Trump doesn't have any conflicts of interest

In financial disclosures released Tuesday, Trump reported earning more than $1.4 billion last year from his several cryptocurrency ventures.

All told — including other parts of his vast holdings, such as his real estate assets —Trump pulled in at least $2.2 billion last year. That compares to the roughly $622 million his enterprises raked in for all of 2024, before he returned to the presidency.

In other words, it’s a fair guess that last year he made more than $1 billion off his presidency.

We’re talking big money and big looting.

Trump has conflicts of interest up the wazoo.

For example, as a candidate in 2024, Trump embraced crypto. Then he and his family invested like mad in it — through CIC Digital — a Trump Organization affiliate that is behind his memecoin, $TRUMP. And through another Trump family-backed crypto company, World Liberty Financial, co-founded by Trump, his sons, and the family of special envoy Steve Witkoff in the middle of the 2024 presidential campaign. World Liberty is now behind several prominent crypto tokens.

The problem here is more than potential conflicts of interest, more than the mere appearance of conflicts of interest. The conflicts are real, blatant, outrageous.

Since taking office, Trump has installed friendly regulators to oversee digital assets, and he’s pushed for landmark crypto legislation that would further free crypto from being treated as a security (in which case all sorts of disclosures would have to be made about it).

It goes way beyond crypto. His investment accounts made more than 20,000 trades last year — and many appear to be timed to take maximum advantage of his public announcements that moved markets.

Just one day before he announced a 90-day pause on his sweeping tariffs, for example, his investment accounts made 327 individual stock purchases, each valued as much as $250,000. It was one of the largest single-day buys disclosed in Tuesday’s financial disclosures. The following day, when Trump announced the pause, the S&P soared nearly 10 percent —one ofthe biggest single-day gains in the index’s history.

He’s made a bundle from real estate deals that foreign governments have been eager to strike with him and his family, presumably because he’s given them — or will give them — something in return. Entities from the Persian Gulf paid around $300 million to Trump’s businesses last year, more than any other foreign region identifiable in his financial disclosures.

On Wednesday, he traveled to North Dakota on the maiden flight of the new Air Force One, a $400 million jet gifted to him by the Qatari royal family whose ownership will transfer to Trump when he leaves office (technically, it will go to Trump’s own presidential library foundation, but there’s nothing stopping him from using it for private purposes).

This is called corruption, folks. And it’s on a massive scale.

A White House spokesperson says neither Trump nor his family “has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest.”

Oh please. Next we’ll be told Trump never tells a lie, either.

Conflicts of interest like these make it impossible for the public to judge whether Trump is working for America or for himself when he advocates for or implements a particular policy, such as his crypto policy or his moves in the Middle East.

We don’t even know for sure that Trump has disclosed all his investments. The financial disclosure made Tuesday was voluntary. Can anyone be certain Trump has come clean about all his conflicts of interest?

But perhaps the most troubling thing about all this is Trump doesn’t give a shite.

In his first term, when asked about conflicts of interest, he said, “the president can’t have a conflict of interest … because everything a president does in some ways is like a conflict of interest.”

He’s also said Americans “don’t care at all” about his unreleased tax returns or his personal finances.

In his second term, he’s even less inhibited about raking in money. “I found out that nobody cared,” Trump toldThe New York Times in January.

Now, he has nothing to lose by making as much money as possible off his presidency.

He probably figures he’s survived two impeachments so far and won’t be impeached for pesky conflicts of interest. He won’t be running for the presidency again, so he doesn’t have to worry that his conflicts of interest will be used against him in a future campaign. Why not rake in as much as he can?

As to his historic legacy, Trump isn’t worried about that either. He likely believes he can create his own history. That’s what he’s tried to do for the 2020 election and the subsequent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. That’s what his “Presidential Walk of Fame” in the White House is all about — framed portraits of all U.S. presidents accompanied by Trump’s own partisan, gold-lettered plaques, many written by Trump himself.

In other words, we’re dealing with a malignant narcissist who thinks only about his own wealth and power and about vengeance against those who have tried to stop him from acquiring more.

How can we possibly expect that he’s working for the people of the United States rather than for himself?

Trump doesn’t have any conflicts of interest. That’s because he really has only one interest: Trump.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.