'Gotten old': Donald Trump Jr. sick of defending ethics problems

Eric Trump, left, Donald Trump Jr., right, and their World Liberty Financial co-founder Zach Witkoff, at the Nasdaq Market in New York REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

President Donald Trump's profits from the presidency continue to grow, and so do the funds flowing to his friends and family.

NBC News Miami walked through some of the recent updates on Trump World's profits, which are scoring billions.

“I don’t think there’s any line right now between policy decisions and political calculations and the interest of the Trump family,” said presidential historian Julian Zelizer, from Princeton University.

Trump's conflicts of interest aren't new; they were a concern even before he entered the White House in 2017, when he said he would put his businesses into a "blind trust." It never happened, and he claimed that he knew nothing about the Trump Organization, as his sons were running the business. Indeed, they managed to negotiate

The White House and the Trump Organization claim there are no ethical issues. When Donald Trump Jr. was asked about profits from failed cryptocurrency during a conference, he complained, "Frankly, it’s gotten old."

However, during the first term, the Trump Org. wasn't doing deals in foreign countries. There were minor deals like trademarks in China and shortly after the first term, two Trump advisors were given billions by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF): Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, and Trump's former Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin.

In the first year of the second term, the Trump Org. has made deals all over the Middle East, including eight agreements, but not directly with foreign governments.

"But governments in authoritarian and one-party states rarely take a hands-off approach — especially when the business belongs to a sitting president," the report said.

That's particularly the case for the Saudis. Currently, a real estate tycoon with close ties to the royal family is developing a project. It will be a “Trump Plaza” resort on the Red Sea.

In Qatar, for example, Trump not only scored a multi-million-dollar plane that taxpayers retrofitted for him, but a Trump golf club and villa project is currently under development. The company that is part of the operation is owned by the Qatari government. The same thing is happening in Vietnam, where the New York Times reported the government took land from farmers to build a Trump resort. The report said that the government violated its own laws to do it. The country’s deputy prime minister signed off on the Trump Org. deal in a ceremony, the AP reported.

Meanwhile, what the countries got in return came from the United States. Qatar got U.S. technology, Vietnam got tariff relief and Saudi Arabia scored fighter jets.

The Trump Organization reinforced that none of its deals are done with foreign governments. The claim is that it is a coincidence that after deals were done in those countries, the government got something it needed.

A year after a deal was struck, it was exposed by the Wall Street Journal in January. Before the inauguration, a company linked to the UAE government, run by a member of the royal family, bought $500 million in crypto from Trump's "World Liberty Financial."

Then, another UAE company invested in Binance, an offshore cryptocurrency exchange, with $2 billion in digital currency called stablecoin, which came from the Trumps' World Liberty Financial.

"That allowed the Trump company that received the dollars to put it in safe investments such as bonds or money market funds and keep the tens of millions of dollars in interest for itself," the report said.

Suddenly, the new Trump government reversed restrictions on the UAE's access to U.S. chips. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao got a pardon from Trump, even though he'd pleaded guilty. He maintains that there was no connection between the Trump deals and his pardon.

World Liberty also denies any conflicts of interest.

It's only a portion of the cryptocurrency deals, the report said.

The White House alleged that any suggestion that the moves weren't "ethically sound" is either "ill-informed or malicious." It also falsely claimed that Trump's assets are in a trust managed by his children. While Trump pledged to have a blind trust in 2017, it never happened, a Common Cause investigation showed. In the new administration, Trump put about $4 billion in shares of his media company into a trust. There is no "blind trust" in the new administration either. There is, however, a revocable trust, that covers all of Trump's assets and is run by Donald Trump Jr.

The arguments from the White House "are belied by Trump’s failure to limit the appearance or reality that he is using his power to reward people who help enrich him," said Mother Jones in a March report. "Trump continues to benefit from the family companies now run by his sons, and ethics experts note that because Trump has not set up a blind trust, the president can keep track of who is paying or investing in those firms in hopes of influencing him."

NBC said that the Trump Organization claims it is “fully compliant with all applicable ethics and conflicts of interest laws” and added, “the implication that politics has enriched the Trump family is unfounded."

Trump, in January, told The New York Times that when it comes to potential conflicts of interest, “I prohibited them from doing business in my first term, and I got absolutely no credit for it. I didn’t have to do that. And it’s really unfair to them."

He added, "I found out that nobody cared, and I’m allowed to."

In January 2026, the Pew Research Center found that 42 percent of Trump voters were confident in his ethics. That said, in January 2025, that number was 55 percent. So, he's fallen 13 percent in a year, NBC cited.

In that same year, Forbes estimates Trump has increased his net worth by 60 percent, to $6.3 billion. Before he entered the White House, the Trump Organization was struggling, the report said.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr. started a private club in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. There is a $500,000 "initiation fee." NBC compared it to the Yellowstone Club in Montana. In that case, members get access to multiple resorts, 50 ski trails and more than a dozen restaurants across an area the size of Manhattan. Don Jr.'s club is in a basement and is called the "Executive Branch."

"Meanwhile, as the two oldest brothers’ new drone company" is asking for Pentagon contracts and other government deals that would ensure the Trump's score taxpayer dollars for their companies. There are already companies with government contracts that one or both of the Trump sons have an ownership stake in. It includes a rocket motor maker, an AI chip supplyer and data analytics company, government records show, according to NBC.

When asked about the potential conflicts of interest, a spokesperson for Don Jr. said he doesn't "interface" with the government on companies in his portfolio. He complained that he shouldn't have to stop "living his life and making a living to provide for his five kids just because his dad is president." He said it "is, quite frankly, a laughable and ridiculous standard."

The report closed by saying, "A new investment firm that the brothers joined as advisers last year has raised $345 million in an initial public offering to buy stakes in U.S. companies designed to help their father revive America’s manufacturing base. After the AP asked Trump’s chief business lawyer about language in a regulatory filing stating the firm would target companies seeking federal grants, tax credits and government contracts, he filed a new document with that language removed."

Commenting on it, the Princeton historian, Zelizer, said that he thinks future presidents will be more restrained or be forced to be more restrained.

“[Trump] has shown politically there is no price to be paid to making money,” he said. “You know you can go there.”

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