I returned to Blue Amp Media last Wednesday to talk with my mates Cliff Schecter and David Shuster about one of the summer’s biggest stories: a new report revealed Trump made $2.2 billion in 2025—much of it coming from cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, his own investors (many of them working- and middle-class Trump supporters) lost $3.8 billion.
Here’s the thing: from a macroeconomic perspective, a couple (or a few) billion is a drop in the bucket for the U.S. economy. But the policy changes that helped the president acquire those billions—like gutting the DOJ’s crypto enforcement unit—could cost the country trillions. And morally, the case is even more cut and dry: taking tens of thousands at a time from people who wanted the best for you destroys lives.
We also ran the numbers on something I’d long suspected but never expected to see demonstrated so brazenly: buying the presidency is now extremely profitable.
Some simple — and very rough! — math: Total Republican campaign spending in the last presidential election was roughly $2 billion. The president has now earned $2 billion in just the first year, putting him on track for $8 billion over the term. Buying the Presidency yields a rate of return that few other investments ever offer. Add in the myriad ways the broader Trump family is getting richer — young Barron is already worth $150 million — and the math gets even crazier.
We spend a lot of time worrying about the role of money in politics, but this is something new: the role of politics in money. No democracy is built to survive being a profitable investment.
Our conversation also touched on the costs and benefits of prediction markets, my defense of stock buybacks (but not the policy failures surrounding them), and the implications of a weakening link between economic and military might—demonstrated by Ukraine’s momentum in their war against Russia.
If there’s one thing I want you to take from conversation, it’s this: economics isn’t hard. Economists just find it profitable to make it sound hard. Economic questions will shape your life and that of your kids, and you deserve the tools to join the conversation.
That’s exactly what Platypus Economics is for.
