Trump's Family Makes a Deposit With Citigroup

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00:00For years, President Trump's money was getting shunned by all the major banks in the U.S.

00:05Now his wealth has found a new home, Citi. Bloomberg sources reveal that President Trump's

00:11son, Eric, established a trust at the bank that holds some of the president's money. For more,

00:16we're joined now by Bloomberg banking reporter Todd Gillespie. Todd, first of all, fantastic story,

00:22but what exactly is the arrangement that Eric has found with CitiBank?

00:25Yeah, thanks, Danny. I mean, so what we do know is that since the election, you know,

00:30Jane Fraser, as many corporate leaders in America did, reached out to President Donald Trump to

00:34congratulate him. As part of those talks, in some way, Eric Trump ended up becoming a client of

00:41Citigroup. We know that he's now a client of Citigroup's private bank and has set up this trust

00:46where he is basically managing or sort of the trustee of this trust, essentially. But the money in the

00:52trust is his father's, and it's for the benefit of his father. His father is a beneficiary of this

00:58trust. So we know now, you know, the president's finances have obviously been a matter of, you

01:03know, intense interest. Generally, the family and the president have already had to disclose one trust

01:08that we know he was set up several years ago, the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which is at

01:12another bank and largely looked after by Don Jr., as we understand as legal filings show. This is a new

01:19trust, a previously unreported trust, which again, you know, helps us put another piece of this puzzle

01:24with the president's wealth. And I mean, during the first administration, there was a question about

01:28how inflated the president's wealth was from his perspective, you know, whether he really was worth

01:35more than a billion dollars. And now, I mean, since the November election, his wealth has skyrocketed.

01:44We now have have him pegged at about seven point seven billion dollars on the on the Bloomberg rich

01:49list. Yeah, that's right. Now, yeah, his wealth has more than doubled essentially since starting his

01:54presidential, his second presidential campaign. So, you know, aside from the fact he's the president

01:59of the United States, he's also a very valuable client potentially for any bank like Citigroup.

02:03But also in the context right now, you know, no suggestion necessarily of a quid pro quo or anything

02:09like that. But every bank across Wall Street is doing their best to ingratiate themselves with

02:14the administration. But particularly for Citigroup right now, they need support from the government.

02:19They need to be in the government's good books because they have two key regulatory consent orders

02:24that are hanging over them and have been since 2020. And they got a big fine from the government

02:28regulators last year. So Jane Fraser, it certainly doesn't hurt that she's in the good books

02:33if she if indeed this is part of that, you know, for, you know, in the in the Trump administration.

02:39And she was one of two U.S. Bank CEOs that attended the state banquet in the UK just last month with

02:46King Charles and President Donald Trump. And Brian Moynihan. And Brian Moynihan. Yeah, it was

02:51it was Fraser and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America. And Fraser herself was sat next to one of the White

02:56House deputy chiefs of staff who was married to what? Who was married to the former assistant of

03:01Jared Kushner, whose family also banked with Citigroup. And that is a long. It was honestly

03:05a great story, Todd. I read every single word. It was a really good story. And it's just kind

03:09of a stranger because we remember Davos where President Trump lashed out at Brian Moynihan,

03:14who was kind of left speechless and didn't know really what to say to him. It seems like a turn

03:19in favor if all of a sudden they're having dinner at the White House with President Trump. Sure. Well,

03:24you know that, you know, and we do know that JP Morgan as well, Jamie Dimon has been on the receiving

03:29end of Trump's ire as well. But one bank that has largely escaped criticism here, never really

03:34been, you know, a target of President Trump's public comments is Citigroup. But we do know

03:39that Citigroup had a banking relationship with the Trump organization or Trump's businesses back in

03:43the 1990s and did lose money on that. They were burnt. You know, when Trump had his fault, you know,

03:49his experiment with Trump Shuttle, the airline that faltered, you know, big real estate loans that

03:54needed to be restructured. Citibank kept cropping up there as one of the largest lenders. Obviously,

03:59that relationship soured, went quiet for many years. And now it seems like they're back in some

04:04form. I think it's interesting to watch the two brothers kind of jockey for position, right? During

04:10the first administration, it was Trump's daughter who was seemingly the favored child or certainly more

04:17in the public spotlight, right? And now you have Eric Trump kind of rising up, his profile getting

04:25almost bigger than Donald Trump Jr. Especially with all the crypto stuff. Exactly. And they've

04:31made so much money with that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, Eric Trump, we know, is the executive vice

04:36president of the Trump organization. Now, you know, he has been a key part in building a lot of these

04:42relationships on behalf of his father, Donald Trump Jr. You know, Don Jr. is, you know, doing private

04:47equity, venture capital stuff on the side as well. But, you know, this is the second term right now.

04:52You know, these relationships have been built across across New York, across the world, across the

04:57Middle East now, of course, as well. And these sons are certainly playing a key role in, you know,

05:02in cultivating that.

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