Trump's rise from bunker boy to billionaire | If You're Listening

Donald Trump gets very upset when he can't control the narrative.So there's possibly nothing in his first term that upset him more than when this news leaked.

It was on Friday night that the Secret Service bundled the president into the bomb and plane -proof bunker under the White House, fearing the grounds of the executive mansion were about to be overrun.

It was mid -2020.100 ,000 Americans had died of COVID.Lockdowns were in place, the economy was struggling, and people were in the streets protesting against police brutality, and against Donald Trump specifically.

Just a block away from the seat of power, angry voices echoed through the night.

As enormous protests raged outside the White House perimeter, the Secret Service decided that as a safety precaution, Trump needed to be taken to the White House bunker.Then, they erected a large steel barrier around the White House grounds to ensure that nobody could get in.By the following morning, people were calling Donald Trump mean names.

Hey, Bunker Boy, you're supposed to be the leader of the free world.

Bunker Boy, as many are calling him.

So Bunker Boy Donnie Trump finally got his wall.It's that powered Bunker Boy.

He was furious.He demanded that the person who leaked the news that he'd been taken to the bunker be put on trial for treason and then executed.This was a particularly low point in his presidency, because at the time, his accountants reported that while he apparently had a net worth of over $5 billion, he only had about $92 million in actual cash on hand.Obviously, that's quite a bit of money, but it wasn't enough to give him lifelong security.See, the bunker under the White House might be able to protect him from an angry mob or an airstrike,but it wouldn't be able to protect him from legal trouble if he lost power at the upcoming 2020 election.

Court cases, both criminal and civil, would end up costing him tens of millions in legal fees and potentially see him hit with a bill for hundreds of millions in damages.And yet, fast forward to Trump's second term in office, and a lot has changed.Firstly, he's not the bunker boy anymore, largely because the bunker is gone, along with the entire building on top of it.And secondly, he's got significantly more money in the bank.Now, in an average month, he's earning twice as much money as he had in total back in 2020.His fortunes have changed, quite literally.

So what happened?How did he get all this money?Well, last week we talked about the secrecy surrounding his White House ballroom project.This story is very, very public.It involves podcasters, pickup artists, and the one commodity that never loses its value.Access to powerful people.

Buckle up, because it's a lot.I'm Matt Beavan, and this is If You're Listening.Okay, so until very recently, Donald Trump didn't spend a whole lot of time talking about cryptocurrency.In fact, he thought the whole idea was a scam.

Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam.I don't like it because it's another currency competing against the dollar.

If you don't know anything about cryptocurrency, don't worry, neither does Donald Trump.

We will create a framework to enable the safe, responsible expansion of staple, stable,Do you know what a stable coin is?Does anybody know?Please raise your hand.

Now, fortunately, most of the story is about people.And, like almost everything these days, it starts with a couple of podcast bros trying to make money from their audience.

We are starting a subscription -based, very intimate team experience.We're going to call it the Maverick Club.

This is YouTuber and podcaster Logan Paul in 2020, launching an exciting new way for his fans to give him money.

Yeah, the Maverick Club.

Basically, you get an intimate access, an experiential, Paul was launching the Maverick Club, which was basically a way for his fans to pay for even more access to his life, using a new platform called Subify.This platform was run by a marketing bro named Chase Hero.This partnership was a big deal for Chase Hero.While he was selling access to Logan Paul, he was also getting access to Logan Paul.Up until this point, he'd lived a pretty Let's say interesting life, doing online marketing for various products and dabbling in crypto trading to fund his, let's say, lifestyle.

For years, I lived in the Caribbean half the year and I lived, you know, six months apart from my wife and kids.I missed my second daughter's birth because I was in Puerto Rico tripping on LSD.

Um, after he linked up with Logan Paul, Chase's day job became spending every day with his new buddy.

And I realized, you know, with your guys' help and showing me this industry and how amazing it is, maybe I'm wrong.How powerful was to meet him?

Huge.Uh, I would say it changed my life.Absolutely.All of us, everyone.at this table, for sure.

He started producing videos of himself doing martial arts and hanging out with Logan Paul and his gang.

I wanted to give it to someone, the Maverick Club.Figured why not give it to the inventor of the Maverick Club, J .C.Rowan, ladies and gentlemen.

Now you might be thinking, how did this grade A dad with such impressive business acumen come up with a company like Subify?And the answer is he had help.Chase Hero's business partner was a guy named Zach Folkman, whose previous job was giving talks to dudes on how to pick up women.His business was called Date Hotter Girls, and involved giving talks like this.You guys know those girls?The ones that like, they walk in, you're like, oh, this girl's just too hot not to approach.

It doesn't matter that her mom's there, her dad's there, whatever.

I was like, go up to this girl, tell this girl if her parents weren't watching her like a hawk, You'd be trying to make out with her shamelessly right now.

OK, look, to be fair, I imagine this is a great way to give a girl your number if you want her to give it directly to the police.So these two guys, Chase and Zack, ran a business where they sold access to podcast bros.Well, they did for a while.By late 2023, the Maverick Club's social media accounts had gone dark and Logan Paul had stopped mentioning it on his show.It probably won't surprise you to hear that during this time, Chase and Zach also dabbled in cryptocurrency.They didn't have a whole lot of success themselves, but they'd seen people in their orbit make a great deal of money.

And Chase was sure that if they could crack the code, they could make a lot of money too.

You can literally sell sh** in a can, wrapped in piss, covered in human skin for a billion dollars if the story's right.Because people will buy it.And that is what is going on in the crypto space.

Chase knew that cryptocurrency trading was all about stories and hype.Getting people interested in buying something with no inherent value through the power of marketing.

I'm not going to question the right and wrong of all that.All I'm saying is as a human being you have the ability to make a ton of money right now.

He would need to find someone who could help create that hype.So he went to the golf course.

Swing, Chase.Good hold up.

In the summer of 2018, while golfing at the Shell Bay Club in Miami, Chase Hero bumped into the son of the club's owner.They got talking and eventually Chase was introduced to his new friend's dad, the owner himself, a man by the name of Steve Witkoff.Now we've done a whole episode on Steve Whitkoff because he's one of Donald Trump's oldest friends.The two have been friends ever since Whitkoff bought Trump a sandwich at a New York deli in the mid 80s.They have a shared interest in being rich, property development, golf and meddling in the Middle East without knowing a whole lot about how it works.Witkoff was impressed by Chase Hero and Zach Folkman.

They look a little different than us because they dress a little different than us because that's the crypt.A few more tattoos.But I was introduced to Chase and to Zach.

Like many crypto finance bros before them, Chase and Zach talked a big game about providing a way for people to access decentralized and frictionless finance using crypto.

These guys are as smart as any currency traders I've ever met.And They began talking to me about decentralized finance, which means frictionless finance, and why it made sense for people and about the forgotten who can't who can't get credit out there.

Witkoff wasn't entirely across all the details, but he was convinced the pair were going to revolutionize banking.So he set up a meeting so Chase and Mr. Date Hotter Girls could pitch their big idea to the Trump family.

And as I began to understand it, I said, who would understand this better than the Trump family?And so we had a meeting initially with Eric Don Jr and the president and his council.

Of course, Trump wasn't actually interested in frictionless finance using crypto, but he was interested in the potential payday.This wasn't the first time that the Trump family had dabbled in this kind of thing.Blockchains and crypto and the such like.Trump had already tried selling what he called digital trading cards, but it was really just a way for people to pay money to get access to him.

I got some some breaking news here.Donald Trump is launching an NFT collection.If you buy 45 trading cards, you get to have dinner with him.

This is crypto podcaster Farrokh getting hyped about the potential to buy dinner with Trump.

When you think about it, he's selling dinner with him for $4 ,500.You tell me we can't get good content out of this.And I don't like Donald Trump.

at all.

I don't align with him whatsoever, socially, morally, economically, any single way, shape or form.

So, I mean, I hate him, but still, it's crazy.

Less than two years after saying that he hated Trump and everything he stood for, Farrokh found himself hosting the launch of Trump, the Whitcoffs, Chase and Zach's new crypto venture, World Liberty Financial.

Well, I appreciate you for for allowing me to interview you and in your wonderful Mar -a -Lago home, which is truly an honor, and I'm very grateful for it.Exus is Exus, right?I remember the day your NFT collections came out.That was super cool.There was a chance to have dinner with you.And I remember just

I think my favorite part of this whole thing is how disdainfully Trump looks at Farrokh the entire time he's talking to him.He's like, I can't really believe that I have to hang out with these guys.

One of those things we have to do, whether we like it or not, may have to do it.

During the launch interview, Trump admitted that he had no real idea of what was going on and that his sons, Barron, Eric and Don Jr. were actually running the show.

Barron's a young guy, but he knows that he talks about his wallet.He's got four wallets or something.And I'm saying, what?He knows this inside out.And Eric and Don know it so well.They do.

It's almost like younger people know it a lot better than older people.But I have a lot of respect for them.

So let's get up to speed here.What is this crypto venture, World Liberty Financial?Well, the actual mission of the company isn't particularly clear, but that's by design.In simple terms, World Liberty Financial's apparent plan was something to do with decentralized finance, which means frictionless finance.But that's basically what every crypto company does.They say they're going to fix some problem or other using new technology.

Then they whip up a whole lot of hype, making the company sound like it's going to change the world.Then they sell tokens so people can invest in the idea, very much like the way you buy shares on the regular stock market.But most of these companies never actually do the thing they say they're going to do.They create hype to bring in investors and then kind of just keep the money.The system only exists to turn hype into cash for the people starting the business.It's why, in order to make a profit, they really needed Trump's backing.

So, in exchange for his enthusiastic, though slightly confused endorsement, Trump would own a 38 % share of the company.and take a percentage of the sales anytime someone bought a token.So it suddenly became very much in his interest that people invest in World Liberty Financial.

You're going to be happy and you're going to love your crypto.And as long as you have crypto, you're happy.

Now, for Trump, This was a pretty good deal, because he took on basically no personal risk, aside from trusting Zach and Chase not to screw the whole thing up in a way that might embarrass him.Initially, the World Liberty Financial tokens did not sell well at all.But then...Trump won the US presidential election, and everything started to change very quickly.The tokens began selling in their millions.World Liberty Financial, despite not providing any services or releasing any products, was raking in millions in investment.

Through his share in the company, Trump was making a great deal of money too.There was clearly a lot of money to be made in the crypto world, so why not cut out the middleman?A few days before he returned to the White House, he decided to double down and launch a cryptocurrency of his own.Yes, that is Snoop Dogg karaokeing to Fleetwood Mac.It's the 17th of January, 2025, and he's one of the headliners at the Crypto Ball in Washington, D .C.

, celebrating Trump's upcoming inauguration.

Sounds like a fun event.Anyway, midway through it, the crypto folks got some news.

We're live at the crypto mall and the official Trump token just launched.I'm one of the only people at this event that owns a token.

The official Trump token or the Trump coin had been released for purchase.buy.In layman's terms, what Trump's team had done is create a billion digital Trump coins, then released 200 million of those coins to whoever wants to buy them.Demand for the coins sets the price.Trump then took a small percentage of every transaction as a service fee.He also had the option of selling some of his own 800 million coins if he wanted to.

This kind of thing happens semi -regularly.They're called meme coins.People buy them for multiple reasons.On the first day of sale, people tend to buy them because they hope they can get in before a rush of other buyers do, and hopefully ride the price up.as others try and do the same thing.

They're really not treating it as a form of a very solid, legitimate investment that's going to result in their nest egg.They're really playing a game, seeing if they get lucky.

In just a few hours, if you time your buy and sell orders just right, you can make a lot of money.To make the most of the situation, you need to sell the coin when you think the value has peaked.The price of one Trump coin increased from $1 per coin at the open to $74 a coin less than 48 hours later.The value of Trump's 800 million coins was theoretically like $12 billion.By the time Trump returned to the Oval Office after the inauguration events were over, the whole thing had settled down a little bit.A Donald Trump meme coin was fetching $37 .5 US dollars and its total market value was $7 .5 billion US.

Trump was asked about this during his first press conference back in the Oval, surrounded by some of his billionaire friends.

I don't know where it is. I don't know much about it other than I launched it.I heard it was very successful.I haven't checked it.Where is it today?

You made a lot of money, sir.

How much?

Several billion dollars, it seems like, in the last several days.

Several billion?That's peanuts for these guys.

You can see by the look on his face that he still doesn't quite believe that this is real money.To Trump, assets need to be tangible, to be real.Actual US dollars in the bank.property, shares in a well -established brick -and -mortar company.This Trump coin felt to him like billions of dollars worth of theoretical value.Smoke in the wind, really.

A mirage.And in many ways it was.When you hold such a large amount of a coin, there's no way for you to realize the actual value of those coins without flooding the market with them and crashing the price.He knew that he couldn't actually sell the cryptocurrency he owned, which is why he wasn't really paying attention to that.All he cared about were the individual trades that people were making.See, every time someone bought or sold a Trump coin, he took a percentage of the transaction fee.

He was also being paid royalties by the company that set up the coin in the first place.So any money they made, he'd get a slice of that too.These arrangements went very well for Trump and his family, but barely anyone else.

They sold that meme coin, which netted a huge amount of money for them, but left about a million investors, I think about $3 billion in the hole.

The venture gained Donald Trump.635 million dollars.And that's real US dollars, money in the bank, not theoretical crypto money.He was also still making a lot of money through world liberty financial sales as more and more investors were buying in right around inauguration day.See, world libertyFinancial and the Trump coin were basically just the Maverick Club with extra steps to make it look more legitimate.

Tipping a large amount of money into either one could get you access to Trump.It was something Farrokh noticed and pointed out on his crypto radio show.What do you feel about Trump's meme coin?

I actually don't know too much about it.They're all sitting at dinner.in May 22nd with access for the top 20 holders of the meme coin.25 is more than that.So there's some access clearly, but are you a top 25 holder of Trump's meme coin?

No.People with connections to Trump's crypto businesses started getting favorable treatment from his administration.

A crypto entrepreneur named Justin Sun came in and bought 200 million of them.If you have not heard of him, he's been charged and his company has been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission.And those are charges that he would very much like to go away.

Wouldn't you know it, those charges were dropped.And it's not just people in the crypto world.Foreign governments were also getting in on the action.

Four days before Donald Trump's inauguration last year, lieutenants to a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49 % stake in the Trump's fledgling cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial.

These deals really worked for Trump.The evidence is right there in his financial disclosures.Throughout 2025, Trump made $334 million in hard cash from World Liberty Financial, as well as his hundreds of millions from the Trump coin.But while those are the biggest generators of income, they're by no means the only ones.People who want things from the US president are giving him money in all sorts of ways.

Since Donald Trump was reelected, the Trump organization has converted10 new foreign developments.

For context, in Donald Trump's first term, his property development company, the Trump Organization, did zero new deals in foreign countries.Now, It's an entirely different story.

We're doing projects in Jeddah.We're doing projects in Oman.We're doing projects in Riyadh.We're doing projects all over the region.I'm doing a big hotel in Dubai as we speak.We're about to do one here in Abu Dhabi, which we're super excited about.

There's also the free jet that Trump was gifted by Qatar.

In the lead up to an official visit to Qatar, Donald Trump indicated the administration would accept a used Boeing 747.as an unconditional donation by the Qatari government.

Oh and then of course there are the lawsuits.He's made tens of millions more by filing often outlandish multi -billion dollar lawsuits that media companies settle just to keep him sweet.

Broadcasters ABC and CBS along with the owners of Facebook, Google and Twitter have given him a total of 86 .5 million dollars in settlements to lawsuits that they almost certainly could have won if they took them to court.They all likely did that because they thought that paying the president a few million dollars would prevent him from causing them billions of dollars in regulatory problems.It's reasonably clear that all of this money has flowed into his pocket because he is the president, not because his businesses are so successful.It's Chase Hero and Zach Folkman's business model, but at an unprecedented international scale.People aren't just paying for dinner with the president.They're paying him hoping for favorable policy treatment.

Some people have argued to us that it all happens out in the open.How can it be corruption when it's out there in the sunlight?

Well, it doesn't look as scary or nefarious.And in fact, it normalizes.and it makes it look like it's okay.Nobody does it like this.

Trump has found a security bunker that he never needs to be rushed into.It follows him everywhere in the form of billions of dollars in cash he can deploy at any time to protect him from basically anything that might come his way.Stopping him from doing this seems difficult under the current circumstances.Currently, the only people who could, Congress and the Department of Justice, don't seem that interested.The biggest question is though, will this just be what every president does from now on?