WSJ What’s News - Trump Family Raises $5 Billion Fortune With New Cryptocurrency

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

A.M. Edition for Sept. 2. The launch of WLFI has produced a major windfall for Trump’s family with WSJ crypto reporter Angus Berwick saying the currency is likely more valuable than Trump’s entire property portfolio. Plus, a new WSJ-NORC poll reveals a record low optimism about improving living standards in the U.S., with more then two thirds of respondents no longer believing in the adage that if you work hard you will get ahead. And an increasing number of Americans are returning positive fentanyl results in random workplace testing. Azhar Sukri hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining, and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. And every Viking voyage is all-inclusive with no children and no casinos. Discover more at viking.com. Congress gets down to the urgent business of avoiding a government shutdown at the end of this month. Plus, the Trump family's crypto wealth just skyrocketed with the launch of a new digital currency.

This is a family that spent half a century developing a vast property portfolio. And I think it's fair to say that their crypto interests now overshadowed that. And Nestle fires its CEO after just a year in the job. It's Tuesday, September the 2nd. I'm Azhar Sukri for the Wall Street Journal. Here is the AM edition of What's News. the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. It's back to business for Congress today.

After a month away, lawmakers faced the daunting task of negotiating a spending bill that'll avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month. Any pause in payments to hundreds of thousands of government workers and their services would be particularly painful. A new Wall Street Journal, Nork Pole, finds that the share of people who say they have a good chance of improving their standard of living fell to 25%, a record low in surveys dating back to 1987. More than three quarters said they lack confidence that life for the next generation will be better than their own, the poll found. Journal Business Editor Alex

Frankos is back with us for more. Welcome back, Alex. So it looks like another fiscal showdown is likely later this month. Take us through why this spending bill is looking particularly contentious. Well, the main reason is that President Trump will need some Democrats to pass it. And they're pissed off, basically, because he just canceled more than $4 billion in foreign aid that had been appropriated by Congress. And they feel really, you know, bent out of shape about it. Because when Congress has the power of the person, the Constitution, and they direct the executive to spend the money, and the executive is basically saying, I don't want to spend the money. So now they're saying, well, if you want your spending bill, we're going to have to talk. And there are Republicans as well,

are kind of upset about this kind of encroachment into Congress's territory over how money gets spent. So that's going to be very difficult. And a lot of people in Washington who watch this stuff closely think there's a pretty high likelihood of some sort of government shutdown. Republicans are also very reluctant to pass these stopgap spending bills that kind of keep negotiations going. They want the full bill to go through. So you have these two sides who are in conflict and heading obviously for a showdown at the end of the month. And there's going to be lot of people potentially affected by this. First, we have to get to a shutdown.

This has happened many times, and maybe they'll pull a rabbit out of the hat and make a deal. But, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of federal employees who, any non-essential federal employees would be asked not to work and wouldn't be receiving paychecks, and that in the past has definitely had an effect on overall economic activity. As you say, we've been at this cliff edge many times before, and most of the time step back. But this does come, as this latest polling, suggests that most Americans no longer believe in the American dream that if you work hard, you get ahead. So how does the government's fiscal situation translate into how ordinary Americans feel about their economic circumstances? Well, it's not 100% clear what the connection is or why people are so pessimistic, but the poll that we wrote about is kind of dispiriting if you're an American optimist because something like seven.

70% of Americans don't think that working hard will get you ahead anymore. And it really cuts across young and old men and women, rich, poor, educated, not educated, who all say it's harder to buy a home, harder to start a business, harder to elect to be a full-time parent than it was in previous generations. And so, you know, they see the political dysfunction. And I think that adds to some of that pessimism. You know, even among Republicans, the level of pessimism is historically at a very high level. Journal Business Editor Alex Fragos, thank you so much for spending time with us again.

Thanks, Azoar. The Trump family has notched as much as $5 billion in paper wealth after its flagship crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. Yesterday, opened trading of a new digital currency called WLFI. Trading in WLFI exploded on crypto-exempted. exchanges with about $1 billion in the tokens changing hands within an hour. That's according to data site coin market cap. Journal Crypto reporter Angus Berwick says the launch of WLFI has produced a major windfall for Trump's family. Crypto is likely now the Trump family's primary business

interests. Obviously, you know, this is a family that spent half a century developing a vast property portfolio. And I think it's fair to say that their crypto interests now overshadowed that the family in Trump, they also have some separate kind of crypto interests. There is Trump's stake in the Trump meme coin, as well as his stake in Trump media, which runs his true social platform and also buys and sells cryptocurrencies. And while the president is no longer part of World Liberty Financial, Angus says the company is benefiting from the White House's drive to grow the American crypto industry. The White House has been slashing back regulation.

which the industry said has been hindering its growth. It remains to be seen how enduring the value of WIFI will be. The company itself does say that, you know, whereas the Trump coin was purely speculative meme coin with nothing behind it, that this is supported by World Liberty's ambitions to become a serious player in the crypto industry by, you know, rolling out its own products. Critics of World Liberty say that it is a potential. vehicle to influence the Trump family. White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said, quote, neither the president nor his family have ever engaged or will ever engage in conflicts

of interest. Food giant Nestle has dismissed Chief Executive Laurent Frex with immediate effect after just a year in the job. The company said his departure follows an investigation into an undisclosed romantic relationship with a direct subordinate that breached the group's code of conduct. The Swiss maker of Nescafe coffee and Purina Petfood didn't identify the employee in the relationship with Frex. Though a person familiar said it wasn't anyone from the executive board, Frex didn't respond to a request for comment. And we are exclusively reporting that Clana, the buy-now pay-later lender, is expected to begin marketing its much-anticipated IPO as soon as today. The Swedish fintech is targeting a company valuation of $12.5 to

$14 billion, with the issue expected to price later this month ahead of a share listing in New York. Deals reporter Ben Dummit says there's a lot riding on this for Klarna and the IPO market more broadly. Well, it's an important milestone because it's a closely washed IPO. It's in a hot sector, the buy now, pay later industry. One of its competitors, a firm has actually done very well last week. So that's created some expectations that this deal will be successful. And as a result, it will feed wider spread confidence for other companies to do the IPO. But it's still a bit unknown because the IPO market has been mixed so far this year. The actual value of IPOs in the U.S., so far this year is down year over year.

But that said, the number of IPOs in the US this year is up, which is a positive. So for that reason, Klarna's seen as a sort of a key benchmark in terms of trying to gauge expectations for the momentum for the rest of the year in the IPO market. Klarna has struggled in the past to get its IPO off the ground, having paused its planned offering back in April amid tariff-induced market volatility. Coming up, the Trump administration suspends visa approval. for nearly all Palestinian passport holders. And more Americans are testing positive for fentanyl in random workplace testing.

Those stories and more after the break. Nearly home. Isn't home where we all want to be? Riba here for Realtor.com, the pro's number one most trusted app. A dream home isn't a dream home if it comes with a nightmare commute. That's why Realtor.com has real commute. So you can search by drive time. Download the realtor.com app today because you're nearly home.

Make it real with Realtor.com. Pro's number one most trusted app based on August 2024 proprietary survey. A 6.0 magnitude earthquake that struck late yesterday in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border has left more than 800 people dead. A spokesperson for the Taliban administration said more than 2,500 people were injured and that emergency teams were headed to villages in the remote and mountainous areas to provide relief. Based on earthquakes of similar scale and depth that have occurred in Afghanistan in the recent past, the number of casualties is expected to double or even triple from the current estimates,

according to a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Kabul. The Trump administration has suspended visa approvals for nearly all Palestinian passport holders. The directive came in a cable center all U.S. embassies and consulates from the State Department last month, which has been viewed by the journal. Asked about the visa restrictions, the State Department said the Trump administration was taking, quote, concrete steps in compliance with U.S. law and our national security. The new policy doesn't affect Palestinians who have already obtained visas or dual-nationality Palestinians using a different passport to apply, but could affect people travelling for business, tourism and

medical treatment, as well as students, professors and people visiting family in the US. And we are exclusively reporting that more Americans are testing positive for fentanyl use in randomised workplace drug tests. According to a recent analysis of more than 8 million drug tests by Quest Diagnostics, the positive rate for urine tests indicating the presence of fentanyl was a little more than 1% in 2024, double the rate in 2020. The new results suggest workers were using fentanyl after getting hired, having passed the screenings they went through as job candidates, raising concerns about the risk of accidents, impairments, absenteeism and overdoses. In contrast, the positive rate for marijuana in random testing was four.

42% lower than in pre-employment testing over the past five years. And that's it for what's news for this Tuesday morning. Today's show was produced by Kate Bullivant and Daniel Bark. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. I'm Azhar Sukri for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with the new show. Until then, thanks for listening. Viking committed to exploring the world in comfort.

Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, cultural enrichment, and all-inclusive fares. Discover more at Viking.com.