President Trump’s Personal Billion-Dollar Boom; “One Big Beautiful Bill” One Year On
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
For someone who hasn't played a singles match in nearly four years, two kids later, 44 years old. I mean, the seven-time Wimbledon champion walked onto center court Wimbledon looking like she belonged.
Hey, everybody, and welcome to Here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Christine Romans filling in for Yasmin Vesugian. Today on the show, can Serena Williams relaunch her tennis career at 44? What her time on the Wimbledon grass has shown us. Plus, it's been a year since the one big, beautiful bill passed into law. How has it impacted everyday Americans? Up first, though, President Donald Trump flew to North Dakota today aboard his new Air Force One jet, a present from the government of Qatar. Members of both parties had raised ethics and security concerns when the president accepted the jet last year. But now the president is facing a new set of questions over possible financial conflicts of interest.
On Tuesday, the Office of Government Ethics released a lengthy report showing that President Trump made more than $2 billion in 2025, including $1.4 billion from the crypto industry. The disclosure was required by law. Before taking off in Air Force One this morning, reporters asked the president to respond to people who say he is profiting off the presidency.
So we're all profiting. I'm profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash and I give it to institutions. I don't know if they know what they're doing or not, but they buy a vast array of things.
But President Trump more than doubled the money he made a year after returning to the White House. So how do the president's outside earnings in office compare to previous administrations? And are they conflicts of interest? For this, I want to bring in Megan Gorman. She's a tax attorney and wealth manager. She's also the author of All the President's Money, a book that digs into the history of presidential finances. Hi, Megan. Hey, Christine. Thanks for having me on. It's a really fascinating topic, right? It really is. And it really, as someone who has dug into presidential histories, it is a situation without historical precedent.
I know, you know, I think we get tired of using the word without precedent when it comes to the Trump administration. But I think we have to take a step back and look at why it's unprecedented by looking at the history of presidents and their money. And this goes back to George Washington. You know, George Washington understood that there was always going to be an inherent conflict with his personal finances and running the United States. And so he sort of laid the framework in having it sort of arm's length. And he actually had an overseer who helped manage his holdings. And keep in mind, George Washington was not only the most popular man in the United States at that time, but he was probably the wealthiest.
And so he had extensive holdings. But what you see over the course of history is presidents pass the baton on how to handle this conflict. Washington passes it on, and you look at Lincoln. And Lincoln really exemplifies this idea of putting country over self. And what you see in Lincoln's finances is not only was he taking his salary and putting it in US Treasury bonds, but when the income tax was established, it wasn't clear if it applied to Lincoln, and he paid it anyway. He passes the baton more to presidents that we know, you know, like Eisenhower. Dwight Eisenhower, when he was running for president, did something shocking. He gave up his military pension of $19,000 a year, buying power today of about $250,000, because he wanted to seem conflict-free.
Same thing with LBJ and Jimmy Carter, and Reagan. All of them use blind trusts. What's happened, though, in recent years, right, and you look at a president like Barack Obama, who originally had a blind trust, but because the trades are so public and he was not involved, but he was getting heat from it, he finally said, forget it with the blind trust. I'm just going to sit in treasuries. So each president grapples with this challenge.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–4:59
2
How did the Office of Government Ethics reveal President Trump’s 2025 earnings and why does it matter?
4:59–8:50
3
How do President Trump’s outside earnings compare to previous presidents’ finances?
8:50–12:08
4
What historical practices have presidents used to avoid conflicts of interest?
12:08–22:28
5
Why are crypto deals and foreign investments raising conflict-of-interest concerns for the president?
22:28–28:31
Speakers
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