Anderson Cooper slammed President Trump as “shameful” for selling early access for his often market-impacting posts to his social media platform Truth Social, billed at a monthly subscription of $100,000 per month.
In an interview with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Friday’s broadcast of “AC360,” Cooper covered the expensive new Truth Social service, titled Truth API. The CNN anchor reported that 10 companies have already “signed contracts” for the subscription since its Aug. 1 launch and asked Raskin if he has been investigating the case through his role on the House Judiciary Committee.
Cooper compared the new venture to the Trump family earning more than $500 million from selling his cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial’s token to United Arab Emirates leaders — a transaction that transpired just days into his second term.
“It is just incredible given that they’ve got the crypto company that they were paid hundreds of millions of dollars for, I think a 50% stake by a Middle Eastern regime. There’s so many ways that they are grabbing money. To do this, it’s so blatant,” Cooper said. “It’s incredible … I know there’s no shame anymore, but it is shameful.”
Raskin noted that Trump’s majority-stake ownership of Truth Social and his profiting off of market-moving information are akin to insider trading.
“That’s going directly into the president’s pocket. So, it’s a direct conflict of interest,” Raskin said. “It reminds me of those games they used to have where you had 10 minutes to take everything you can out of the supermarket. And it just seems like before the election comes, they’re trying to steal everything they can from the taxpayers and from the U.S. government, and to engage in every possible scam.”
The Intercept and the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation sued Trump on Wednesday over his Truth API venture for violations of the First Amendment and Fifth Amendment, asking a New York federal court to block the president from posting official government information on Truth Social.
“President Donald Trump is charging $100,000 per month for advance access to his official government announcements on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns,” the complaint alleges. “This scheme is extraordinary, corrupt and unconstitutional.”
Truth API has drawn significant backlash since its launch, with critics arguing that financial firms will pay for premium access to Trump’s statements about tariffs, government policy and private companies, thereby giving them an early jump to trade before that information more dramatically impacts the market.
