Donald Trump made a bizarre — and likely untrue — claim about America’s first president on Monday as he tried to justify his family’s staggering gain in personal wealth during his return to the White House.
The president was speaking at a White House event launching Trump Accounts, a partially tax-free investment account for children that allows parents and others to contribute money for a child’s future use on schooling or housing, when he said that under good market conditions, children who began investing today would be the recipients of “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in the future.
But Trump’s own wealth accumulation was questioned by one of the reporters in the White House press pool, which prompted a rant from the president, explaining his sons’ new crypto empire and their other efforts that have enriched the Trump family.
Claiming that he would not have been the first president to pursue private business interests while in the White House — he mentioned John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt as examples — Trump maintained that the nation’s first president was one of the wealthiest in American history. He then stated that George Washington had a second desk for his personal business matters in his presidential office.
“George Washington had two desks, in his, pre-White House. And they were right next to each other. One was for business and one was for the presidency,” Trump insisted.
Washington’s first office was in the then-nation’s capital, New York City, before it was moved to. Philadelphia for the bulk of his term.
Trump went on to say he “chooses” not to do the same, repeating a claim that he doesn’t discuss business matters, including his sons’ “Trump Coin” cryptocurrency empire with his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
“Crypto has a tremendous audience,” Trump claimed. “I’m very much for crypto– it’s not a question of a personal thing. I let my kids do whatever the hell they do.”
“I don’t talk to them — ever — talk to them about it,” Trump insisted, though he added: “I’m allowed to! I think. I’m allowed to. But I don’t bother.”
Since its launch in 2024 by members of Donald Trump and his adviser Steve Witkoff’s families, the broader Trump cryptocurrency ventures have netted the president’s family more than $2.3 billion, according to a Reuters investigation.
The total represents by far the highest surge in a U.S. president’s net worth under such a short time. The Trump family profited even as the value of his self-branded cryptocurrency plunged after its release, thanks in part to transaction fees and its own sales. Known as a “meme” coin, the Trump-branded cryptocurrency had little apparent use other than its immediate enrichment of the initial investors of World Liberty Financial, which includes the Trump and Witkoff family members.
Trump’s assertion that his crypto empire is simply following in Washington’s lead is rooted in a kernel of truth, and a whole lot of lore, with important caveats.
As the nation’s first president — taking office in 1789 after serving as president of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and of course, commander of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783 — the traditions of financial separation from one’s personal interests while in the presidency had not yet been established during his tenure.
And while Washington was indeed a business owner before and during his presidency — his financial interests largely amounted to a plantation in Virginia worked by hundreds of slaves — Washington put aside some aspects of direct management of his plantation during his presidency, and there’s no evidence of him having “two desks” to manage the workload.
Mount Vernon, now owned and maintained by a historical foundation, sits a short ride outside of the downtown D.C. area. In 2019, Trump first made this claim about Washington having “two desks,” and at the time the foundation issued a statement from its lead historian, who refuted thes claim: “I am not aware of Washington having had two desks in the study in the presidential mansion, which was a fairly small room.”
Trump’s first presidency pales in comparison to his second, in terms of the level of financial growth (or grift, according to his critics) his family has embraced as Trump has occupied the Oval Office. Debate during the first Trump administration largely related to the relatively mundane questions surrounding Trump’s real estate and hotels empire, and whether the president was illegally benefitting from forcing the Secret Service to shack up in Trump properties when he (frequently) visited them throughout his presidency — or by similarly encouraging others to patronize his businesses including his Mar-a-Lago club or his now-defunct hotel in downtown Washington D.C.
Those concerns persist, however, as the Trump family now pursues real estate deals around the world, including with foreign governments and business interests aiming to do business with the American government. The government of the United Arab Emirates, for example, recently purchased a share of Trump’s crypto organization.
Eric Trump has spoken about how his family no longer feels burdened by impropriety concerns after facing criticism for it during his father’s first term that ultimately went without provoking any serious consequences.
“The first term we did everything imaginable to avoid any appearance of impropriety, and frankly, we got crushed anyway,” Eric Trump said, referring to media criticism of the family’s business endeavors.