Trump's $100K Post Feed, a Canceled Iran Strike, and a Senator vs. His Son-in-Law

Good morning, it's Monday, August 3. Trump Media is now selling Wall Street faster access to the president's posts — for $100,000 a month.

Also in today's issue: Iran deal claims face contradictions, Capital One's money-laundering disclosure, A GOP senator breaks ranks on abuse.

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Here's what $100,000 a month buys you in America right now: the chance to read a presidential social media post a few milliseconds before everyone else. And if that sounds absurd, it's because it is — and it might also be a federal crime.

On Friday, Trump Media launched Truth API, a paid data feed that gives Wall Street trading firms faster access to posts from the ten most influential Truth Social accounts, including President Trump's. The president posts about tariffs, military strikes, or a stock he likes. Markets move. And now, for a fee only hedge funds can afford, you can get that post before the rest of America even sees a notification on their phone. By the time you open the app, the trade has already been made.

Here's the thing. Trump controls more than 41% of Trump Media through a family trust managed by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. So every subscription fee flows partly into the president's own pocket. If ten firms sign up at $100,000 each, that's a million dollars a month in revenue — and roughly $410,000 of it traces back to the man writing the posts. The president of the United States is selling advance access to his own words, and profiting from the sale.

Now look — social media companies do sell data feeds. That part isn't new. But when X or Meta sells access, the people posting aren't the president, and their posts don't routinely swing entire markets. Trump has used Truth Social to announce military operations, endorse specific stocks like Citigroup and Intel, and threaten new tariffs. Those aren't opinions. They're policy signals from the most powerful office on Earth — and we'll come back to why that matters in a moment.

Renée Jones, a former senior SEC official and Boston College professor, told NPR the service appears to violate insider trading laws. If some people are paying to see the president's posts before everyone else, she said, that information is being used unfairly. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Senator Adam Schiff of California urged the SEC to investigate before the launch. It launched anyway. Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, opened his own probe, calling the arrangement the "depraved essence of insider trading."

The SEC — the federal agency that polices financial markets — is now led by Chair Paul Atkins, a Trump appointee with a record of lighter enforcement. His office confirmed it received the senators' letter and declined to say whether it would act. Trump Media dismissed the concerns entirely. But here's the legal question that isn't going away: the posts do eventually become public. The whole product, though, is built on the gap between "eventually" and "right now." In high-frequency trading, milliseconds are worth millions. Selling a head start on presidential announcements to the highest bidder is exactly the kind of advantage securities law was built to prevent.

There's a past case worth knowing. In 2013, Thomson Reuters sold early access to a consumer confidence survey to paying clients. The case ended with the New York Attorney General stepping in — not the SEC. That's the closest comparison, and it didn't end well for the seller. Trump Media, meanwhile, has lost more than a billion dollars over the past two years, and its stock trades roughly 80% below its debut price. Revenue pressure helps explain why the company launched despite the legal questions circling it.

What to watch: whether the SEC takes any enforcement action, whether Raskin's probe produces documents showing who already subscribed, and whether this becomes a midterm issue in districts where voters already feel the rules apply to everyone except the people making them.

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Iran deal claims face contradictions. President Trump announced Saturday that he was canceling a planned attack on Iran, saying "the perimeters of a deal" had been agreed to. He said negotiations would begin Monday, covering the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which roughly a quarter of the world's oil passes — and denuclearization. But Iran's Foreign Ministry said it is not in direct talks with Washington, only in discussions with Oman about maritime issues. Oil prices fell roughly 5% Monday morning on the news, but gas remains near $4.10 per gallon nationally, and American households have paid an estimated $500 more in fuel costs since the war began in February. Only 28% of Americans approve of how Trump is handling the conflict, according to a recent AP-NORC poll.

Capital One cites money-laundering review. In a Friday evening court filing, Capital One disclosed that it closed roughly 385 Trump Organization bank accounts in 2021 after a months-long anti-money laundering review — the first time a major bank has formally tied money-laundering concerns to the president's family business. The Trump Organization and Eric Trump sued in 2025, claiming the closures were political retaliation driven by "woke" bias after January 6. Capital One called the claims "misguided" and based on "cherry-picked quotations." A federal judge has already dismissed two prior versions of the complaint. The disclosure doesn't accuse anyone of a crime, but it puts on the record a question no other bank has been willing to raise.

A GOP senator breaks ranks on abuse. Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio on Sunday publicly called on his former son-in-law, Representative Max Miller, to leave Congress, citing domestic abuse allegations from his daughter Emily Moreno. Police reports document allegations that Miller threw his ex-wife against a wall, threw hot water on her, and held a gun to her head. Their young daughter suffered a broken collarbone and handprint-shaped bruising. Miller denied all allegations in a livestream and said he would not withdraw. Republicans hold a 218–214 House edge, and Wednesday is Ohio's deadline to trigger a special election replacement. Asked aboard Air Force One, Trump said, "I'm gonna look at it."

P.S. Should the SEC investigate Truth API? Hit Reply — one word is enough.