This is part two of a two part interview with tech and power reporter from The Guardian, Nick Robins. Early. If you haven't yet, go back and listen to how Donald Trump is reshaping the financial system in crypto's favor. It's in your feed now. The opening bell of Wall Street is about to ring. I'll ask you one last question. You don't like bitcoin, You wouldn't invest in bitcoin? Do you invest in the stock market at this moment? So?
Not?
At this moment, I think it's high. So I have not invested in the stock market at this moment. I have in the past, but I have not at this moment.
I think it's high.
A bitcoin it just seems like a scam. I was surprised, Nick, Donald Trump has very much changed his tune on crypto. He once called these assets scams that were based on thin air. So why do you think his views have changed so drastically.
Well, I think that there's a couple reasons. One is that he has started making an awful lot of money off of crip, which I think helps change somebody's tune, but I'll do it. The other is that he has really courted crypto investors and crypto lobbyists have been very instrumental in getting access to candidates with pro crypto views. I think a big part of this has started years ago.
I think that you can see late twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, as Trump is mounting this reelection campaign, that he begins to look at crypto and some of its wealthiest investors as assets that he can court, that he can become the crypto candidate, and that he can get their backing and endorsement and funds. And so you have events like him hosting bitcoin miners at mar A Lago and twenty twenty four, so the first.
Time I ever bitcoin minor set I'm former President Donald Trump to try.
To Orge pill him on the world's biggest cryptocurrency.
Now, this was an intimate setting. He appeared at Bitcoin twenty twenty four on stage in Nashville.
Hello bitcoiners, thank you very much. Hello, it's good to be with you.
I think that there has been this sort of sea change for Trump and for the Republican Party overall, of really embracing crypto. It's in no small part because the Trump Empire is at this point heavily built on crypto.
Never sell your bitcoin, well tell me about the Trump Crypti EMPOI what does he and He's family been doing in this space?
Yes, I mean they've made a tremendous amount, and it is from a variety of different enterprises. They have essentially lowlaunched a number of different crypto firms. Some have focused on bitcoin mining, others have focused on essentially creating crypto tokens and other assets.
Welcome back. World Liberty Financial, officially launching it's WFLI token on Monday. Trading is flourishing right out of the gate, with value nearly hitting one billion dollars within the first hour.
The key one to know is World Liberty Financial, which in a disclosure recently valued itself at four point five billion dollars.
Were congratulations, This sounds like an incredible moment in time for you.
Yeah, it definitely is. We launched the WLFI token on Monday. It's trading at I believe twenty three billion dollar FDV right now.
They are launching essentially a wide swath of enterprises that they can then turnaround and profit from. They have released, you know, Trump and Millennia meme coins.
The value of Donald Trump's meme coin soared this week. More than sixty percent, after his team announced that some holders of the coin would receive an invitation to a private dinner with the president himself.
They have bought into crypto assets through Truth Social and Trump's media company. It's a varied and diversified entrance into the crypto world, but it's been incredibly lucrative to them.
Just how much money are we talking about here exactly?
Well, the math behind crypto is always extremely complicated, So it's easiest to say he's made a whole lot of money, But if we wanted to break it down a little bit more, through crypto, he has made in the billions. You know, there are sales of stock which has then been turned around into two point three billion in bitcoin. When World Liberty Financial released some of its ability to sell stock and made money off of that, it then
turned around and put that into crypto immediately. That's an asset which is verifiable and you know has a fluctuating but extravagant value. And so you know, how much has he made? Like with everything Trump, it's just buried behind a lot of smoke and mirrors and potentially false statements, I think we can safely say he's made more money off of crypto than any US president has made in history off of any other asset, off of any business enterprise.
You know, they have in the past marketed stakes, they've marketed real estate, They've done really everything with the Trump name on it. But nothing out of the decades and decades of Trump's various business enterprises has been as profitable as this new crypto endeavor. You know, we are very, very far from Jimmy Carter selling his peanut farm.
Coming up, conflicts of interest around the crypti president being a crypti billionaire.
The top two hundred and twenty Trump meme coin investors were invited to a dinner with President Trump at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, just outside Washington, DC tonight. NBC News reports that a seat at the dinner costs more than one million on average.
Well, we're talking about he really rises questions about conflicts of interest. Trump is engaging with investors inventions that have reached him. He's also involved in the industry that his administration has been dericulating. So what are people saying about the ethics of oldies.
Well, you have a lot of calls from Democrats, especially some soundate Democrats, saying that it needs to be investigated, that there needs to be more stringent regulation, that he can't do this, essentially, that this is such a clear, open and shutcase of conflict of interest that it's really beyond the pale. And so you have a lot of pushback, but you have pushed back from people who are just not in power right now and who don't have the ability to shut down his executive orders or shut down
his companies. Certainly there are people who are calling for legal avenues to challenge what he can do, but there's so far been a lack of direct ability to stop what he has been building in terms of a crypto empire.
And what has Trump and the Ward House said, if anything about these concerns are an ethics, I.
Mean, they have brought out what is generally the usual White House line on conflets, which is that none exist. They have said that these are fabricated conflicts, that the media is ginning these up, and that the president and his family do not engage, will never engage, have never engaged in conflicts of interest.
And I think everybody the American public believe it's absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.
This president. They also say that the structure of these Trump family crypto enterprises, which to be fair, are extremely convoluted, are set up in a way that they do not have the president's direct fingerprints on them. Essentially, they're saying that his assets are managed in a trust by his children, and that you know, for all these reasons that it is not actually violating any conflicts.
So the what extend is Trump's and Trump's families interest advantages in this industry, impacting Congress's ability to pursue regulation because we're talking about separate branches of government.
He yeah, you've got a situation where he has a sort of chilling effect over the party, which is that people don't want to go against Trump. So for the Republicans, they're not going to rock the boat. They're not going to say that, you know, we need more crypto regulation. They want to keep him happy, and whatever he's doing tends to be acceptable, legal, and defendable. You also have to come into contact with the crypto lobby if you're
running for Congress these days. They have deep pockets and they are very willing to use influence to affect various congressional races and for Congress, if you're going to go against that, then you're setting yourself up with some pretty powerful enemies, and you're setting yourself up as midterms approach with a lobby that is very happy with the way that this administration is carrying things out and doesn't want
significant change. It does have an effect on the way that Congress thinks about this industry.
So, Nicky, if Trump is using his office for personal gain, is there any question here as to whether it's not just unethical but potentially illegal and is there any mechanism to investigate that at this point in time?
Yes, I mean, there are questions over whether the setup of some of his crypto companies, some of the dealings that they are doing, and the way that this whole empire has been built could violate any number of either government ethics rules or securities and exchange regulations. There are broader concerns that people have voiced over whether this is
potentially violating laws. But you know, these are big questions that people should grapple with when the president is you know, related to and engaged with very very extensive and very very wealthy crypto funds. So that's in the background of all of this, and then is there a mechanism to investigate that at this point? Well, there are some ways that Senate committees and potentially, depending on the jurisdiction, states could look into these crypto enterprises. None have really been
that active yet. That's not something that we have seen have. You know, a lot of force behind them so far.
Fascinating stuff, Nick, Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Also in the news, after years of negotiations, the Victorian government has unveiled a new draft bill to implement a statewide treaty with First Nations peoples. It's the first treaty between First Nations people and any government in Australia. The bill proposes that the First People's Assembly be consulted by government departments on laws affecting Victoria's Indigenous population, and for it to make decisions and rules about specific matters affecting
First Nations peoples. An Australia Post will resume postal send into the US by Thursday, the twenty fifth of September, after suspending some services last month amid President Donald Trump's tariff. Fragi parcels sent to the US a subject of duties equal to the tariffs, which in Australia is the ten percent baseline tariff. Australia post as it's working with a third party provided to allow business customers a solution. I'm Daniel James. Thanks for listening to seven AM. We'll be back tomorrow