The cryptocurrency that buys access to Trump
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
Just days before his inauguration, President Donald Trump launched his own meme coin, a novelty cryptocurrency. Since then, the Trump Organization has made millions of dollars off its sale and has invited the top investors to a private dinner, set to happen later this week.
Technology reporter Drew Harwell talks to Post Reports co-host Colby Itkowitz about how Trump got involved in cryptocurrency and the foreign investors buying access to Trump via his meme coin.
Today’s show was produced by Rennie Svirnovskiy, with help from Lucas Trevor. It was mixed by Sam Bair, and edited by Ariel Plotnick. Thanks to Shawn Boburg.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Later this week on Thursday, President Donald Trump is hosting a lavish exclusive dinner at his private golf club outside of Washington, D.C. |
| 0:10.5 | Now, Trump hosting fancy dinners, that's not so unusual. |
| 0:14.2 | What is unusual is how to get on the guest list. |
| 0:17.9 | To get an invite, you have to buy a bunch of Trump meme coins, like millions |
| 0:22.3 | of dollars in Trump meme coins to qualify. That's technology reporter Drew Harwell. He's been |
| 0:28.7 | covering the complex world of crypto and how Trump has infiltrated that world by minting his own currency, |
| 0:34.2 | called a meme coin. |
| 0:42.3 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post reports. I'm Colby Ickowitz. It's Tuesday, May 20th. |
| 0:46.3 | Today, I talk with Drew about Trump's meme coin, the money the Trump organization is made off of it, |
| 0:52.3 | and the foreign investors who've bought access to the president by investing in his cryptocurrency. |
| 1:04.1 | Hi, Drew. Thanks so much for being here. |
| 1:06.1 | Yeah, thanks for having me. |
| 1:07.5 | So, Drew, I'm going to plead total ignorance. What's a meme coin? Yeah, a meme coin. I know. |
| 1:17.2 | It is a funny word. So we know bitcoins, right? They're cryptocurrencies, which just mean, you know, |
| 1:24.1 | a bit of code that has some value on the internet. |
| 1:28.4 | Meme coins are kind of a spinoff of that. |
| 1:30.8 | You take the meme part, which is, you know, this viral internet joke, internet trend, |
| 1:37.1 | and you put a crypto component to it. |
| 1:40.6 | So basically any joke that has taken off on the internet in the last several years |
| 1:45.4 | can become a meme coin and people can create it and they can sell it and people can |
| 1:51.6 | speculate on them and trade them. And so our president has created a Trump coin and that's |
| 1:57.8 | exactly what people are trading now. Is it tied to any specific meme or is it just |
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