Trump money

Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

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Trump’s self-dealing as president is under the microscope. Some in right-wing media are speaking up about it — while others deflect or deny concerns.

Written by Isabella Sherk & Ben Van Bloem

Published

President Donald Trump is facing scrutiny from some right-wing media figures over new reporting about how he is taking advantage of his position as president to enrich himself and his family. 

Trump’s recent mandatory financial disclosure revealed he earned at least $2.2 billion in 2025, including over $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency ventures alone, after he pledged to make America “crypto capital of the planet.” Trump also accepted a $400 million jet gifted from Qatar, and helped negotiate a billion-dollar deal surrounding a tungsten mine in Kazakhstan that his sons are invested in.

As the evidence has piled up, some in right-wing media are now admitting Trump is engaging in “cut and dry fraud,” while others on the right are deflecting and downplaying concerns that he is abusing the presidency for blatant self-dealing.

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  • Trump and his family profited from cryptocurrency, government contracts, real estate, and lawsuits targeting media companies in 2025

    • Trump's recently released mandatory financial disclosure revealed he brought in at least $2.2 billion in 2025, compared to a minimum of $622 million in 2024 before he retook the presidency. He made about $1.4 billion from his family's cryptocurrency ventures, including selling a part of his family's crypto company to a United Arab Emirates-tied firm in a deal The New York Times said “blurred the line between foreign policy and private enterprise.” Trump also made $636 million from his meme coin, which the Times reported lost nearly 1 million investors a collective $3.8 billion. Additionally, Trump made over $80 million from lawsuits directed at some of the biggest tech and media companies. Experts have called these lawsuits “meritless” and argued they looked like attempts to compel “a form of internal self-censorship." [The New York Times, 6/30/26, 7/4/26; Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, 4/10/25; Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, 8/6/25]
    • The Qatari government gifted a $400 million jet to the Trump administration for a new Air Force One, raising “concerns about national security, foreign influence and conflict of interest.” According to The Washington Post, “The new Air Force One, which was speedily modified after Qatar gave it to the U.S., is believed to lack some of the sophisticated security technology the previous planes had.” The new jet was officially used for the first time taking Trump to a NATO meeting in Turkey on July 1, though he used the older Air Force One for the first leg of the return flight. [The Washington Post, 7/9/26]
    • The New York Times reported that the sons of both Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick invested in two companies with stakes in a Kazakhstan tungsten mine that may receive over $1 billion from the U.S. government as part of “a deal that their fathers were negotiating, continuing a pattern of self-enrichment in the second Trump administration that has few precedents in American history.” The Times reported, “The arrangement is hardly an outlier. One or both families have financial ties to at least 14 companies that are actively working with the federal government on critical mining deals, including the Kazakhstan project. … All 14 of these companies have either benefited directly from offers of financial assistance from the Trump administration, or have pending permit applications before the Commerce Department, which Mr. Lutnick oversees, The Times found. The total amount of federal funding that the Trump administration has provided or is considering providing to the companies exceeds $8.9 billion, according to public statements by the companies and federal government.” [The New York Times, 6/29/26]

  • Right-leaning figures called the Trump family's self-dealing “grifty” and “slimy”

    • SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly: “The Trump family is grifty.” In a July 1 interview, Kelly stated, “There's been, like, story after story about all the money that his sons are making off of the government, these government contracts they're getting, all that. I can't stand that stuff. And I love his sons, OK? So, I say this as a true fan of theirs, but I didn't like it when Hunter Biden was doing it and I don't like it when the Trumps are doing it.” [Sky News Australia, Paul Murray Live, 7/1/26]
    • White nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes complained about “a $2 billion Trump crypto scam” and asked, “Is this really the golden age that we were promised?” He continued, “You look around and it's a $2 billion Trump crypto scam. They're burying the Epstein files. It's $5 gas because we're in a war with Iran. Approval rating lower than ever before. Half the Cabinet is on their way out. And what the administration is fixated on now is this reflecting pool.” [Rumble, America First With Nick Fuentes, 7/2/26]
    • Right-wing podcaster Candace Owens lamented the Trump family's efforts to take over a publicly owned Albanian island for a planned resort, questioning, “How much more does the Trump family need?” She continued, “I mean, when — Ivanka swimming to Albania, like what? Like how much more money do you guys need? When is enough enough?” [PBS News, 6/11/26; YouTube, The Shawn Ryan Show, 7/2/26]
    • Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones called the Trump family's involvement in a Kazakhstan tungsten mine deal “cut and dry fraud” as well as “espionage, treason.” Jones said, “I mean, that's beyond conflict of interest. That's cut and dry fraud. That's cut and dry espionage, treason. I mean, it's absolute — his own family getting contracts that Trump has forced deals with with foreign countries.” [The Alex Jones Network, The Alex Jones Show, 6/11/26]
    • The New York Post wrote an editorial, titled “Hunter Biden-style sleaze is just as slimy when the Trump boys do it,” criticizing the Trump family's involvement in the Kazakhstan tungsten mine and cryptocurrency ventures. The editorial board wrote, “Insider deals, finders’ fees and backdoor introductions to family members are business-as-usual in Third World banana republics, but these slimy practices have now been normalized in the White House, to the shame of the nation. … It would behoove the Trump administration, and the nation as a whole, if the president gets ahead of the growing scandal, acts transparently and cleans up the whole mess before it swamps his final two years in office — and defines his legacy.” [New York Post, 6/29/26]
    • In a column titled “Trump and Crypto, Again … ,” National Review's Andrew McCarthy wrote, “Trump is monetizing the presidency in a manner that would not only have appalled the Founders but would have been inconceivable just a decade ago.” McCarthy continued, “The $24 million in self-dealing revenue the Biden family earned over the course of several years (but not during Biden’s presidency), over which Republican-controlled House committees opened an impeachment investigation against President Biden, would barely amount to a rounding error compared to the dimension of cashing in on U.S. government power and influence over the past 18 months.” [National Review, 7/2/26]

  • Others on the right have denied, excused, or downplayed Trump’s self-dealing

    • Fox host Greg Gutfeld excused Trump's Qatari jet and crypto ventures, saying that Trump was “making billions before and he will make billions after.” Gutfeld said, “He didn't put a gun to anybody's head and took money from them” and questioned, “How much money did the Clintons and the Obamas make after they were president?” [Fox News, The Five, 7/1/26]
    • After Fox anchor Bill Hemmer talked about the danger of “investigations” into the Trump family if they “lose control of Congress,” Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said, “Both Eric and Don said they have nothing to do with that mining company.” Hemmer immediately clarified that they were discussing the mine in Kazakhstan. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/1/26]
    • On CNN, former Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI) downplayed Trump’s new Air Force One from Qatar, asking, “Where’s the corruption here? I mean if a foreign government is giving a gift to the United States, how is that different from foreign direct investment?” [CNN, CNN NewsNight, 7/1/26]
    • After Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore commented on Trump’s self-dealing in crypto, Fox anchor Shannon Bream pivoted to talk about former President Joe Biden. When Moore said that “the president of the United States has made more money on crypto than crypto companies in the past year,” suggesting it highlighted “something fundamentally wrong that has to be fixed,” Bream commented, “As you know, there are a lot of folks who have big problems with a number of the pardons that President Biden handed out and how they benefited his family as well.” [Fox News, Fox News Sunday, 7/5/26]
    • Streamer Amrou Fudl, who goes by Myron Gaines, criticized Trump and “his sons” for their “crypto project” because it “doesn't look good optically, that's for sure,” but added that “Democrats do this shit too.” He said, “You know, the Trump administration, they're making money hand over fist, whether it's his sons, him, his crypto project, etc., but they're doing it openly. The only difference between them and Democrats, Democrats do this shit too. Democrats just do it quietly. That's the difference. … Trump is just brazen about it.” [Rumble, MyronGainesX, 7/4/26]
    • The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro dismissed criticism from MS NOW that the UFC fight on the White House lawn was benefiting a Trump-connected crypto venture, saying, “The outsized heartburn the Democrats are suffering from this sort of stuff, it is connected in general to a sort of anti-patriotism.” [YouTube, The Ben Shapiro Show, 6/15/26]