Trump Thinks It Was ‘Stupid' Not to Cash in Harder on His First Term. He's Making Up for It
The dinner is for winners of a contest — the crypto traders who raced to become the top 220 holders of the president's $TRUMP meme coin. According to one analysis, they collectively accumulated about $150 million of the crypto asset, which has no intrinsic value and is equivalent to a digital baseball card.
The contest has made Trump's family crypto business money on each transaction. And it has swelled the president's personal net worth, by driving up the price of the coin, which the family business holds massive reserves of.
The meme coin contest is just the latest example of Trump wielding the public office of the presidency for his private enrichment. In fact, sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone that one of the lessons Trump took away from his previous stint in the White House is that he was wrong to leave a ton of money on the table as president.
The president himself has privately said this on multiple occasions in recent months and years, according to two people who've been in the room with him. In moments of casual banter, Trump has mentioned that it was 'stupid' of other Republicans and advisers to convince him — at least on occasion — to side with government ethicists who cautioned him from obliterating the line between public good and private gain.
Trump says such things often enough that he can't help himself from repeating some of it in public, including recently about the proposed gift of a $400 million 747 jumbo jet 'sky palace' from the government of a Gulf emirate. 'I think it's a great gesture from Qatar; I appreciate it very much. I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer,' the president told the press at the White House in mid-May. 'I mean, I could be a stupid person saying, 'No, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane.'' (As Rolling Stone previously reported, Trump often does not distinguish between what's his and what belongs to the people or its government, including when it comes to this plane — which he privately refers to as 'one of my' new airplanes.)
Trump does not hold space in his mind for any distinction between his private interest and the public interest. 'A deal is a deal,' the president has said in the past several months, according to one of the two sources, dismissing Democratic complaints about the meme coin, or about how his business and real-estate empire is working to strike major foreign deals.
To anyone holding fast to the bedrock norms of public service, Trump's self-dealing is appalling. 'The situation should be revolting to anybody who cares about the American interest,' says Norm Eisen, a good-government champion who now directs the Democracy Defenders Fund. 'It's damaging to the country. When people give you a $400 million plane, or a $2 billion investment, or buy your meme coins in large amounts to have dinner with you and visit the White House — they expect something in return.'
Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, agrees. Trump's deals make the campaign finance scandals of the last century — recall the Clinton-era scandal in which top donors were treated to overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House — look quaint.
'It's not even in the same ballpark as what we're seeing with Donald Trump,' Bookbinder says. From crypto deals to a Qatari sky palace, he notes, 'you're talking about Trump's personal bottom line — about money going into his pocket, or about luxuries that make his daily life better.' And the special interests providing these riches, Bookbinder warns, will enjoy 'access to him, and the ability potentially to influence him.'
Anna Kelly, a Trump White House spokesperson, tells Rolling Stone, 'There are no conflicts of interest. President Trump's assets are in a trust managed by his children. It is shameful that Rolling Stone is ignoring the GOOD deals President Trump has secured for the American people, not for himself, to push a false narrative. President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media.'
The Trump Organization and the Trump family's crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, did not respond to requests for comment.
In venting to close allies about accusations of open corruption and, effectively, bribes from foreign entities and regimes, the president has said that any nation or city overseas should be proud to have a Trump Tower or other new Trump family property built there. This is, Trump says, in part because such a building now carries the 'prestige' of not only his brand name, but the United States as a whole, one of sources who's been in the room with Trump in recent months tells Rolling Stone.
On Monday, Reuters reported that the Trump Organization and a local partner are considering building a skyscraper in Vietnam, after the country approved the Trump family empire's plans for a $1.5 billion luxury residential development and golf club. Eric Trump attended the golf club's groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday with Vietnam's prime minister. Vietnam is simultaneously working to negotiate a tariff deal with the Trump administration.
Both in public and behind closed doors, Trump often repeats a new mantra: It does not matter how much lucrative new business the Trump Organization or his children engage in while Trump is the president, because he and his family are so wealthy that he doesn't need that new cash flow or windfalls — and therefore, he must be unbribable. (For his part, Trump's son Eric has abandoned concerns about the optics or appearance of corruption, telling The Wall Street Journal that his efforts to keep certain interests of the Trump Organization and the first Trump presidency separate went unrewarded. 'I got very little credit for it,' he said. 'We still kind of got stomped on.')
The second Trump administration, from Day One, has been working to make the world safe for corrupt business practices — in ways that have already eclipsed the sky-high standards of corruption set by Trump's first four years as leader of the free world.
Through his executive orders, Trump has opened the door to corruption both foreign and domestic. In February, Trump issued a pause on enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This anti-corruption statute bars companies from using bribes to secure overseas business deals and requires adherence to basic bookkeeping standards.
Trump issued his executive order in the name of 'eliminating excessive barriers to American commerce abroad' and normalizing 'routine business practices in other nations.' The order declares that suspending enforcement will 'prioritize American interests' and improve 'American economic competitiveness.' The executive order leaves any enforcement solely to the discretion of the attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Bondi has experience with foreign business interests, having previously acted as a lobbyist for the government of Qatar. The public knows about the arrangement between Bondi and Qatar because of disclosures required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA — a law meant to shine a light on foreign influence and propaganda campaigns inside the U.S.
The Trump administration, on Bondi's first day, also ordered a halt to criminal prosecutions for violations of FARA. This means the Department of Justice will turn a blind eye to covert foreign influence operations, unless there is 'conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors,' according to Bondi's order.
Bondi also ordered DOJ's Foreign Influence Task Force to be disbanded. And under her leadership, the FBI has disbanded an elite unite tasked with rooting out public corruption by executive officials and members of Congress.
'The administration started with weakening corruption safeguards for others,' says Eisen of Democracy Defenders. 'And it has evolved into open profiteering based on public office by Donald Trump himself.'
Trump is leveraging his family's crypto business as a means for very rich people, many of them foreign nationals, to put money in his pocket.
The brazen meme coin contest has received the most scrutiny. The $TRUMP meme coin is not officially supposed to be an investment vehicle. (The coin's fine print insists it is not 'an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type.')
But Trump's decision to launch the crypto asset just days before reclaiming the White House cemented his status as a multi-billionaire. (His wife, Melania, created her own coin, too.)
In April, the president announced a contest in which the top holders of $TRUMP coin would gain access to him personally at a dinner at Trump National Golf Club outside D.C. The coin's 25 biggest investors have also been promised a special reception and an unspecified 'VIP Tour.' (Originally this was billed as a 'VIP White House Tour.')
'You have a situation where people who buy millions of dollars worth of his meme coin have a chance to talk to him and pitch him on policy that regular Americans don't have,' says Bookbinder of CREW. 'That is corrupt.'
The top holder in the contest spent about $18 million on $TRUMP coin. Justin Sun, who identified himself in a post on X as the $TRUMP whale, is a controversial crypto billionaire whose own fortune is in jeopardy.
In 2023, Sun was sued by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission for alleged fraud and manipulation involving his company's Tron coin. Sun has since emerged as an adviser to the Trump family's crypto business, and reportedly invested $75 million in World Liberty Financial, netting the Trump family an estimated $56 million in fees, according to Bloomberg. In February, not long after Trump took office, the SEC reportedly asked a judge to pause its litigation against Sun, so it could pursue a resolution out of court.Separately, as part of his trade war, Trump has weighed delisting Chinese companies from America's stock exchanges. The Wall Street Journal reports that some Chinese firms are now rushing to buy $TRUMP coin, seemingly in a quest to stay in Trump's favor — and on the Nasdaq.
Trump is also reaping money from a different crypto coin. In early May, an investment firm in Abu Dhabi announced it would make a $2 billion investment in the crypto platform Binance — doing so using a 'stablecoin' minted by the Trump family's World Liberty Financial, $USD1.
Stablecoins are pegged to a unit of fiat currency, in this case the U.S. dollar. The minters of stablecoin typically profit from transaction fees, as well as from the interest generated by the real-world assets (like U.S. Treasuries) that are used to ensure the value and liquidity of the cryptocurrency.
Bookbinder argues that the stablecoin transaction 'could be incredibly valuable' to the Trump family. The sheer size of the transaction establishes the Trump family's stablecoin as a major asset in a crowded market — giving the family's company invaluable brand cachet. And then there's the $2 billion itself. 'It appears that they're going to be able to invest it and take the proceeds,' Bookbinder says, 'which could be many, many millions of dollars.'
Congress is currently considering legislation, called the GENIUS Act, that would enact new, weak regulations on stablecoins — a boon for Big Tech firms and likely the president's family, too. The Senate passed the legislation on a bipartisan basis on Monday.
In what critics allege is a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, Trump is seeking to accept a luxury 747 jumbo jet, known as a 'sky palace,' from the government of Qatar for use as Air Force One during the course of his presidency. As part of the jaw-dropping proposal, the plane would remain available for Trump's post-presidential travel upon leaving the White House.
The deal has been blessed as lawful by Attorney General Bondi — the former lobbyist for Qatar — under the logic that Trump will never personally own the plane, as it will ostensibly remain in the hands of Trump's library foundation, which Trump appears to be turning into a slush fund for donations to fund a lavish post-presidency.
It's been reported that the Qataris are happy to hand off the plane — a garish golden albatross that they've been unable to sell. But the plane's over-the-top luxury appeals to the intended recipient, Trump. 'It's hard to imagine that he's not going to be influenced by the fact that he is flying around in a luxurious plane,' Bookbinder says. 'Based on his statements, we have every reason to think that would influence him. That's a kind of corruption that we haven't seen before.'
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) agrees. 'This level of corruption is so gross that even Trump's most hardened MAGA sycophants are turning against him,' Murphy said in a floor speech that cited conservatives Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro as unlikely allies in the fight. 'They can't believe he… is willing to put our nation's security at risk, take unconstitutional bribes just so he can fly himself and his Mar-a-Lago golf buddies around the world in a gold-plated luxury plane.'
The House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is in a position to defend the Constitution against Trump's corrupting impulses. But when faced with questions about Trump's airplane deal with Qatar, Johnson demurred, bizarrely insisting, 'It's not my lane.'
Johnson went on to suggest that Trump should get away with his corrupt deals because they're happening in broad daylight. 'Whatever President Trump is doing is out in the open,' Johnson said. 'They're not trying to conceal anything.'
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