'Gives me pause': GOP senators call out Trump over 'cringey' event

Even Republicans are getting nervous about President Donald Trump selling his influence. NBC News reports Senate GOP are raising concerns about an exclusive dinner and White House tour President Donald Trump is offering top investors in his $TRUMP meme token.

“This is my president that we’re talking about, but I am willing to say that this gives me pause,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.) who has been leading a legislative push in the Senate to regulate cryptocurrency. "Even what may appear to be ‘cringey’ with regard to meme coins, it’s legal, and what we need to do is have a regulatory framework that makes this more clear, so we don’t have this Wild West scenario."

The official website for Trump’s meme coin announced last week that the top 220 holders of the coin are invited to an “intimate private dinner” with the president at his golf club. The top 25 investors receive an invitation to a “VIP Tour” of the taxpayer-funded White House the following day, according to the website. The $TRUMP meme coin surged more than 50% after the announcement, boosting its market value to nearly $3 billion.

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was wary of the Trump family openly selling presidential access for personal gain. The $TRUMP meme coin generates wealth for the Trump family.

“I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to charge people to come into the Capitol and take a tour,” Murkowski told NBC News on Thursday. “He’s got to remember that he’s living there, but it’s the people’s house, right?”

There are no clear laws barring Trump and his organizations from selling access however.

Earlier this week, Eric Trump appeared onstage in Dubai at the crypto conference Token2049 on Thursday along with Zachary Witkoff, co-founder of World Liberty Financial and son of the White House envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. The two announced that USD1, a crypto coin unveiled by World Liberty Financial last month would be used by MGX, an investment firm funded by the United Arab Emirates, to make a $2 billion investment in Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. World Liberty Financial stands to earn tens of millions of dollars.

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The deal between MGX and Binance could be lucrative for World Liberty Financial, and by extension, Trump and his family,” WIRED claims.

“The transaction reeks of influence peddling,” said George Selgin, director emeritus for the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute, a US think tank. It risks “making the US look more and more like a banana republic.”

Read the entire NBC News report here.