Maggie Haberman and Kaitlan Collins Call Trump Out Over Ethics of Business Deals Amid Foreign Trip

CNN commentator and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman and anchor Kaitlan Collins called out the “ethics” around President Donald Trump’s family businesses and their ties to the region he’s currently touring.

Trump is currently on a four-day swing through the Persian Gulf region with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, which has been dogged by the controversy over his eager acceptance of a $400 million “flying palace” from Qatar to serve as Air Force One.

The trip has also drawn attention to Trump’s family businesses, and on Tuesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins ticked through a litany of Trump “opportunities for financial gain” on the trip.

She and Haberman then noted that Trump and his family have not taken steps to avoid ethics concerns:

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KAITLAN COLLINS: That is the message for anyone who is looking to buy or stay at the upcoming Trump International Hotel & Tower in Dubai. It’s one of the new deals, President Trump’s family business has unveiled, in the Middle East. And for President Trump himself, one of the many opportunities for financial gain while he is in office for his second term.

Right now, The Trump Organization is doing business in all three countries that the President is visiting on this trip, including here in Saudi Arabia, where there is a Trump-branded tower on the way in Jeddah. Renderings show apartments with expansive balconies, pools, water views.

There’s also The Trump Organization’s partnership with LIV Golf, which is the Saudi-backed league that hosts some of its tournaments at Trump properties in the U.S.

In Qatar, where the President is heading tomorrow, his son, Eric, recently unveiled a new beach villa and golf community. That project is backed by the nation’s sovereign wealth fund, seemingly a break with a pledge by The Trump Organization to avoid new deals with foreign governments, during the President’s second term.

His third stop on this trip, the United Arab Emirates, which is home to the major investments in one of the Trump family newest ventures, the Trump’s crypto company, World Liberty Financial. This month, an Emirati investment firm, announced it would use the company’s digital currency for a $2 billion transaction.

While the President is in office, his assets are in a trust, and his son, Eric Trump, says that the President is walled off from all of the company’s deals. But as the President is here, and touting the deals that he’s been making for the United States, on this trip, there is a backdrop here of new seaside villas, and crypto coins that bear his name and his face.

My source tonight is The New York Times’ White House correspondent, Maggie Haberman.

And Maggie, it’s great to have you here.

Because just when you look at the broader portfolio here, and you’ve been talking to your many sources, is there anyone who is around him that is concerned about the ethics, or maybe just the optics of how this looks and how this plays out?

MAGGIE HABERMAN: There is a general awareness that there could be a problem, down the road, with some of these business deals, or even not so far down the road. In terms of the general optics, anybody who has a problem with that is not somebody who is really currently serving in Donald Trump’s administration.

You are correct that he had — he had said that he was divesting from his business, the first time — sorry, not divesting. That he was going to put his business in a blind trust, and he was not going to be involved in it, in his first term. He never divested.

This time, yes, it’s in a trust, but they are not making the same statements about, No more foreign deals, no — you know, we’re not doing things completely separately. We are not trying to create an appearance where we’re at least pulled away from it. This time, they’re just sort of doing what they want to do. And they feel like they got criticized last time, so what’s the difference?

Other presidents have been concerned about the appearance that this would create. And that’s not an issue here right now.

COLLINS: I think that’s a good point in terms of what you just said there, that he said he would divest the first time when he took office. But that never actually ultimately happened. I think a lot of people may not realize that.

HABERMAN: Yes, so I actually — you know, I misspoke. He didn’t — I don’t remember if he actually said he was going to divest during the campaign. What he did do was put his holdings in a blind trust, and he said he would have nothing to do with the company and running it. And we don’t know whether he did or didn’t have anything to do with decisions about running the company.

We do know that they put a hold on certain new deals while he was in office then. They’re obviously not doing that now to the extent that they were before. And as you say, this new — this new deal that Eric Trump announced, would seem to violate that pledge about, no new foreign deals while Trump is actually in office.

But either way, look, we’ve never had a situation, Kaitlan, where there is a president with this much wealth, and this many assets. And so, how he could make more extensive efforts would be to divest, would be to fully step away, he’s clearly not doing that.

COLLINS: Yes.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.