Not content to con people with a vaporware smartphone or get investors involved in a complicated scammy crypto thing or start a shady fintech company, the Trump family has a great new idea: Let the Trump family geniuses—none of whom have ever held an actual job that wasn’t thanks to Daddy—open a bank.
And even better, let Trump’s regulators oversee it—or, well, not oversee it.
But wait for the cherry on top … White House envoy Steve Witkoff will run the bank! That’s a recipe for success, right?
Eric Trump, Don Hendrickson, Eric Thomas, Patrick O'Brien and Donald Trump Jr. announce the Trump Mobile on June 16, 2025.
Well, probably for the Trump and Witkoff families, but maybe not so much for actual consumers. Under President Donald Trump, financial regulations have fallen by the wayside, often in the service of lining the pockets of himself, his family, his donors, and his cronies.
In February 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission gave the Trump family’s shady crypto efforts a big boost, saying that meme coins are not securities, so it cannot regulate Trump’s dumb meme coins like $TRUMP or $MELANIA.
That’s pretty helpful for Trump, as these worthless things have nonetheless given his family and business cronies hundreds of millions in fees. It’s also a helpful way to hand Trump a few extra million bucks, as evinced by his bribe-tastic crypto dinner.
Sure, the meme coins are basically worthless, but fake-investing in them can pay off handsomely.
Just ask Justin Sun, who pumped $40 million into $TRUMP to attend that dinner. In return, Trump dropped the SEC’s fraud lawsuit against Sun. Isn’t it nice when friends can help each other out?
Did I mention that the same company that ran the dinner, World Liberty Financial, is going to open the bank?
One of World Liberty’s rationales for being allowed to do this is that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—the federal regulator reviewing its application—already gave five other crypto companies conditional approval.
Sure, but those crypto companies are not run by the president’s family …
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But no sweat, as Jonathan Gould, the head of the OCC, has declined the request of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to delay reviewing World Liberty’s charter application until Trump and his family divest. Sure, no extra scrutiny needed there!
Do we really even need securities or banking regulations if everything is just a vehicle for Trump family grifts that can’t be stopped?
Well, yes, because Trump needs the SEC to exist in order to punish anyone who shorts his stock. No, really. When a hedge fund shorted Trump Media—a perfectly legal thing to do—the company—which is owned by the Trump family—asked the SEC—which is run by a Trump appointee—to investigate the hedge fund.
President Donald Trump holds a pair of gold Trump sneakers on Feb. 17, 2024.
But how dare you imply that all of this is corrupt?
Here’s White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt getting very touchy about being asked if it’s problematic that the Trump family’s bank that will be overseen by Trump regulators: “The media’s continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and reinforce the public’s distrust in what they read.”
Ma’am, Trump issued an executive order last February declaring that he would make federal agencies, including the SEC, “truly accountable to the American people.”
Of course, according to Trump, being truly accountable means that all agencies are subject to “presidential supervision and control of the entire executive branch.”
Let’s not kid ourselves: This bank will be nothing but a state-sanctioned, barely regulated grift—a vehicle to drive profits directly into the pockets of Trump and his family.
But don’t you dare call that a conflict of interest.
