Trump’s new businesses — and new potential conflicts of interest
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 December 2024
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Since he last held office, President-elect Donald Trump’s business interests have evolved. The real estate mogul launched the social media company Truth Social, and — in the height of this year’s presidential campaign — he announced a cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial.
Both of these industries could be targeted with efforts at regulation during Trump’s second term. So what could it mean for Trump to oversee an administration that also plays a role in these regulations? This dynamic sets up what ethics experts have described as unprecedented potential conflicts of interest for his second term.
“Post Reports” host Elahe Izadi speaks with investigative reporter Jonathan O’Connell about how Trump became involved in these new businesses, what potential conflicts of interest they present, and what we might learn from how Trump approached potential conflicts in his first term.
Today’s show was produced by Laura Benshoff with help from Ariel Plotnick. It was edited by Alison MacAdam and Reena Flores and mixed by Sam Bair.
Subscribe to The Washington Post here.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, Bitcoinsers. Thank you very much. Hello. It's good to be with you. |
| 0:10.3 | It's good to be with you. |
| 0:12.5 | Back in July, Donald Trump spoke at a cryptocurrency conference in Nashville. He vowed to be a champion for the crypto industry. Ultimately, my promise to each |
| 0:23.5 | and every one of you is this. I will be the pro-innovation and pro-bitcoin president that |
| 0:29.9 | America needs and our citizens deserve. This will be one industry, but this will be a thriving |
| 0:35.5 | industry, a great industry. Then, in September, |
| 0:38.9 | less than two months before the election, he announced he was getting into crypto himself. |
| 0:44.1 | Trump launched a venture called World Liberty Financial. |
| 0:49.8 | Former President Trump is rolling out a new cryptocurrency business. Trump announced World Liberty Financial in a live stream on X, saying, quote, |
| 0:57.6 | crypto is one of those things we have to do. |
| 0:59.8 | And if we don't do it, China's going to do it. |
| 1:02.3 | If we don't do it, other countries are going to do it. |
| 1:06.6 | The U.S. will soon have a president who could make millions off of crypto. |
| 1:12.0 | He's also the majority owner of a social media company, Truth Social, and of course many other things like hotels. |
| 1:19.9 | In Trump's first term, there was a lot of outrage over potential conflicts of interest. |
| 1:26.6 | Calls for hearings as well as lawsuits, |
| 1:29.6 | claims that Trump was using the presidency to enrich himself. |
| 1:33.6 | Now, we are gearing up for round two. |
| 1:37.5 | A conflict of interest is when somebody has, you know, |
| 1:40.5 | competing interests that they might be serving simultaneously. |
| 1:44.0 | Jonathan O'Connell is an investigative reporter for The Post. |
| 1:47.8 | I'm sure lots of people at their own jobs have some rule about you, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Washington Post, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Washington Post and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.