Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday that he does not believe President Trump’s recent crypto earnings disclosure creates an appearance problem, brushing aside questions raised by a filing that put roughly $1.4 billion in crypto-related income into the public record. In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Bessent said, “I don’t think there’s an appearance problem.”
The disclosure, released earlier this week, said Mr. Trump has earned about $1.4 billion from crypto ventures since beginning his second term. It included earnings from his meme coin $TRUMP and from World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency company backed by the president and his family. For readers searching now, the reason is simple: that number is newly public, and it landed while the administration is still pressing for a friendlier regulatory climate for digital assets.
Bessent framed the White House approach as part of a broader push to embrace new technology, saying, “This is an innovation presidency.” He added, “So whether it’s digital access, whether it’s AI, whether it’s everything that is going on in the tech ecosystem that, you know, all Americans are benefiting from that.” The remarks came after White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told CBS News on Tuesday that there are no conflicts of interest in the disclosure.
That defense runs straight into the criticism from Congressional Democrats, who say the crypto windfall is a conflict-of-interest issue because the administration has sought to loosen regulations on cryptocurrency. The filing does not break out how much of the $1.4 billion came from $TRUMP and how much came from World Liberty Financial, leaving the largest part of the story still hidden inside the total. In other words, the public now knows the scale of the earnings, but not the split.
Bessent also used the interview to point to the broader economy, saying Thursday’s jobs report showed some signs of strain even as he said he expects conditions to improve. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said U.S. employers added 57,000 jobs in June, the unemployment rate dipped to 4.2% from 4.3% the month before, and annual wage growth was 3.5%, below inflation. Bessent said he hoped average gasoline prices would fall to $3 a gallon by Labor Day and said, “we’re going to get to the other side of this.”
For now, the dispute is not about whether Trump’s crypto earnings are real; the filing makes that clear. It is about what those earnings mean while his administration is trying to loosen the rules of the same market that produced them, and that question is not going away just because Bessent says he does not see a problem.
