By Molly Claire Goddard
10:17am PDT, May 14, 2025
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Despite typically being a staunch supporter, Ben Shapiro claimed Donald Trump's cryptocurrency exploits are "having an impact" on his second term in the White House.
"You all remember President Trump launching dollar sign Trump crypto three days before taking office as president? Trump himself announced the Trump crypto on X. On Truth Social, he described it as a
meme coin, meaning it had no inherent value. It was just there for the kind of bleeps and giggles. The price spiked to a trading value of nearly 13 billion dollars, making it the 19th most valuable cryptocurrency on planet earth. Then it proceeded to plummet, like really, really dive," the right-wing journalist claimed. "The project allegedly netted people associated with it, meaning the Trump organizations associated with the Trump crypto, some 350 million dollars. Eighty percent of the outstanding supply of that meme coin is still held by insiders, presumably members of the Trump Organization. Overall, according to data shared with CNBC, there were 2 million wallets that bought that Trump meme coin. Seven hundred sixty four thousand of them lost money. Fifty-eight wallets made more than $10 million bucks."
Shapiro then questioned if Trump's alleged personal gain from the venture could harm his presidency. "Then in April, that Trump meme coin announced that the top 220 holders of the meme coin would be invited to an intimate private dinner with President Trump at his golf club. The top 25 were invited to a VIP White House tour. According to Bloomberg News, 19 of the top 25 holders of that Trump meme coin that have registered on the website's leaderboard have bought the coins using foreign exchanges that claim to exclude U.S. customers, which means that foreigners are buying a lot of meme coin and then getting meetings with President Trump, like V.I.P. White House tours and all the rest," he continued. "This raises the question of influence peddling. If you basically buy a bunch of Trump meme coin and then funnel money to organizations associated with President Trump so that you can have dinner with Trump, that doesn't look great."
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After reports surfaced that Donald Trump would be gifted a
$400 million jet from the Qatar royal family, both Democrats and Republicans questioned the ethics about the alleged move.
"Taking sacks of goodies from people who support Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Jazeera, all the rest — that's not America First! Please define America First in a way that says you should take sacks of cash from the Qatari royals who are behind al-Jazeera. It just isn't America first in any conceivable way," Ben Shapiro explained during the episode of his show. "So, back to the original question: is this good for President Trump? Is it good for his agenda? Is it good for draining the swamp and getting things done? The answer is no, it isn't. It isn't. If you want President Trump to succeed, this kind of skeezy stuff needs to stop."
He continued, "If you want President Trump's agenda to succeed, taking jets from Qatar is not the way. Taking real estate deals from Qatar is not the way. The largest obstacle to any administration is scandal. From Watergate to Whitewater, scandal-plagued administrations have a really tough time gathering the political capital necessary to actually effectuate their agenda and that's why it's unbelievably important that the Trump administration avoid scandal. That is the reason I am worried about this stuff."
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In a shocking twist, Ben Shapiro claimed if this was former president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, Donald Trump and Republicans would be outraged.
"I think inherently it is bad. I do not think this is good. I think if we switched the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we'd all be freaking out on the right," the journalist explained. "Let's say if Qatar was giving Joe a $400 million jet for his use at his presidential library after his presidency, or if Hunter launched a crypto firm with the son of Antony Blinken and then launched a series of crypto products in which mysterious strangers, including foreigners who were investing, all while that crypto firm was being regulated by Joe's administration, we'd all have been pretty upset on the right. We might have said that it was worthy of some coverage."
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Ben Shapiro claimed that his critiques toward Donald Trump and his administration is simply because he wants him to succeed and not be caught up in any scandals.
"The administration's policy is too important for this sort of activity. President Trump promised to drain the swamp. This is not, in fact, draining the swamp," he said. "President Trump was elected based on the American people being sick and tired of the swamp, tired of Hunter [Biden], tired of the Clintons, tired of the Biden crime family. Why in the world would President Trump be well-served by this sort of vulnerability? Again, more importantly, why would those of us who voted for him, who gave to his campaign, who stumped for him, campaigned for him, be well-served by this? The answer is we aren't, and that's why it needs to stop."
