Just when we think Donald Trump has exhausted the ways a person can transform the presidency into an ongoing fundraising scheme, we’re given fresh new evidence that he’s barely scratched the surface.
I swear I thought I was hallucinating when I read last weekend that Trump’s social media company had put out word that it was pitching a premium “Trump API” service to Wall Street traders and investment firms that would charge them a subscription fee of as much as $100,000 per month to provide faster access to the president’s Truth Social posts. There was also the mention of a bargain-basement discounted plan of $60,000 a month for firms that signed up for a three-year plan.
What exactly does “faster access” mean? In this case, potentially delivering posts mere seconds before standard push notifications, allowing hedge funds and trading firms to react instantly to statements that cause massive global market fluctuations.
In layman’s terms, this is essentially a service that legitimizes insider trading. A speed advantage of just a few milliseconds for high-frequency trading firms can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in gains on a single big trade. It effectively acknowledges that Trump’s posts are strictly designed to be stock market boosters.
Do we need any more evidence that this guy is running the Wall Street equivalent of a numbers racket out of the White House? There isn’t even an attempt to disguise it or cover it up.
At least organized criminals have the decency to hide their duplicity. Not so Trump and company. They’re operating like a gang with complete immunity, possibly because they are.
For now. That immunity gifted by the Supreme Court only covers official acts. And if the Democrats deliver a midterm sweep — well, Trump is no doubt already swearing about what will happen.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts – the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee – didn’t mince words when she called this “an egregious scheme to profit off the presidency and enrich Wall Street while doing nothing to help Americans.”
Echoed Donald Sherman, president of the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens and Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: “It’s wildly unethical.”
Ethics. Ha! They’re so 2012. This is a president who hasn’t the thinnest understanding of them and isn’t interested. Holding the highest office in the land is about personal enrichment for himself, for his children, for the billionaire class. Anything else he does that benefits actual Americans happens entirely by accident.
You are already no doubt aware that Trump’s 2025 financial disclosures reported more than 21,000 financial transactions and stock trades before he added another 3,600-3,700 trades during the first quarter of 2026.
CNN found that within this data, Trump and his financial associates made at least 44 stock purchases across 21 different companies, which posting, days prior, positive and complimentary Truth Social messages about those firms.
In one example, Trump invested between $200,000 and $500,000 in Nvidia on April 15. Days later, he promoted the chipmaker’s plans to build AI supercomputers in the United States. In that same post, he vowed to expedite all necessary permits for Nvidia and similar firms.
This is what is called literally signing your name to your corruption and daring anyone to raise a stink. Emoluments Clause? What Emoluments Clause? This president is so busy lining his pockets that you wonder how he has any time left to even pretend to run the country. Oh yeah, he doesn’t.
And yet part of the deceit practiced by this crooked bunch is that they occasionally act as if any genuine lawbreaking in their midst has offended their fragile sensibilities. Such was the case last week when it was discovered and reported by ABC News that Gabriel Perez, Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator, was alleged to have used his insider knowledge of speech content to take in more than $100,000 via bets on the prediction market Kalshi.
Evidently Kalshi became alarmed by suspicious activity on the “Mentions” market, where users can bet on whether specific words, phrases or topics will be uttered during a public speech.
In one of the rare instances when Trump didn’t immediately side with a person linked to him who is suspected of a criminal act, the president boldly tossed his teleprompter operator under the bus. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she spoke with her boss about it and that he called the betting “a disgrace” – making the immediate decision to put Perez on administrative leave.
Leavitt stressed that she was unaware of any other staffer who had made such trades. White House spokesman Davis Ingle added to ABC, “The White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow.”
Hmmm. Interesting. Please do tell us more about these “strict ethics guidelines” and how they seem to apply so unevenly when you have a moment. Your head guy seems not to have received that particular memo.
The level of shamelessness and hypocrisy here is just off the charts. And the brazenness of scapegoating the working stiff who runs the prompter is beyond disgusting. Not to defend his behavior, but puh-leeze.
This administration apparently follows the lead provided by Richard Nixon when he told interviewer David Frost during their 1977 series of interviews, "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." This is what the staff of the current liars lineup at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW has been trained to believe, and they have all grown to become good little fascist automatons.
The truth is that these people thrive on the fraud they perpetrate and the angst they create in the minds of all who vehemently oppose their monstrous regime. Taking their marching orders from Trump, they wear the betrayal of their oath and their country like a badge of honor.
By feeding so voraciously at the trough of fiscal gluttony, they have lost sight of any sense of decency, morality, principal. Once again, this is pretty much a given when you follow the example of the worst human being America has ever produced – and it’s not even close.
(Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.)