Trump’s stock trades fuel accusations of corruption and taking advantage of the presidency

Jeff Bennett:

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump revealed that his trust actively trades individual stocks, an unprecedented practice for a modern-day US president. The arrangement raises new questions about whether the president’s actions, policies or public statements could directly benefit his personal financial holdings.

Our White House correspondent Liz Landers takes a closer look.

Liz Landers:

It would be hard to find a president in modern history who speaks more publicly about the stock market than Donald Trump.

President Donald Trump:

I just turned on the TV and wanted to see how the stock market is performing today. We hit 50,000 on the Dow Jones. We’re at 7,000 on the S&P. Our stock market is now at the highest point in history.

Liz Landers:

Perhaps it’s not entirely surprising. Donald Trump has built a multibillion-dollar personal brand, and is one of the only people to go directly from the board of directors to the White House without holding any other elected office.

Donald Trump:

Look at the numbers. Look at the stock market.

Liz Landers:

It’s one thing to monitor the market, but it’s another thing entirely to actively trade stocks while you’re in office. The latest federal financial disclosure form filed by Trump earlier this month reveals more than 3,700 transactions in the first three months of this year, a wave worth tens of millions of dollars in transactions.

Filing the disclosure, called Form 278, is required of senior government officials by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics within 45 days of any financial trade. They do not list specific amounts, only broad value ranges, and are intended to ensure a certain level of transparency.

Dan Alexander:

The fact that he not only owns stocks, but actively trades them, is without precedent in modern history.

Liz Landers:

Dan Alexander is a senior editor at Forbes and the author of The White House: How Donald Trump Turned the Presidency into a Corporation.

Dan Alexander:

The main question here is, do those possessions affect the decisions he makes? The difficult thing about this, like so many other things, is that in order to answer this question, you have to really get inside Donald Trump’s head.

Liz Landers:

In a statement to “PBS News Hour,” the Trump Organization said — quote — “President Trump’s investment holdings are held exclusively in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent, third-party financial institutions.

“These institutions have sole and exclusive authority over all investment decisions, including asset allocation, trading, rebalancing and portfolio management. Investments are executed and allocated through automated model-based portfolios and direct indexing strategies managed entirely by these institutions.”

On the morning of March 23, after nearly a month of war with Iran, the president announced on TRUTH Social that the United States and Iran were having — I quote — “very good and productive talks” and that he was extending the deadline for reaching an agreement by another five days.

Oil prices fell nearly 11% on hopes the war was over, energy stocks were sold, and a brokerage account in Trump’s name spent the day buying them, Phillips 66, ExxonMobil, and Chevron, along with defense and aerospace names like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, all companies that stood to profit the longer the war lasted.

Is it illegal for a president to hold positions in the stock market and own individual stocks?

Richard the painter:

Unfortunately, the Conflict of Financial Interest Act does not apply to the President, Vice President, and members of Congress.

Liz Landers:

Richard Painter was the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. He says the president’s power to influence the market runs deep and should be more strictly limited.

Richard the painter:

If, through his official actions, he actually can change the stock price, and he owns the stock, then this is a financial conflict of interest that should be prohibited.

Donald Trump:

Let’s also make sure that members of Congress cannot properly profit from the use of inside information.

(acclaim)

Liz Landers:

In this year’s State of the Union address, President Trump threw his support for efforts to ban stock trading by members of Congress. But what he did not say is that there is no such ban on presidents, nor did he call for one.

Richard the painter:

A Secretary of the Treasury who owns stock in banks and a Secretary of Defense who owns stock in defense contractors would commit a felony if they participated in decisions that affected those investments. For this reason, every US government official must divest.

Liz Landers:

Every president since Ronald Reagan has either placed his assets in a blind trust run by independent trustees or sold his shares to eliminate conflicts of interest.

While President Trump has transferred his assets into a trust, he’s not doing so blind, says Dan Alexander.

Dan Alexander:

The trust does not transfer ownership of those assets to anyone else. He allows his children to make decisions for them on a daily basis. These assets still belong to Donald Trump, so all potential disputes with them and all the money that comes with them still belong to Donald Trump.

a question:

Do you regret your presidency?

Liz Landers:

Alexander says Trump’s wealth has grown significantly since he first left office in 2021.

Dan Alexander:

When he left office, we estimate his fortune was $2.4 billion. We now estimate it’s worth $6.1 billion. A lot of that is an increase in liquid assets, mainly through his cryptocurrency projects that have brought in a lot of money.

Liz Landers:

In 2025, Mr. Trump’s accounts traded almost exclusively in municipal and corporate bonds, which did not raise concerns about conflicts of interest. But that changed in January of this year, when Mr. Trump’s accounts began actively trading individual stocks, and some companies had ongoing direct involvement with the federal government.

Take Palantir Technologies. It has multibillion-dollar contracts with the Trump administration, including a $1.3 billion contract with the Pentagon to develop artificial intelligence systems to help coordinate military operations.

Since January, Mr. Trump’s account has made nine purchases of Palantir stock worth $680,000. When the stock fell nearly 15 percent in early April, Trump posted on TRUTH Social – quote – “Palantir Technologies has proven itself to have great warfighting capabilities and equipment. Just ask our enemies.”

Within 10 days, the stock had regained its value even more.

man:

Nvidia’s next generation AI chips are in full production.

Liz Landers:

In early January, the president’s account bought between $500,000 and $1 million worth of Nvidia stock. A week ago, trade officials approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China.

In February, he bought an additional $1 million to $5 million just days before Nvidia announced a major PC processing deal with Meta.

Vice President J.D. Vance defended trading in the president’s portfolio.

Vice President J.D. Vance:

Number one, the president isn’t sitting in the Oval Office in front of his computer, like a Robinhood account to buy and sell stocks. This is ridiculous. He has an independent wealth of advisors who manage his money. He is a rich person. He has achieved success in business. He doesn’t trade stocks himself.

Liz Landers:

The Trump Organization says – quote – “President Trump, his family, or the Trump Organization have no role in selecting, directing, approving, influencing, or soliciting specific investments. They receive no advance notice of trades, cannot change or override managers’ strategies or models, and provide no input regarding investment decisions or portfolio operations.”

The Trump Organization says the structuring is intended to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. But Richard Painter says it’s difficult to separate the president from his wallet.

Richard the painter:

It doesn’t matter who makes the trades. The president knows what is in his account. He’s there in Form 278. He knows what he’s got.

Liz Landers:

Painter says the biggest problem is the erosion of public trust.

Richard the painter:

The public will not trust the stock markets if we have people with access to US government information actively trading the markets at the same time as other investors who do not have that information.

Liz Landers:

When it comes to presidential deals, perception matters.

On the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Liz Landers.