Vice President JD Vance defended Donald Trump from criticism over his voluminous trading of financial assets, saying the president does not buy or sell his own stocks.
"The president doesn't sit at the Oval Office on his computer on his, like, Robinhood account, buying and selling stocks, that's absurd. He has independent wealth advisers who manage his money," Vance said Tuesday during a White House press briefing. "He's not making these stock trades himself."
Federal ethics disclosures showed that Trump or his investment advisers made more than 3,700 trades in the first quarter, a flurry totaling tens of millions of dollars and involving major companies that have dealings with his administration, including Nvidia Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Boeing Co. Some critics have questioned the timing of some of those trades surrounding major news events or social media posts by the president.
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The revelation reignited conflict-of-interest concerns that have shadowed Trump's terms in the White House. No modern president has had such active investment activity; Trump's predecessors divested assets or took other steps to shield themselves from ethical conflicts while in office, such as placing assets into a blind trust.
Wall Street insiders expressed amazement at the number of trades.
"I'm baffled," Eric Diton, president and managing director at The Wealth Alliance, said last week. "In the 40-plus years of my time on Wall Street, this is an unusual amount of trading by any standards."
A spokesperson for the Trump Organization has previously said that the president's holdings are independently managed by third-party financial institutions that have control over all investment decisions, with trades executed through an automated process. Trump, his family members and his company play no role in the transactions nor do they receive advance notice of trading activity, the spokesperson said.
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(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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