‘Where Are You From?’: Trump Crashes Out After Reporter Presses Him on Shamelessly Turning the White House Into His Own Money Machine
President Donald Trump lashed out at a reporter Tuesday after being pressed on how much wealthier he has become since returning to the White House in January, and the internet took notice. The agitated response landed against the backdrop of recently released disclosures showing the president has piled up millions in assets while in office. John Lyons of Australia’s ABC News asked Trump whether it was “appropriate” for a sitting president to be engaged in so much business activity when reports suggest he and his family have made billions during his second term. President Donald Trump bumbling his way through dodging questions about his family and then he snaps. (Credit: Fox News Video Screengrab) "How much wealthier are you now than when you returned to the White House?" he asked. Trump bristled, "I don't know .... most of the deals I've made, I made before," insisting his children are running things. It didn't take long for the rant to go off the rails. Trump tried to deflect by pointing to a $200 million ballroom he's building at the White House. "It gives me pleasure to do it for the country," he bragged, reminding the reporter that it's "expensive" but he's paying for it himself. Soon, Trump turned to personal insults as the reporter pressed on. "Where are you from,' he asked before adding, “In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now… You set a very bad tone.” Moments later, as Lyons pushed him again, Trump had enough and barked, “Quiet.” His responses, however, only fed the perception that the president is unable—or unwilling—to draw a clear line between public office and private profit. The deflection was obvious to viewers who called out Trump while others mocked him. "So… a lot wealthier. Corruption is so fun," added one user while another added, "What a corrupt coward." "So f**king embarrassing that this is our president," said another. "He is so geeked about this ballroom lol," joked one X user. https://twitter.com/TVivlia/status/1967959625292230827 Trump has quietly purchased more than $100 million in corporate, state, and municipal bonds since his second inauguration, according to filings that illuminate the scale of questionable private investments while in office. ‘This Is Pure Gold!’: UK Destroys Trump’s Trip with Humiliating Photos Across the City, a Savage TV Special—But the Melania Twist Took It Over the Top The Aug. 12 filing with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics lists more than 600 transactions between Jan. 20 and midsummer. Trump also scooped up bonds from states, counties, schools, hospitals, and public utilities — sectors deeply affected by his policies — with critics accusing him of enriching himself and his family “in broad daylight.” Unlike his predecessors, Trump has not placed his fortune in a blind trust. Instead, he has maintained full control of his assets while assigning day-to-day management to his adult sons. Federal ethics officials certified the disclosures, but experts said the bond purchases highlight the conflict-of-interest risks inherent in a president investing directly in markets shaped by his administration. “You could take the way that he’s been pushing so hard for the Fed to cut rates as like a portfolio manager going on CNBC and talking positive about a stock that’s a big holding of theirs to try to get other people to buy it,” said Russell Rhoads, a financial management professor at Indiana University, according to Fortune. Trump’s bond strategy appears to hinge on expectations that interest rates will fall, allowing him to later sell at a profit. In February, he put between $500,000 and $1 million each into Home Depot, T-Mobile, and UnitedHealthcare bonds, along with hundreds of thousands in Meta debt, according to CNBC’s tally of the 690 transactions. Municipal bonds also carry the added advantage of being exempt from federal taxes — and often from state taxes as well. https://twitter.com/SaraJade_13/status/1968265458362290430 The revelations came just as Trump’s sons faced questions on Fox News about whether their father has been profiting off the presidency. Host Brian Kilmeade cited a New Yorker piece titled “The Number: How much is Trump pocketing off the presidency?” and an Axios estimate that the family could net $3.4 billion by the end of his second term. “Eric, your answer to those headlines?” Kilmeade asked. Eric Trump responded: “Brian, it’s infuriating. We had nowhere to go. Capital One stripped 300 bank accounts from me. Three hundred in the middle of the night… how do you pay your employees?” Eric Trump was referring to Capital One’s 2021 decision to close more than 300 Trump Organization accounts, shortly after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Other banks, including JP Morgan and Bank of America, also cut ties with the family at that time. Critics online seized on the remarks, accusing Eric Trump of gaslighting the public while claiming that the bank accounts were closed amid evidence of possible financial crimes. “Notice they don’t deny it,” wrote one poster on Threads. “Corruption and grift at every turn.” Someone else in the comments section noted, “Again a confession in broad daylight.... Lock them up !!” View on Threads Don Jr. then tried to exculpate his father’s backdoor business moves despite the clear conflicts of interest. Don Jr. then tried to exculpate his father’s business moves despite the clear conflicts of interest. “Unlike all the other people who served as the presidency before… Trump was the only guy that was actually a businessman. Are we supposed to stop running our businesses? Are we supposed to stop doing anything?” The exchange was widely seen as a defensive stumble, with Trump’s eldest sons all but admitting to the very conflicts of interest and possible emoluments clause violations that critics warned would arise from Trump’s refusal to divest from his business. “Trump’s openly engaged in insider trading, buying $100M in bonds tied to policies he controls, while his net worth balloons $2.5 billion,” one critic wrote on X. Trump’s latest ethics disclosures show assets of at least $1.6 billion and more than $600 million in income during 2024, driven heavily by crypto holdings, golf properties, licensing and Trump Media. John Canavan of Oxford Economics called the bond purchases “just a way to take a little bit of risk off the table” but acknowledged Trump’s wealth surge, particularly in crypto, was unusual for a sitting president. “It seems like he was primarily purchasing corporate and municipal bonds and others that are high quality and highly rated, so it's just a way to take a little bit of risk off the table,” Canavan said. The New Yorker’s David Kirkpatrick, whose reporting first pegged the Trump family’s gains at $3.4 billion, described the breadth of Trump’s monetization — from Mar-a-Lago and Persian Gulf real estate ventures to NFTs and $40 flip-flops. “When all is added up, Trump is on pace to rake in $3.4 billion in income over his second term,” Kirkpatrick concluded. Financial analysts say Trump’s accumulation of bonds resembles a classic big-money investor diversifying away from stocks at market highs. But to critics, the timing and scale of the purchases while he pushes for Fed rate cuts only sharpen the appearance that the president is, in the words of Bloomberg columnist Tim O’Brien, “grifting out of the White House around cryptocurrencies… at a time when his family had absolutely no experience in the business before he became president.”
