Trump’s family empire is dramatically expanding its wealth during his presidency. Bloomberg News’s Max Abelson joins to discuss the deals that are powering this growth and the questions they spark. The controversial U.S.- and Israeli-backed aid effort got off to a tumultuous start. CBS reports. The Assad regime’s surveillance state relied on civilians to inform on their neighbors and colleagues. Now Syrians are reckoning with who among them quietly contributed to the tyranny. The Washington Post’s Salwan Georges has more. Plus, Robert F. Kennedy Jr announced changes to COVID vaccine guidance, Marco Rubio ordered a halt to student-visa interviews, and why Trump pardoned a reality-TV couple. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
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Hey there, it's Shamita. I've got a quick request for you. If Apple News Today is an essential part of your morning routine, follow the show in Apple Podcasts. And if you have another 30 seconds, leave us a rating and a review too. It helps other people find our show and it helps us know what you like about it. Thanks. Good morning. It's Wednesday, May 28th. I'm Shamita Basu.
This is Apple News Today. On today's show, aid distribution in Gaza gets off to a slow, chaotic start. Syrians struggle with reconciliation after Assad's fall. And RFK Jr. says COVID vaccines are no longer recommended for children and pregnant women. But first, President Trump appears to be deepening his financial links to cryptocurrency.
Yesterday, the parent company of Trump's social media platform, Truth Social, announced a series of deals to raise $2.5 billion, which it plans to invest in Bitcoin. What began as a tech company is seemingly moving toward financial services.
It comes after the private crypto dinner Trump hosted that we mentioned last week on the show, and which sparked allegations that he was corruptly leveraging his position in power to score personally lucrative deals. People who attended the dinner spent a combined $148 million on Trump's crypto token just for the chance to be there.
Crypto is only one piece of the Trump family's sprawling business empire. It touches everything from real estate to digital trading cards to apparel like watches and sneakers. Max Abelson with Bloomberg recently examined its scope.
The thing to know about the Trump family's money-making machine is that it is really big. And that from our eyes, from our journalistic position, no modern American president has put their family in a position to make money like this
In fact, the scale of Trump's political comeback, winning the White House after being impeached twice and losing the 2020 election, being criminally indicted four times and being convicted of felony crimes by a jury of his peers, is perhaps matched only by the moneymaking that's accompanied his return to power.
Since the early days of his reelection campaign, he has more than doubled his net worth to about $5.4 billion, according to Bloomberg.
What we're seeing now is a new era of moneymaking for the family.
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