Republican Chris Christie has compared Donald Trump’s staggering personal profits from cryptocurrency to the kind of self-enrichment associated with Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s annual financial disclosure, released by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, showed the president made over $1.4 billion from crypto ventures in 2025 alone. The 927-page document revealed that Trump pocketed more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial, the crypto company he founded with sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump that sells “governance tokens,” and another $635 million from his $TRUMP meme coin, launched three days before his inauguration.
The disclosure also showed over $80 million from legal settlements with media companies, $4.7 million from Trump-branded watches, and seven-figure profits from Bibles, sneakers, and other merchandise.
Speaking on ABC’s This Week, the former New Jersey governor was withering. “He and his family believe they are entitled to this,” Christie said. “They believe, when they came back and won this election the second time, that that gave them license, that the American people gave them license to essentially go and take whatever they could take over this period of time. And, quite frankly, you know, when you look at the scale of this, here’s another thing apparently that Donald Trump learned from Vladimir Putin during his first term. This is Putin-esque type of corruption and self-enrichment!”
Trump has defended his earnings, telling reporters, “I don’t get involved in my personal—we have funds that run my money. I don’t talk to them. I never—I don’t even speak to them. So I have many people—I don’t know what they call it—closed accounts, or something. You put your money in, and that’s it.”
Christie, who ran against Trump for the Republican nomination in 2016 and 2024, acknowledged that individual ethics laws don’t apply to the president, but host George Stephanopoulos interjected that the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause potentially does.
“That’s right,” Christie agreed, pivoting to the Qatari-gifted plane. “The plane. Oh, the plane is a gift. It won’t cost us anything. Well, no, it costs us hundreds of millions of dollars to get it up to Air Force One level of operation. Every time he says one of those things—the ballroom won’t cost anybody anything—now we’re talking about them wanting to move a billion dollars to work on the ballroom.”
He closed with a warning for the president. “The American people are starting to catch up to this. You can feel it.”
The White House has been approached for comment.
