Trump stock trades fuel accusations of corruption and profiting off presidency

Geoff Bennett:

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump disclosed that his trust is actively trading individual stocks, an unprecedented practice for a sitting U.S. president in the modern era. The arrangement is raising 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 recent history who has spoken publicly about the stock market more than Donald Trump.

President Donald Trump:

I just turned on the television and wanted to see how the stock market is doing today. We hit 50000 on the Dow. We hit 7000 on the S&P. Our stock market is now at the highest point in history.

Liz Landers:

And perhaps it's not all that surprising. Donald Trump has built a multibillion-dollar personal brand, and he is one of the only people to go directly from the boardroom 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 watch the market, but it's another thing altogether to actively trade stocks while in office. Mr. Trump's most recent federal financial disclosure form, filed earlier this month, reveals more than 3,700 trades in the first three months of this year, a flurry amounting to tens of millions of dollars in transactions.

The disclosure filing, called a Form 278, is required of senior government officials by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics within 45 days of any financial trade. It doesn't list specific amounts, only broad value ranges, and it's designated to ensure some level of transparency.

Dan Alexander:

The fact that he not only owns stocks, but is actively trading them, there's just no precedent in recent history.

Liz Landers:

Dan Alexander is a senior editor of Forbes magazine and the author of "White House, Inc.: How Donald Trump Turned the Presidency into a Business."

Dan Alexander:

The key question here is, are those holdings impacting the decisions that he's making? And what's tricky about this, like so many other things, is that, in order to answer that question, you really have to 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 maintained 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 administered entirely by those firms."

On the morning of March 23, after nearly a month of war with Iran, the president announced on TRUTH Social that the U.S. and Iran had been having -- quote -- "very good and productive conversations" and that he was extending his deadline for a deal by five more days.

Oil prices plunged nearly 11 percent on hopes the war was ending, energy stocks sold off, and the brokerage account in Trump's name spent the day buying them, Phillips 66, ExxonMobil, Chevron, along with defense and aerospace names like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, all companies that stood to profit the longer the war continued.

Is it illegal for a president to own positions within the stock market, to own individual stocks?

Richard Painter:

Unfortunately, the financial conflict of interest statute does not apply to the president, the 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 power of the president to affect the market is profound and should be more tightly restricted.

Richard Painter:

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

Donald Trump:

Let's also ensured that members of Congress cannot correctly profit from using insider information.

(Cheering)

Liz Landers:

In the State of the Union this year, President Trump threw his support behind efforts to ban stock trading by members of Congress. But what he didn't say is that there's no such ban for presidents, and he didn't call for one.

Richard Painter:

A treasury secretary who owns bank stock, a defense secretary who owns stock in defense contractors would commit a felony if they participated in decisions that affected those investments. And this is why every official in the United States government is required to divest.

Liz Landers:

Every president since Ronald Reagan has either put their assets in a blind trust managed by independent trustees or sold off their stocks to eliminate conflicts of interest.

While President Trump did transfer his assets into a trust, it is not blind, says Dan Alexander.

Dan Alexander:

The trust doesn't hand over the ownership of those assets to anybody else. It allows his kids to make decisions about them on a day-to-day basis. Those assets are still owned by Donald Trump, so, therefore, all the potential conflicts with them and all the money that comes with them still rolls back to Donald Trump.

Question:

Do you have any regrets about your presidency?

Liz Landers:

Alexander says Trump's wealth has grown exponentially since he first left office in 2021.

Dan Alexander:

When he left office, we estimate that he was worth $2.4 billion. We now estimate that he's worth $6.1 billion. A lot of that is an increase in liquid assets, principally through his crypto ventures 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 didn't raise conflict of interest concerns. But that changed in January this year, when Mr. Trump's accounts started to actively trade individual stocks, and some of the companies have ongoing direct involvement with the federal government.

Take Palantir Technologies. It has billions of dollars in contracts with the Trump administration, including a $1.3 billion contract with the Pentagon to develop A.I. systems to help orchestrate military operations.

Since January, Mr. Trump's account has made nine purchases of Palantir stock worth up to $680,000. When the stock declined nearly 15 percent in early April, Trump posted on TRUTH Social -- quote -- "Palantir Technologies has proven to have great war-fighting capabilities and equipment. Just ask our enemies."

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

Man:

Nvidia's next generation of A.I. chips is in full production.

Liz Landers:

In early January, the president's account purchased between $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock. A week before, Commerce officials approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China.

In February, he purchased between $1 million and $5 million more just days before Nvidia announced a major computer processing power deal with Meta.

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

Vice President J.D. Vance:

Number one, the president doesn't sit at the Oval Office on his computer on his, like, Robinhood account buying and selling stocks. That's absurd. He has independent wealth of advisers who manage his money. He is a wealthy person. He has had success in business. He's not making these stock trades himself.

Liz Landers:

The Trump Organization says -- quote -- "Neither President Trump, his family, nor the Trump Organization has any role in selecting, directing, approving, influencing, or soliciting specific investments. They receive no advance notice of trades, cannot alter or override the managers' strategies or models, and provide no input regarding investment decisions or portfolio operations."

The structure, the Trump Organization says, is to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. But Richard Painter says it's difficult to separate the president from his portfolio.

Richard Painter:

It doesn't matter who's making the trades. The president knows what's in his account. It's right there on the Form 278. He knows what he owns.

Liz Landers:

And Painter says the bigger issue is the erosion of public trust.

Richard Painter:

The public is not going to have confidence in the securities markets if we have people with access to United States government information actively trading in the markets at the same time as other investors who don't have that information.

Liz Landers:

When it comes to presidential trades, perception matters.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Liz Landers.