thing. And I think, you know, many of them have probably lost a lot of money with Trump.

9:11One thing maybe they thought is that Trump owns the Trump coin, too. Trump owns WLF 1, too. So therefore, you know, we're with him. If he this is something he's betting on, if we're betting with him, we'll win. If he loses, we lose. But of course, the way he structured it is if they win, he wins. If they lose, he still wins. So it sounds like there is the potential for a lot of people to lose, but one certain winner, which is Donald Trump. Aisha, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Aisha Down. You can keep up with all her reporting over at theguardian.com.

9:47And before we go, I just want to remind you that the Guardian's award-winning Football Weekly podcast has now turned into World Cup Daily. You can join Max Rushton, Barry Glendening and the team as they discuss every big match and every big moment every day of the World Cup. Listen now wherever you get this podcast or watch on YouTube. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus will be back in your feeds tomorrow morning. The Latest will be back tomorrow night. This episode was produced by Hannah Williams and Leo Schick. The senior producer was Ranram Gobin. The executive producer was Zoe Hitch.

10:26This is The Guardian.