The Trump phone grift

Summary

Today, Explained – "The Trump Phone Grift"

Podcast: Today, Explained by Vox
Date: June 23, 2026
Hosts: Sean Rameswaram and Noel King
Guests:

• Dom Preston, News Editor at The Verge
• Zach Everson, Research Director at Public Citizen’s Trump Accountability Project

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Episode Overview

This episode of Today, Explained delves into two controversial ventures closely associated with President Donald Trump and his family: the so-called "Trump phone" and a new financial enterprise, World Liberty Financial. The conversation centers on how these products may personally enrich the Trump family while Trump is in office, the blurred lines between public service and private profit, and the potential ethical and regulatory ramifications of these projects.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Trump Phone: Hype vs. Reality

Guest: Dom Preston (The Verge)
Segment: [02:18–12:54]

• What is the Trump Phone?

  • Official name: "T1 phone. 8002 brackets gold version" a.k.a. the Trump phone ([02:24])
  • Announced by Trump Mobile as a "made in America" device. However, that claim was quickly walked back.

• Cost and Availability

  • Priced at $499, with a $100 deposit required upfront ([03:21])
  • Delivery delays and confusion; most buyers waited a year to receive phones, if any.

• Product Details

  • Technically, a generic mid-range Android device with decent hardware: 120Hz screen, Qualcomm chipset, 512GB storage, 12GB RAM ([06:11])
  • Aesthetic missteps: awkward “gold” color; poorly rendered American flag with incorrect number of stripes ([05:46])
  • Manufactured by a third party, strongly resembling the HTC U24 Pro, which is made in China ([10:13])
  • Trump phone is, at best, "assembled in the US," likely only partially ([10:13])

• The Real Business Model

  • The device acts as a marketing vehicle for Trump Mobile's subscription plan (“the 47 plan” – $47/month, a play on Trump's presidential numbers) ([04:07])
  • Company execs admit: “we’re in the razor blade business, not the razor business” — profit comes from subscriptions, not hardware ([04:13] — Dom Preston paraphrasing Trump Mobile executives)

• Intended Market

  • Targeted at less tech-savvy, MAGA-aligned consumers; basic user manual provided ([07:21])
  • Likely smaller reach than claimed; leaked database indicates about 27,000 sales ([08:03])
  • Initial promises of an American-made phone quickly shifted to vague marketing slogans such as "American hands behind every device" ([09:52])

• Critical Appraisal

  • Lacks long-term software support (unlike competitors promising 7 years of updates) ([07:09])
  • Questionable value, possible overcharging, incompetent execution; “a sort of incompetence and naivety mixed with a little bit of a desire to just make a quick buck.” ([11:45])

Memorable Quote

"The phrase 'pea-colored' has been thrown around… The anodized aluminum is just straight up not gold."
— Dom Preston, (05:36–05:46)

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2. The Trump Bank: World Liberty Financial and Stablecoin

Guest: Zach Everson (Public Citizen)
Segment: [16:58–27:43]

• Introduction to World Liberty Financial

  • Launched September 2024, just before the election, as a crypto venture closely tied to Trump family and real estate partners ([17:17])
  • Products include a stablecoin (“USD1”) and crypto token ([17:50])

• How It Works

  • Users deposit US dollars in exchange for “USD1”; Trump’s company invests these funds in short-term US Treasuries and keeps the interest ([18:24])
  • Major investment inflow: UAE’s national security advisor (the "spy Sheikh") bought $2 billion of USD1 ([19:49])

• Regulatory Maneuvering

  • Trump’s team seeking a banking charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) – part of Trump’s own administration ([21:55])
  • Approval would put regulation under federal, not state, agencies—limiting oversight and potential legal risk from states ([22:43])

• Conflicts of Interest

  • Foreign investment by UAE in a company controlled by the US president—potential for massive conflicts of interest and Emoluments Clause issues ([23:14])
  • Compared to prior accusations of influence-buying at Trump hotels, the sums involved here are “hundreds of millions of dollars,” not just tens of thousands ([24:23])

• Comparisons and Context

  • Trump’s family net worth has soared due to these ventures, dwarfing past presidential family controversies ([25:32])
  • “No other president to the best of my knowledge, has applied for a banking charter before.” ([25:32])

Memorable Quote

“Everything. Everything. … You know, if you think a foreign government spending a lot of money on one of his properties is a foreign deal, then they clearly violated it. … If you have concerns, as the Constitution does, about the United States president accepting payments from foreign powers, this one seems to be a massive one.”
— Zach Everson, (23:17–25:09)

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Notable Quotes & Key Moments

| Timestamp | Quote & Speaker | |-----------|----------------| | 04:13 | “We’re in the razor blade business, not the razor business.”<br>—Dom Preston, paraphrasing Trump Mobile execs | | 05:36 | "The phrase 'pea-colored' has been thrown around... The anodized aluminum is just straight up not gold." <br>—Dom Preston | | 07:21 | "It actually comes with a printed user manual which includes instructions like how to make a phone call. ...That probably speaks a little bit to the audience they think they have here." <br>—Dom Preston | | 11:45 | "It's a bit of a rip off. They're definitely overcharging for what they're selling, but it's that combined with a lot of naivety about how realistic and simple it is to put together a phone and sell it." <br>—Dom Preston | | 17:17 | "What we're seeing here is making what happened in the first term look ethical." <br>—Zach Everson | | 23:17 | "Everything. Everything. You know, you've got an issue where we have a foreign government investing in this. ...If you have concerns, as the Constitution does, about the United States president accepting payments from foreign powers, this one seems to be a massive one." <br>—Zach Everson | | 25:32 | "No other president to the best of my knowledge, has applied for a banking charter before." <br>—Zach Everson |

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamps | |----------------------------------------------|---------------------| | Introduction & Overview | 00:02–02:18 | | The Trump Phone with The Verge's Dom Preston | 02:18–12:54 | | The “Razor Blade Business” Model | 04:07–04:29 | | Design, Manufacturing, and Hype Analysis | 05:17–11:40 | | Is It a Grift? | 11:40–12:54 | | Turn to Trump Banking: World Liberty Fin. | 16:58–17:50 | | Stablecoin, UAE Investment, and Oversight | 17:50–22:43 | | Conflicts of Interest and Context | 23:14–27:43 |

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Takeaways

• The Trump phone is not American-made or technically remarkable, but serves as branding fodder and a gateway to a pricey, ongoing subscription.
• World Liberty Financial represents a major shift: for the first time, a sitting US president is seeking direct banking authority for a family-controlled crypto venture, raising unprecedented ethical and legal concerns.
• The scale and audacity of these ventures seem to surpass any prior presidential conflicts, from foreign emoluments to the sheer sums involved.

The episode offers a sharp, sometimes incredulous look at the continued blurring of lines between Trump’s business interests and presidential authority — and what this means for ethics, global finance, and US democracy.

Transcript

[Host]

Today explained from Vox Sean Ramus firm here in Washington D.C. where all the attention is on the reflecting pool. Back in May, it was gonna be indestructible if you had a knife.

[Co-host]

I don't wanna give anybody ideas. If you had a knife, you can't even cut it yesterday.

[Host]

It's been vandalized.

[Co-host]

Who would think that somebody would go into a pool and take a knife and start cutting it?

[Host]

People are big mad because it sure looks a lot like the President of the United States gave a buddy of his and another company like 15 million doll of our taxpayer money to completely bungle a renovation of our National Mall just weeks before our nation's 250th birthday. What a waste. What a scam. We're gonna get to that one later in the week. But on the show today, we're gonna talk about two Trumpy scams that are directly enriching the Trump family all while Daddy Trump is running the country. The Trump phone, which maybe you've heard about, and a Trump bank, which maybe you haven't.

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[Co-host]

I have definitely already been here. Now, was it left, right or right left. Well, maybe I'll cut a path out and find my way back later.

[Geico Advertiser]

But it wasn't like that. I filed a claim in under two minutes on the Geico app and they handled it from there. It was taken care of almost as quickly as it happened.

[Co-host]

It feels good to get help quick. It feels good to Geico. Lisa, what happened?

[Sponsor Voice]

Greg waited until 9 o' clock last night to get started.

[Host]

That's when my free minutes kick in.

[Co-host]

You are fired, you minute hoarding clock watcher. Ding ding ding ding ding ding.

[Geico Advertiser]

Bomb.

[Dom Preston]

I'm Dom Preston, news editor at the

[Host]

Verge and you recently wrote about a telephone.

[Dom Preston]

I did a very specific telephone. The T1 phone. 8002 brackets gold version, to be specific.

[Host]

What a name.

[Dom Preston]

What a name. AKA the Trump phone, which is what everyone's been calling it just because it's a bit less of a mouthful.

[Co-host]

We're here to talk about the one, the only, maybe the, even the infamous Trump phone. Gold casing, a flag stamped on the back. And this long awaited T1 phone from Trump Mobile is finally here.

[Dom Preston]

But yes, it was just the one year anniversary of the announcement of Trump Mobile and the Trump phone, the made in America phone that wasn't really made in America one year later, has still kind of only halfway launched.

[Host]

Do you have one?

[Dom Preston]

I do not. I have one on the way it has been. We have paid for one. The Verge has bought a phone with. We've put down money. It is somewhere in transit at the moment.

[Host]

How much does a trump phone cost?

[Dom Preston]

499 bucks.

[Host]

Oh.

[Dom Preston]

But to get that, you've got to put down a hundred dollar deposit. So we paid $100 a year ago and have been waiting very patiently ever since to see if we would get anything in exchange for that hundred bucks. It looks like maybe we actually will.

[Host]

Donald Trump, President of the United States, I believe. User of the iPhone.

[Dom Preston]

Yeah.

[Host]

Why phone?

[Dom Preston]

Very unclear. In all honesty. I think the bigger angle from the Trump Organization perspective, they just licensed the name to this company that's running all this stuff. Really. They seem to be building it all around the network. There's Tron Mobile, which has this plan called the 47 plan, which costs you 47, 45amonth.

[Co-host]

45th President of the United States, 45th and 47th.

[Dom Preston]

Very carefully chosen numbers. Wow. And I think that that's really what it's about. That's the way of making money. I shouted to a couple executives from the company back in February this year and they kind of said, we're in, we're in the razor blade business, not the razor business, by which they clearly meant the money is made in the monthly subscription service. The money is made in the plan.

[Host]

Here's what you get.

[Co-host]

Unlimited talk, text and data. Free calls to over 100 countries, including places like US military bases. You will see the telecom tax being added to the cost of the plan. And this is really high. This is higher than the taxes and FEES added by AT&T T Mobile or Verizon.

[Dom Preston]

The phone, when I spoke to these executives, they kept trying to downplay the phone. Like the phone was this marketing idea they'd have. The phone was this thing that would drum up interest in the plan and then suddenly all anyone wanted to talk about Was the phone.

[Co-host]

I think I might be the first person to have a T1 Trump phone. Guys, you will not believe what I

[Sponsor Voice]

have in my hand.

[Co-host]

This is actually the Trump phone, the T1. It's actually real.

[Host]

So weird. But tell us about this phone. I mean how does it compare to some of the most popular phones on the market?

[Dom Preston]

It's a very generic mid range Android phone.

[Host]

Huh.

[Dom Preston]

It's golden. It's kind of golden.

[Co-host]

Ish.

[Dom Preston]

It's a bit of a yellowy gold in person. From everything I've heard they could even

[Host]

get the gold right.

[Dom Preston]

The phrase pea colored has been thrown around.

[Host]

Oh no.

[Co-host]

This anodized aluminum is just straight up not gold.

[Dom Preston]

It's not even really yellow.

[Host]

It's like orangey.

[Geico Advertiser]

It's ugly.

[Co-host]

It's not real gold. Look at this cheap piece of.

[Host]

This is a phone circa like what 2018.

[Dom Preston]

It's golden.

[Co-host]

Ish.

[Dom Preston]

It's got an American flag on the back.

[Host]

On the back we've got the American flag with not, not enough stripes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 stripes.

[Dom Preston]

This is the T1 phone is made

[Co-host]

for Americans that they kind of got

[Dom Preston]

the American flag wrong. I think in a way one of the funny things about it is it's not a bad phone. From the specs, the specs aren't, they're pretty decent. The screen looks nice, it's 120Hz panel. It's got a pretty respectable Qualcomm chipset inside. It's got 512 gigabytes of storage and 12 gigabytes of RAM which is certainly in the current economy is actually getting kind of unusual. So bits of the spec sheet look pretty good for 499 bucks. The problem is there's just so much a good phone these days is actually about the software and the support and the stuff around the pure hardware that's inside. And that's where we look at this and just think Chop Mobile is definitely going to be lacking. I mean just the obvious thing is long term support. They've made absolutely no commitment to how long they're going to keep giving people software updates for the phone. And when I asked executives about that they just seemed kind of confused by the question. Which isn't a great sign. When you've got companies like Google and Samsung promising you'll get updates for seven years. This can be your phone for a long time.

[Host]

Okay, so it's a decent phone. Hardware wise it looks like it's gonna be a problematic phone. Software wise. Who is it for? Is it just for people who wear MAGA hats?

[Dom Preston]

Presumably that's a big part of the base for this. I can't imagine they're really trying to draw in anyone who's particularly technically minded. I think one of the telling things from what we've seen, there've been a couple of people who've gotten the phone and kind of managed to unbox it and see what's inside is that it actually comes with a printed user manual which includes instructions like how to make a phone call. Which it's been a long time since Apple sent out a phone with instructions on how to make a phone call. And I think that probably speaks a little bit to the audience they think they have here, which is people who are as far from technically minded as you can get and really do not have a decent understanding of what they're buying here.

[Host]

Do we know how many such people have bought this thing so far?

[Dom Preston]

Not entirely. There were rumors for a long time that there'd been 600,000 pre orders of the phone, but I couldn't find a shred of evidence that that was true. I mean, that would be a huge number for a company like this and would represent a lot of money coming in. Even just from the hundred dollar deposits. It looks more likely that it's somewhere in the 20 to 30,000 range. They had a website leak. It turned out they weren't really securing order data properly. So some people managed to get in and pull out what appeared to be a complete database of every order that had been placed and that had 27,000 and something entries in it. So that was as of about a month ago. So that looks like that might be the cap of how many of these they've sold, but it's hard to be certain and the company hasn't confirmed or denied either way.

[Host]

And what do we know about the production process? You mentioned with some skepticism that one of the promises of this phone would be that it would be made in the United States, where of course not many cell phones are made. What's the truth of that claim?

[Dom Preston]

So it doesn't look like it's made in the US at all. And in fact even Trump Mobile admits that.

[Co-host]

Oh, Trump Mobile has had to make changes for its upcoming smartphone. Earlier this week Made in the USA was taken off the Trump Mobile website.

[Sponsor Voice]

Well, now they're scrapping that tagline.

[Host]

It sounds like they just realized that

[Sponsor Voice]

the phone cannot be manufactured in the US of A for that price tag of $499.

[Dom Preston]

They said it was made in the USA when they first announced the phone and they walked that back less than two weeks later. It took, I think, 12 days for them to say, oh, no, okay. And they just very quietly went into the website, took away every mention of made in the US and replaced it with these very vague suggestive phrases like

[Host]

American hands behind every device or designed with American values in mind. This is like. This is like iterations of the classic Apple, the iconic designed in Cupertino, right?

[Dom Preston]

Yes. Very careful in that. They do now say it is assembled in the U.S. i've been told that happens in Miami. We don't know exactly what that means. I mean, made in the US is protected terminology. The FTC has very strict regulations on what counts as made in the us. And the hard bit of it is basically every component has to be US made. And for a phone, that's borderline impossible. There is one company called Purism that manages it and their phone costs 2. Grand Theft Auto does also regulate Assembled in the US there are some criteria there. They're a bit broader, they're a bit looser. So hopefully it is honestly meeting those assembled in the US criteria. It means it's got to be more than a simple screwdriver assembly is the phrasing. So in theory, they can't just be getting a couple bits and slapping the COVID on the phone and shipping it out. They have to be getting it in sort of a smaller number of pieces and making a substantial transformation. But we don't know exactly what's going on there. We're not sure where it is made, but we have some pretty good guesses. It looks uncannily like a phone called the HTC U24 Pro. And now that some people have managed to get the phone and tear it open, we know that it looks uncannily like that phone inside and out. It has pretty much the same body, almost all the same parts. The battery is different. That's basically it. Which seems to really strongly suggest they are basically the same device. And that HTC phone is made in China. So we don't know where the Trump phone is made, but the phone it seems to be a carbon copy of is made in China.

[Host]

It sounds a little bit like a grift. Is it a grift?

[Dom Preston]

Dom, I have gone back and forth on this question every day for the past 12 months. I've been reporting about this thing kind of week in week out for seven or eight months now, and constantly going back and forth on whether this is a scam, a grift, whatever the general place I've settled on is that it's a bit of a rip off. They're definitely overcharging for what they're selling, but it's that combined with a lot of naivety about how realistic and simple it is to put together a phone and sell it. You know, they announced this thing would be made in the USA and would ship within two or three months of them announcing it, which anyone could just tell was nonsense. The moment they said this, everyone on Newstream was like, well that's not happening. So what is going to happen? Let's try and figure that out. Because it's not what they just said. And yeah, that's my general feeling. There's a sort of incompetence and naivety mixed with a little bit of a desire to just make a quick buck.

[Host]

Read dom@the verge.com we're heading to the Trump bank when we're back on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Chime. And if you're thinking about, you know, your doorbell, then you got another thing coming. Because sometimes banking can feel like going through an obstacle course. Constantly trying to avoid overdraft fees, minimum balance requirements and monthly char charges. Chime wants to make things easier. Chime is changing the way people bank by offering rewarding fee free banking banking built for you. Because why should you pay to get your own money? A question as old as time and Chime wants to answer it. Chime isn't a traditional bank in that they won't charge you overdraft and monthly fees and they even have thousands of fee free ATMs for you to use built for you. Not the 1%, the pesky 1%. Chime is not just smarter banking, it is the most rewarding way to bank. You can head to chime.com explained that is chime.com explained it only takes a few minutes to sign up.

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[Co-host]

You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers, but you start to follow the money and you get today explained.

[Host]

Zach Everson is a research director at something called the Trump Accountability Project at a group called Public Citizen. He and another guy try to keep track of all the President's many side hustles. Zach mostly follows the money, and lately that's meant following the Trump family's efforts to basically get into banking.

[Co-host]

Yeah, what we're seeing here is making what happened in the first term look ethical. So There are essentially three steps here. First, in September 2024, shortly before the election, Trump's and the Witkoffs launched World Liberty Financial.

[Sponsor Voice]

Trump announced World Liberty Financial in a live stream on X saying quote, crypto is one of those things we have to do. World Liberty Financial, the new crypto platform in which President Donald Trump and his affiliates hold a 60% stake, announced a strategic token reserve designed to bolster Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies.

[Co-host]

Second, they came out with two products for World Liberty Financial, a stablecoin and a crypto token.

[Sponsor Voice]

Just think about a digital currency like Bitcoin. World Liberty Financial, this digital token kind of like that, but it's part of this broader cryptocurrency venture that the Trump family launched. Really just weeks before the election, President Trump's World Liberty Financial is jumping into the stablecoin game. They just introduced USD1, a digital asset whose value will be pegged to the US dollar and backed by short term US government treasuries, dollar deposits and other cash equivalents.

[Co-host]

And now what they need is the banking authority so that they can cut down on the fees that they'd have to pay outside sources, they can increase the fees that they make and they can also centralize all regulation under the federal government. So USD1, it is a stable coin, which is crypto. It means it is backed one to one by reserves. So think of it as a bank loan, only going the opposite way. You are giving money to World Liberty Financial, you're giving US dollars and they are giving you this virtual currency and the whole time that they're sitting on your US dollars, they are investing it in Treasuries and they are keeping the interest. So this made news, it would have been spring of 2025 when it was announced that an investment firm backed by the National Security Advisor of the UAE had purchased $2 billion of these magic beans using US dollars and was investing in Binance. So it essentially creates its own currency here and you've got it went from nothing to all of a sudden being one of the most popular stablecoins out there by way of the UAE national spy National Security Advisor directing this money towards him. Nearly half of the Trump family crypto

[Host]

company World Liberty Financial was purchased for

[Co-host]

$500 million by Sheikh Tanun bin Zayed

[Host]

Al Nahyan, who heads the United Arab

[Co-host]

Emirates State Investment Fund and serves as

[Host]

National Security Advisor, sometimes referred to as the spy Sheikh.

[Dom Preston]

There's been some direct conflicts, especially with a big deal that came through the United Arab Emirates, they decided to use

[Co-host]

a Trump cryptocurrency to pay for a $2 billion investment. So that put them really on the map there. And that's a lot of what this banking trust license would have to do. It would allow. Would allow them to do right now, if they. The reserves have to be held someplace else. They can't hold their own reserves. Similarly, they can't issue their own coin in the United States. It has to be done elsewhere. If this trust gets approved, which we believe it's going to be soon, that would allow them to essentially collect more fees in direct transactions and take out some middlemen in transactions they already have going on.

[Host]

And Binance is, of course, I think, the most popular crypto exchange.

[Co-host]

It is, it is. And Binance is not allowed to operate in the United States. So when we say 80 to 85% of USD 1 is held at Binance, if the law is being followed, that means that 80 to 85% of Donald Trump stablecoins is in the hands of people overseas, which is a huge problem for the United States president to be so beholden. If all those foreigners just started dumping, that would really crash this currency he's got there, cut away from the interest he can make. And that is a lot of financial power that foreigners have over the United States president right now.

[Host]

Okay, so Donald Trump has World Liberty Financial, this token, he's got this stablecoin, he's got business with Binance. Help us understand this transition that's going on right now in the United States to help World Liberty Financial essentially become more of a bank.

[Co-host]

Yeah. So we at Public Citizen and other groups have long been concerned about regulatory capture. You know, that's when the lobbyists or the business interests come into government and they take control of. Of the agency that oversees their former employer. This is regulatory capture to the extreme, where they are applying for a banking license from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and that is part of the treasury, which is under Donald Trump's administration. So here you have. World Liberty Financial is going to be regulated by an agency of the US Government that is under Donald Trump's control.

[Host]

And someone who answers to the President of the United States will decide whether. Whether his financial firm, World Liberty Financial, gets to essentially have these banking privileges.

[Co-host]

Exactly, exactly. And another benefit of this that ties into the administration is if this does get approved for this license, it will fall under federal regulators, not state regulators, as much so that, you know, we've seen a lot of efforts from the states for all sorts of areas combating Donald Trump in his administration that states are filing lawsuits. This puts his World Liberty Financial in the purview of a federal agency, which appears that it would make it a lot harder for states to try to get in there and push back on this.

[Host]

What are the potential conflicts of interest here?

[Co-host]

Everything. Everything. You know, you've got an issue where we have a foreign government investing in this. Another firm backed by the UAE's national security adviser, also owns 49% of world liberty Financial, something the American people didn't find out about until like a year after it took place. He bought this share right before Trump was inaugurated. You know, we heard a lot in the first term about foreign emoluments. There were all sorts of concerns about foreign governments buying rooms and drinks at his hotel, holding banquets, an annual meeting

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on U. S. Turkey relations, most years a standard event. But not this year, because this year it was at the Trump International Hotel in D.C. ground zero for President Trump's conflicts of interest. NBC News has obtained receipts showing Saudi Arabia, the uae, Qatar, Turkey, China and Malaysia spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at the Trump International Hotel in Washington at the very same time they were seeking to influence US Foreign policy in their favor.

[Co-host]

Sometimes there are accusations that were never proven to the best of my knowledge, but that they would buy rooms and not even use them as an easy way to get money to the president. You know, if that was the case, we're talking, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe a little millions if that was going to be the case here, you've got, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars going to Donald Trump and his business partners right before he became president, you know, a time where he's already announced who is cabinet's largely going to be. And according to the Wall Street Journal, it looks like the payments didn't even go through until after he was inaugurated. So if you have concerns, as the Constitution does, about the United States president accepting payments from foreign powers, this one seems to be a massive one.

[Host]

Kind of impossible to imagine another president doing this kind of thing recent or, you know, especially like, I can't, I can't picture Teddy Roosevelt being involved in crypto. But is there some degree to, like, Trump has this long history of grift that people just kind of look the other way at this massive grift.

[Co-host]

I've absolutely thought so since he first came in. When he first came in and had that D.C. hotel and the golf clubs, I thought people like, well, it's Donald Trump, of course, he's going to do this sort of stuff. And you know, they pledged not to do some things. They weren't going to do any foreign deals. Don and Eric will say they abided by that promise and didn't get any credit for it. In a lot to terms on, you know, how you what you consider a foreign deal, you know, if you think a foreign government spending a lot of money on one of his properties is a foreign deal, then they clearly violated it. But yeah, it's Donald Trump. It's what were you expecting? You know, I think that's the advantage that Donald Trump has long had, is that people have known him for decades and he's always been like this. So what are you expecting? And that's massively problematic. No other president to the best of my knowledge, has applied for a banking charter before. And you're seeing it a lot. There was Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden. And what Hunter Biden did was wrong. It was wrong in the same way of Roger Clinton and Billy Carter. And there's a long history of family members, of presidents running some kind of grift. But that is such low dollars. According to Forbes, Eric Trump's net worth is shot up from $40 million before his dad was elected to 400 million. Donald Trump Jr. Went from 50 to 300 million. Barron Trump, COLLEGE student He's doing all right. He's worth about 150 million again, all according to Forbes. These are massive amounts of money. You know, we would talk about how Don Jr. And Eric, while certainly wealthy, were not nearly as wealthy as the children of a lot of other billionaires who were involved in the family business. Well, they fixed that. And a lot of that has come through World Liberty Financial. Those two are both listed as co founders. They're both promoting it. Ed Barron as well is listed as a co founder of the company. And that is largely what is driving this massive amount of wealth that you're seeing the Trumps accumulate this term.

[Host]

You can follow Zach's following of the trump [e-mail] Dustin De Soto produced today. Amina Al Asadi and Jolie Myers edited David Tadashore and Patrick Boyd mixed Gabriel Donatov did the maths for today. Explained.

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