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‘Brazen act of self-dealing.’ Lawmakers, watchdogs alarmed after Trump regulators let Trump firm start a bank

By CNN

New York (CNN) — Regulators appointed by President Donald Trump are allowing the Trump family’s flagship cryptocurrency venture to become a bank, a move that is alarming ethics watchdogs and some lawmakers.

World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm Trump and his sons launched in 2024, announced late Friday that it received a preliminary conditional approval from banking officials to become a trust bank. Final approval hinges on a series of conditions being met.

The green light from regulators is a big win for World Liberty.

The firm won’t be able to take deposits or make loans. But the bank charter will allow World Liberty to cut out the middlemen it relies on to safeguard and issue USD1, a dollar-backed stable coin that has more than $4 billion in circulation.

World Liberty is celebrating the major milestone, while critics worry this is a new wrinkle on the classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse that will give corporations and foreign actors a new way to stealthily curry favor with the White House.

Trump, his sons and other investors started World Liberty weeks before winning the 2024 election. After taking office, Trump appointed crypto-friendly regulators — some of whom have now blessed the firm’s plan to become a bank.

“Bank failures can be catastrophic, as we found out in 1929 and again in 2008,” Richard Painter, the top ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told CNN. “It is quite precarious to have the president and his family invested heavily in one of our most important regulated industries at the same time as he has the power to hire and fire the regulators.”

Major crypto profits for Trump

Those investments have already paid off handsomely.

Trump earned more than $526 million from the sale of cryptocurrency tokens tied to World Liberty Financial last year alone, according to disclosure forms. And he earned approximately $263 million from the sale of equity in World Liberty to a group of investors led by a royal from the United Arab Emirates, The Wall Street Journal reported.

World Liberty is run by Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump friend and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

“President Trump is now the first President in history to approve, operate and supervise his own bank,” Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement. “This is the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen.”

Warren and fellow Senate Democrats announced plans on Friday to introduce a bill that would ban federal regulators from approving bank applications for banks owned or controlled by the president, vice president, family members, members of Congress or other US officials.

‘There are no conflicts of interest’

The White House rejected the criticism.

“All of President Trump’s investment holdings are held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement. “This is the same, tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump, his family and his administration for a decade … There are no conflicts of interest.”

David Wachsman, a spokesman for World Liberty Financial, defended the bank charter preliminary approval, noting it will ensure “robust and permanent” regulatory supervision “that will outlast the Trump administration.”

“Critics are missing the point: World Liberty Financial is running towards regulation and continuous oversight, not away from it,” Wachsman said.

World Liberty also noted that the banking charter approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency includes a promise from DT Marks SC LLC, a Trump family entity, to be a passive investor in the new bank.

That agreement, signed by Eric Trump, states that DT Marks will not directly or indirectly try to influence the bank’s operations, have an officer at the bank or take a series of other steps.

In other words, the Trump entity is promising to be a silent partner in the bank.

Still, the Trump family stands to gain from the business and its new role as a trust bank.

Critics worry this regulatory decision will backfire.

“Granting a bank charter to the First Family’s crypto firm poses unprecedented risks because it creates insurmountable conflicts of interest,” Patrick Woodall, managing director at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, said in a statement. “The Trump OCC cannot credibly or impartially supervise or examine the Trump family crypto bank, make sure it operates safely and soundly, maintain adequate reserves for the Trump stablecoin or protect customers from unfair or deceptive practices.”

Stalled crypto legislation

Ironically, the bank charter decision on World Liberty could further delay White House efforts to pass the Clarity Act.

That legislation, stalled in Congress, would establish a clear regulatory framework for crypto and help validate the relatively new industry’s place in the broader financial landscape.

The bill had been stalled in part by concerns from Democrats who were pushing to force President Trump to ditch his crypto investments.

“The continued fight over the ethics language may derail crypto industry efforts to get Congress to enact the Clarity Act this year,” Jaret Seiberg, managing director at TD Washington Research Group, wrote in a note to clients on Monday.

The-CNN-Wire
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Record share of kindergartners missed required vaccines last year as Trump executive order takes aim at state mandates

By CNN
(CNN) — A record share of kindergartners in the United States had an exemption for a required vaccination last school year, as the Trump administration continues to make moves to reduce the number of vaccinations recommended for children.An executive order signed by President Donald Trump last week aims to reshape the federal government’s approach to vaccines. The order offers recommendations to “give parents more information and options” — but the authority to set and enforce vaccine requirements still lies with states, and a growing share are utilizing existing policies that allow exemptions.The administration signaled that it will push states to rework their vaccine requirements to incorporate the new federal guidelines, effectively upending longstanding practices aimed at improving childhood immunization rates. It’s unclear exactly how officials plan to reinforce this, but the Department of Justice, the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services have been directed to tie compliance with federal funding.The new executive order emphasizes the administration’s aim to “maximize parental choices over vaccinations for their children,” specifically noting that states should “provide religious and medical exemptions” to vaccine requirements.All 50 states have their own laws requiring certain vaccines for students to attend school, and all allow students to be exempted from school vaccine requirements for medical reasons. The vast majority of states also allow vaccine exemptions for non-medical reasons, which may be categorized as religious or personal.Utilization of these exemptions is more common than it’s ever been. Data published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 4.2% of kindergartners had an exemption for at least one required vaccine during the 2025-26 school year.This left about 157,000 new schoolchildren without full coverage for at least one state-mandated vaccine last school year, CDC data shows – nearly 20,000 more than the year before.The share of students with a vaccine exemption is the highest on record and twice as high as it was a decade ago. Last school year, only 0.2% of exemptions were for medical reasons, a share that has held steady for years.Exemptions increased in all but nine states, and nearly half of states report exemptions exceeding 5%, according to the CDC.According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, only four states do not allow exemptions that are not for medical reasons: California, Connecticut, Maine and New York.New York removed the option for religious exemptions for school vaccines in 2019 after measles outbreaks in the state grew to some of the largest the US had seen in decades.The new CDC data shows that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination rate among kindergartners fell only slightly last school year, from 92.5% to 92.4%, but that’s still well below the 95% coverage needed to provide herd immunity and prevent outbreaks.State authority to set vaccine policy has been challenged before but broadly upheld by the US Supreme Court.States are still reviewing the new executive order, but many – including those that follow federal guidance for vaccine policy and those that have broken from federal recommendations – say that it does not require any changes at the state level.“Federal recommendations do not change the requirements in Texas,” the state health department said in an email to CNN.Others responded to the president’s action with a commitment to science-based vaccine policy.“Vaccines are our most effective defense against vaccine-preventable illnesses,” Dr. Puthiery Va, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement. “In Maine, vaccines remain available at no cost to eligible children through the Maine CDC’s Immunization Program. Maine’s school and child care immunization requirements remain unchanged by federal actions to date.”Changes to any state vaccine exemption laws would need to be passed by state legislatures, many of which will not meet again until January.But courts can get involved, too. Mississippi started allowing religious exemptions in 2023 after a federal court order, and a move to allow religious exemptions in West Virginia is facing legal challenges. Before these changes, both states were known to have exceptionally high childhood vaccination coverage under some of the strictest laws.Public health experts say that building trust in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines is key to reversing the decline in childhood immunization rates.“If more and more parents choose not to vaccinate their children for non-medical reasons, we will no doubt see a rise in disease outbreaks,” Dr. William Moss, an associate professor with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has said.Measles cases in the US have reached a 35-year-high this year, the vast majority of which are in people who have not been vaccinated with the MMR.But the new executive order advises that the MMR be separated into three individual shots — a dramatic change that goes against broad scientific consensus and a suggestion that could raise doubts.States have typically aligned their policies for vaccine requirements with recommendations from the CDC and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). But ACIP has undergone sweeping changes under US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and actions by the federal agency and the advisory board to overhaul the childhood vaccine schedule — including a reduction in the number of diseases covered by routine vaccinations — have led many states to break from this longstanding practice.According to KFF, 28 states have announced that they will no longer follow federal vaccine recommendations. Most have indicated that they will instead follow recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, an independent medical association. “For decades, the U.S. childhood immunization schedule was developed through a rigorous scientific process required by law that evaluates the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and how they should be given to patients. This transparent, expert-led process has helped prevent serious diseases, reduce hospitalizations, and save millions of lives,” the Governors Public Health Alliance said in a statement. The coalition includes more than a dozen governors who represent about a third of the US population.“President Trump’s Executive Order directing changes to longstanding federal vaccine recommendations circumvents that process and defies scientific consensus. It also risks causing confusion and endangering our children,” the alliance said.“Parents should know that vaccines currently available in the United States remain available and that the Executive Order does not change that. Governors and state public health leaders hold the power to continue working with healthcare providers, schools, and local health agencies to ensure that parents have access to trusted information and can make informed decisions regarding the health of their children.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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