President Donald Trump on Thursday defended his family’s sprawling business interests and his children’s commercial activity, waving off conflict-of-interest concerns days after a federal ethics filing showed he earned more than $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency ventures last year. Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump said the presidency reaches so deeply into the economy that almost anything his children do could be cast as a conflict. “If they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information,” he said. Trump added that he tells his children to “stay away” from anything that could look improper, but said they were running businesses long before he entered politics.

The remarks followed the release Tuesday of Trump’s annual financial disclosure by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. The 927-page report — nearly 700 pages longer than his prior filing — showed the president collected more than $1.4 billion connected to digital assets in 2025, his first year back in the White House. That figure made crypto, not real estate, his single largest source of income. The interview aired on CNBC and was conducted by anchor Joe Kernen.

The disclosure listed roughly $635 million in royalties from a licensing deal tied to his $TRUMP meme coin, launched days before his second inauguration. It also showed more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture Trump co-founded in 2024 with his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. His youngest son, Barron Trump, is listed with the firm as well.

Trump’s older, traditional businesses still produced heavy income. The filing reported about $122 million from Trump Doral, $77.5 million from Mar-a-Lago, and $39 million from another property. The president also disclosed more than $80 million in income from legal settlements with media companies including ABC, CBS, Meta, YouTube and X, plus millions in book and merchandise royalties.

For companies watching Washington, the more consequential thread was Trump’s growing willingness to take direct government stakes in private firms. Pressed on a report that the government could take a 5% stake in OpenAI, Trump sidestepped the question and instead pointed to Intel, the struggling chipmaker. The administration announced an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock last August, handing the government a 10% stake. Trump said he told the company he could solve its problems but wanted “10% of the company.”

That approach — an administration trading help for equity — is reshaping how executives think about federal involvement in their industries. It arrives alongside a heavy trade agenda. The administration said Wednesday it would not renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement for another 16 years, a move that keeps the pact alive for a decade but triggers annual reviews that could reopen major terms. A senior official said Trump’s main concern is the trade deficits the United States runs with Canada and Mexico.

Trump also used the interview to stress that he does not want an economic downturn on his record. He invoked former president Herbert Hoover, who led the country into the Great Depression, and blamed him for raising interest rates and taxes. “I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover,” Trump said, casting himself as focused on growth and low borrowing costs.

The president returned repeatedly to the economy’s political stakes. His war with Iran, which began in February, remains in a fragile ceasefire, and Trump has argued that instability in the Middle East is itself a market risk. He repeated a claim that Iran will buy American farm goods as part of a potential peace deal, an assertion Tehran has denied.

Critics say the disclosure underscores how tightly the president’s personal wealth is now tied to industries his administration regulates, particularly crypto, where the White House is pushing Congress to pass new market rules. A representative for the Trump Organization said the filing showed a company with valuable assets, substantial liquidity and a conservative balance sheet, and called the nearly 1,000-page report a sign of transparency.

For businesses, investors and lobbyists, the combined message from the disclosure and the interview is that the lines between Trump’s policy agenda and his family’s commercial interests remain blurred — and that the administration is comfortable operating in that gray zone as it takes equity in companies, rewrites trade deals and leans on the Federal Reserve to keep rates in check.

JBizNews Desk | Washington
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