Presidential Chutzpah

Susan Estrich on Aug 15, 2026

When Truth Social, President Donald Trump's media mouthpiece, announced that it would be selling advance access to Trump's posts, I thought they were kidding. I mean, have they no shame? When the announcement met with a round of criticism and Democratic demands that the SEC investigate, I figured they'd back off.

Why do I keep underestimating the greediness of Trump Inc.? How many times will they have to prove that there are no limits?

On Monday, in an earnings call, Trump Media & Technology Group reported that it had signed up more than 10 customers in the week since the launch of this new product, Truth API, with customers, according to the Washington Post, paying "generally in the range" of $60,000 to $100,000 per month. "We recognize a modest amount of revenue from these agreements today," interim CEO Kevin McGurn said in the earnings call, adding that it can "grow into a meaningful, durable" driver of growth.

On Wednesday, two media organizations sued Trump, claiming that the API service is unconstitutional because it gives paying customers privileged access to public, market-moving announcements.

"A president selling priority access to news he himself generates for the benefit of a private company he controls is so blatantly corrupt and unconstitutional that it would have been hard to even fathom just a few years ago," Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, one of the organizations that brought suit, said in a statement.

It is definitely blatantly corrupt. I'm not sure how you turn that into a constitutional violation. It is, at best, a novel legal theory of the First Amendment. The argument that moving markets this way is a securities violation seems to be the stronger one, but no one expects the Trump SEC to investigate Trump, even though multiple Democratic legislators have asked them to. And isn't that just how corruption works?

Trump uses Truth Social as his primary means of communicating with the world. He moves markets, makes announcements about the war, the economy, the budget and politics. Some days, he posts as often as a hundred times. Early access to those posts has value, or people wouldn't pay for it.

And who makes money from all this? Trump's family is the primary shareholder in Trump Media & Technology Group. The president's stake in the company is worth nearly $1 billion, held in a revocable trust managed by his son Donald Trump Jr.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) launched his own investigation into the product, demanding that Trump Media produce records of communication between company executives and government officials related to the plan; information on the Truth Social accounts available through the API and any customers; and revenue projections, pricing, marketing materials and more.

"This White House-Wall Street-Trump Business feedback loop represents the depraved essence of insider trading," he wrote to interim CEO McGurn, who defends his product as business-as-usual. Maybe so for businesses; not for presidents.

There should be a law against this. Arguably, there is. The aptly named Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act is a 2012 law that prohibits the president, vice president and members of Congress from using nonpublic information learned through their offices for financial gain. But will anyone at the SEC or the Trump Justice Department ever pursue such a case? Of course not. And they will certainly argue against any private right of action.

The rich are different -- and Donald Trump more so than anyone. In Yiddish, we call it chutzpah. In English, it's just plain greed.

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.