Trump Confronted by Reporter Screaming Questions After Crypto Gala
President Donald Trump was confronted by a reporter who screamed two questions as he returned from a crypto rewards gala — one of which Trump answered.
The president’s schedule Thursday contained an opaque entry that read “7:00 PM: THE PRESIDENT attends a Private Dinner, Trump National Golf Club, Closed Press.”
But the occasion was a gala dinner for the top 220 purchasers of Trump’s “$TRUMP” meme coin, a scheme that critics from across the political spectrum have nuked as a corrupt enrichment scam. The “winners” were not publicly disclosed and the event was closed to the press.
There was no press pool coverage of the dinner, but reporters were on hand when Trump arrived in Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House after the event.
As he walked to the South Portico, a reporter screamed to be heard over the helicopter. Trump apparently heard him, but blew off the more challenging of the queries:
REPORTER: Mr. President!
REPORTER: Mr. President, how did you like the dinner?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (INAUDIBLE)
REPORTER: How was the dinner?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Good. Very good.
REPORTER: Are people buying influence with you?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (WALKS INTO WHITE HOUSE)
Hours earlier, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the dinner and the secrecy surrounding it, telling reporters, “The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner, it’s not taking place here at the White House.”
Trump also faced questions over another crypto venture, his family’s cryptocurrency firm World Liberty Financial. The company’s USD1 currency was selected by state-owned UAE firm MGX to pay for a $2 billion investment in Binance earlier this month, weeks ahead of a presidential trip to the region.
When pressed about that deal, Trump claimed, “I really don’t know anything about it. But I’m a big crypto fan.”
Watch above via Pool.
