Planet Money – "How much money President Trump and his family have made"

NPR | January 14, 2026
Hosts: Sarah Gonzalez & Mary Childs
Featured Guest: David Kirkpatrick (New Yorker Reporter), Fred Wertheimer (President, Democracy 21)

Overview

This episode investigates the extraordinary financial gains made by President Donald Trump and his family during his second term in office. Planet Money explores how the Trumps transitioned from relative financial distress to amassing nearly $4 billion in profit—almost entirely during the past year—by leveraging the presidency. The hosts are joined by journalist David Kirkpatrick, who meticulously tallied the Trump family's profits, and ethics advocate Fred Wertheimer, who places Trump's conduct in historical and international context.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Dramatic Financial Shift in Trump’s Second Term

• Initial Position:
  Trump entered his second term in a "tight spot" financially, with significant legal liabilities (fraud and defamation lawsuits) and declining income from licensing deals. (04:17)
• Major Change:
  "After just six months into his second term, Trump's financial situation started looking real good. Like, real good. Just zoop shot up in six months." – Sarah Gonzalez (02:05)

2. Policy Shift: International Business is Back

• First Term vs. Second Term:
  Initially, the Trumps vowed no foreign deals to avoid conflicts of interest but reversed this stance completely in the second term.

  "In the first term, they said, voluntarily, we're not going to do any hotel or other business deals overseas, because that would be bad, optically. That's gone. That's out the window." – David Kirkpatrick (00:36)

  • "Since we're gonna get criticized... we might as well take the money and run." – Kirkpatrick on the family’s current approach (01:14)

3. $4 Billion: The Tally

• Nearly $4 billion in profits for the Trump family since the start of the second term, with precise methodology to count only gains that would not have occurred had Trump not been president.
  (02:22, 03:01)
• Profits include Trump, his sons, his wife Melania, and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

4. Defining 'Profiting Off the Presidency'

• Kirkpatrick counted only new deals, or highly unusual profits that “would have been inconceivable if Trump were not president,” excluding ongoing business revenue and plausible deals.
  (03:21, 07:14)

5. Notable Profit Categories (with Timestamps & Estimated Gains)

A. Merch & Campaign Legal Fees

• Merchandise sales (Trump sneakers, bibles, guitars, etc.): $27.7M (10:52)
• Innovative Loophole: Campaign merch proceeds go directly to Trumps, not to campaign funds.
• Legal defense paid with campaign donations: $100M (11:01)
• Total merch + legal defense: $127.7M

B. Media & Lawsuits

• Truth Social (social media platform): $25M
• Media lawsuits and deals (including payment to Melania for Amazon movie): $91M
• Total 'media category': $116M (12:32)

C. Private Jet

• Qatari royal jet (expected to benefit the Trump library, ultimately Trump/family): $150M (12:55)

D. Hospitality & Real Estate

• Mar-a-Lago (increased initiation fees): $125M (13:17)
• Trump Hotel, Hanoi, Vietnam: $40M (13:53)
• Middle East/Gulf region hotel deals: $105M (16:23)
• Total for hotels and real estate: $271M (16:27)

E. Finance

• Jared Kushner’s Private Equity Deal (Saudi investment): $320M (17:43)
• Donald Trump Jr’s investment fund (1789 Capital): $19.6M (18:14)

F. Crypto & Digital Assets

• NFTs (non-fungible tokens): $14.4M (19:05)
• Token investments (World Liberty Financial): $974.5M (19:17)
• Stablecoin 'USD1' (sold to UAE): $243M (19:45)

  "Their first customer, and really their main, possibly only customer so far has been the government of the United Arab Emirates." – Kirkpatrick (19:42)

• American Bitcoin (BTC mining): $115M (21:00)
• Trump Media's Bitcoin holdings (Trump's personal 41%): $1.08B (21:31–22:15)
• Trump Meme Coin: $385M (22:31)
• TOTAL CRYPTO CATEGORY: Over $2.5B

6. Emoluments & Ethics: Why This is Unprecedented

• Emoluments cases from Trump’s first term over the D.C. hotel were never resolved; ironically, the hotel made "zero" net gain. (09:00)
• Previous presidents have made post-term money (Clinton’s speeches, Obama’s Netflix deal), but none funneled personal profit into their pockets while in office at anywhere near this scale.

  "Trump is the first president to make so much money explicitly off of the White House for himself and his family. Money that actually goes into his own pocket..." – Kirkpatrick (05:13)

• Historic Comparison:
  • LBJ and Warren G. Harding had small-scale conflicts of interest, e.g., media business holdings, but nothing remotely on Trump’s scale. (26:30)

  "It doesn't exist at the level of which President Trump is making money." – Fred Wertheimer (25:21)

7. Notable Quotes & Analysis

• On campaign money and personal legal defense:
  "Trump found a loophole, a way to convert campaign money into money that he could use to pay for his legal defense in lawsuits against him..." – Sarah Gonzalez (11:01)

• On the Trump Family's unique approach:
  "Campaign donations are not personal profit... Trump is the first president to make so much money explicitly off the White House." – Kirkpatrick (05:13)

• On international business rationale:
  "If you’re gonna open a big resort in the Persian Gulf... why would you go to the Trump Organization, which has so little track record in the Gulf?" – Kirkpatrick (15:21)

• On the regulatory conflict:
  "Trump has made billions... in cryptocurrency. At the same time, he is controlling the policy of the United States on cryptocurrency." – Fred Wertheimer (29:00)

• On global precedent:
  "A leading example of this is Mr. Putin... estimates range from $20 billion to hundreds of billions of dollars." – Wertheimer (30:03)

Notable/Memorable Moments

• Merchandise innovation: The family directly sells campaign-esque merch for personal profit, bypassing traditional campaign finance rules. (10:13–10:52)
• Crypto ventures: Creative and controversial leveraging of White House prestige to enter new markets, resulting in windfalls far exceeding prior patterns for U.S. presidents.
• Historic context: The claim: Trump’s profiteering is more comparable to autocratic leaders abroad than to any U.S. precedent. (25:21–30:39)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:36: Policy shift on foreign deals
• 02:22: $4 billion headline figure
• 05:13: Defining “personal profit off the presidency”
• 10:13: The merch loophole
• 12:32: Truth Social/media lawsuit profits
• 13:17 – 16:27: Hospitality & real estate in the US and abroad
• 17:43 – 18:14: Finance gains (Kushner, Don Jr.)
• 19:05 – 22:31: Massive gains in crypto, meme coins, bitcoin
• 25:21 – 29:00: Ethics expert Fred Wertheimer on historical comparisons and scale
• 30:03: Foreign comparisons (Putin, autocrats)

Historical & Global Comparison

• Traditional American presidents with family businesses (LBJ, Harding): Some conflicts, but profits trivial by comparison.
• Hunter Biden comparison: Not a president and nowhere near the scale of profit as Trump’s sons. (25:38–26:12)
• Foreign leaders: The scale only matches wealth accumulated by autocrats like Vladimir Putin. (30:03–30:39)

Final Takeaways

• Scale and Transparency: No prior U.S. president has generated personal and familial wealth of this magnitude, and much of it is unique to Trump's leveraging of both domestic and international markets taking advantage of his presidential position.
• Ongoing Story: David Kirkpatrick is actively tracking and updating these figures, with rapid growth in family profits even in the months since his initial reporting. (31:06)

For listeners seeking more: Check timestamps above for deep dives into each profit area and key ethical discussions.