The NPR Politics Podcast - How Trump Makes His Money, From Golf Courses To Crypto

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

From Trump Tower to Trump Steaks, President Trump's business ventures have always been about the Trump brand. What does that mean when the man behind the brand is back in the White House? Trump's recent financial disclosures offer some clues. This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Stephen Fowler, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro. This podcast was produced by Bria Suggs and edited by Lexie Schapitl. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. Hey, this is Chelsea calling from my local rock climbing gym at the top of the wall. This podcast was recorded at 1 07 p.m. on Thursday, June 26. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but hopefully I'll be down from the top of the wall. So after my vacation where I rappelled off of waterfalls, I was like, hey kids, we should go

to a rock climbing gym and do more of this. And they were like, no. What goes up must come down. You know, the surprising place that I never thought I would see like a humongous rock climbing wall, and they take it really seriously, was in Reno, Nevada. When on a station visit there, the hotel I was in, one of the entire floors was rock climbing. It's like a thing. It was awesome. I can't do it, but good for them.

Upper body strength. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Stephen Fowler. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. From Trump Tower to Trump Stakes, President Trump's business ventures have always been about the Trump brand. Today on the show, we're talking about what that means now that the man behind the brand is back in the White House and selling watches, Bibles, cryptocurrency.

It's a turban watch with almost 200 grams of gold and more than 100 real diamonds. That's a lot of diamonds. I love gold. I love diamonds. We all do. Stephen, you recently reported on some financial disclosures from the president. They give us some new insight. What did they say? Yeah, a few weeks ago, there was this 234-page ethics document released that gives a snapshot of what President Trump made and was worth throughout the 2024 calendar year. So we know that he has at least $1.6

billion in assets of things like real estate, hotels, golf courses, investment accounts, a pension from his time where he was on film and TV and things like that. And he brought in more than $630 million as he was running for president. Yep, that's better than I did. For context, Biden's financial disclosure was 11 pages, Kamala Harris's was 15. So this is on a different scale. Yeah. And for the most part, President Trump's wealth and the income that he derived last year was from what you would expect an older wealthy businessman to be. Hundreds of millions

of dollars from his golf courses and the business real estate holdings that he has like Trump Tower and the Mar-a-Lago Club. But then there were other things that were more in line with the Trump brand. There was $2.8 million for Trump watches, 2.5 million for Trump sneakers and perfume, 1.3 million from the God Bless the USA Bible, which features

the chorus of Lee Greenwood's eponymous song, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. And all of those things are important because it's actually money from licensing his name. You know, there's not the Trump organization making Bibles or making watches. It's just slapping the Trump name on them and people buying them. Jared Sussman All those pale in comparison to what he and his family have been able to do in crypto, right? Well, there is a little bit of the Trump family's foray into cryptocurrency in here. $57 million from world Liberty financial, which is their crypto endeavor

from the sale of cryptocurrency tokens. Also the president has a few million dollars of investments in Ethereum, which is another type of cryptocurrency And since this is a snapshot We only see a taste of what is coming and what has happened because this appears to end at the end of 2024 So it doesn't get into the alleged hundreds of millions of dollars that the family has made from Trump coin and other cryptocurrency Okay, I think I need you to explain a little bit more about Trump coin coin and other cryptocurrency. Okay I think I need you to explain a little bit more about Trump coin, what happened when that happened, and and what we'll be

looking for this time next year. Well there is this business that the Trump family is a part of, World Liberty Financial, that is a platform for cryptocurrency which is itself a sort of abstract digital buying and selling where the value of the assets is what people put into it in the market. It's not tied to a currency like a dollar or other things like that. And so the family got into the crypto space towards the end of last year and they have Royal Liberty Financial and they have these markets.

And in recent months, there have been launches of Trump themed meme coins where people can buy Trump coin. And that's led to a whole cascading conversation and question about ethics and profiting from the presidency. Yeah, I mean, they even had this dinner, right, where people were able to buy essentially into a dinner where they got to meet the president, right? I mean, this is the kind of thing that we talk about when it comes to ethical practices and why most past presidents who have never seen this kind of thing, where they're promoting themselves, their brand, trying to make money while they are president for themselves and their family because of the ethical questions about gaining access for wealthy people and

maybe people with more checkered backgrounds and pasts. Yeah, I think there are actually two layers of ethical questions. There's the buying access question, and then there's also the question of the federal government is trying to figure out how to regulate cryptocurrency. And under the Biden administration, they were stricter. Under the Trump administration, they have been moving towards more leniency. Congress is considering legislation off and on. They've been trying towards more leniency. Congress is considering legislation off and on. They've been trying to figure it out for a while. So there actually

is a lot of governing that could potentially happen around cryptocurrency, which could affect the president's personal bottom line. I also thought that the numbers here were pretty remarkable and just how much money they took in in a year. I mean, even the 57 million from world Liberty financial wasn't even like a drop in the bucket, it seemed for what he makes compared to his golf courses and hotel brands around the world. And I mean, around the world. I mean, there were 114 line item entries that I counted for China,

for things related to there. And there were a whole bunch of other countries that clearly have potential interests in the United States and wanting to have better favor with the United States for their own financial reasons. All right, we're gonna take a break and we will be back with much more. Support for NPR and the following message come from Co-Pilot Money.

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longer a privilege, but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. And we're back. And Domenico, you and I both covered President Trump's first term. And back then, it seems like there was more attention, perhaps, paid to Trump's finances and his businesses because the country had never seen a president like this before. I'm remembering he held a press conference with stacks of folders and talked about moving everything into a trust and he would no longer do the day-to-day operations of his businesses. This time around, it just feels a little different. Well, what strikes me is that there was a veneer last time of Trump saying, you know, here's how I'm doing things transparently. Here's what I'm doing to maintain some degree of ethics. This time around, and through the 2024 campaign, that sort of veneer was completely ripped

off. They realized that there were no, there was no teeth to any of these ethical standards or norms. They were just norms. They were things that people went along with to try to give people confidence that the president wasn't somehow conflicted, as Trump might say, that there wasn't a conflict of interest. And this time around just doesn't really matter.

He spent a ton of time during the 2024 presidential campaign, for example, fundraising for his legal defense, you know, given how many criminal cases were against him, and raised tens of millions of dollars off of that. So this time around, he's certainly found his comfort level, his comfort zone, and being able to kind of go back to what he was as a businessman and a TV personality. And I think it's also important to note that in the grand scheme of the president's wealth, most of that comes from long before he came down that golden escalator. Most of that still obviously carries weight because people visit his hotels and they have meetings with him on the golf courses.

But a lot of the stuff that people are talking about, whether it's the cryptocurrency, which is a new frontier or the sneakers or the things like that, he's kind of doing it for the love of the game of putting his name on things and having people buy into the concept of Donald Trump the brand more so than actually maximizing profits from it. Well, in Donald Trump the brand, this is somebody who came from a business world where he was used to branding himself as this sort of aspirational luxury brand. And then he became a politician and it sort of made sense within his mind and the way

that he thinks about politics, where he took the idea of having something be a political brand, married it with this business and marketing idea, to where now, if you see somebody with a Trump cutting board in their kitchen, you know that that sends a certain signal, right? There's a Trump cutting board? Absolutely, I've seen it, in fact. And there's everything.

If you go on the Trump store, you can pretty much find anything you need or want that will be able to just in an even small way indicate to people who come into your house, I am somebody who agrees with Trump. He's my guy, right? It's not just lawn signs or flags outside of your house. Now we're talking about everything that's integrated into your life in a lot of different ways. Yeah. I mean, the evolution of the Trump brand has been fascinating. As you say, Domenico, it was one thing before he ran for office. It became another thing once he ran and was elected. You know, I'm thinking of people boycotting Ivanka Trump's fashion brand during

her father's first presidential run and during his first term. But he obviously has millions of devoted followers, people who love him for his politics, and that seems to be the market. So I talked to Robert Pasikoff. He's the founder and president of Brand Keys, and he's been tracking Trump's brand and the value that Trump's brand brings since the 80s. And he said that Trump has been one of the few people at first that you could classify as a human brand being able to sell these things. And that human brand aspect hasn't changed, but the audience and what it signals kind of has now that President Trump is a political brand. He said Donald Trump is like the Martha Stewart of the conservative right.

And so if you're looking for a guitar and you're a guitar player, and you're really looking for the best guitar, you're probably not going to buy the 45 guitar, if you're looking for a watch that you need, that's reliable for whatever, you're probably not going out and accidentally buying a Trump watch. What Pasachoff is saying is that the Trump brand is intentionally a public Consumption signal that you support Donald Trump and Donald Trump supports you I do want to pause though and ask what the White House is saying about this

The White House has said the whole time that the president is following all the ethics rules The reason we have this disclosure is because he followed the ethics law that said you have to disclose it and that he is not personally profiting from the presidency. If you look into these disclosures, you see a web of businesses and holding companies and everything and trusts that show that it is not like I were to go buy a Trump phone and a portion of that goes directly into his wallet, you know, sitting in Pennsylvania Avenue and that there is a certain degree of separation from the president who is busy running the country

and his sons running the business. I mean, family is family and, you know, he is involved, but they say that it is an appropriate amount of separation and that there is nothing to worry about on the ethical front. But these are his financial disclosures, right? I mean, this is not like Donald Trump Jr.'s financial disclosures. These are the president's financial disclosures. And anything that is related to the finances that you personally gain from, there's the potential for conflicts of interest. Well, let's leave it there for now.

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Stephen Fowler. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege

but a right. Learn more at rwjf.org.