‘Crypto President’ Donald Trump sort of knows CZ, but he doesn’t get crypto
It was only about a week ago that Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder and former CEO of Binance, was pardoned by Donald Trump. However, judging by Trump’s interview with Norah O’Donnell, you’d never know it.
CZ had been found guilty of and served time in prison for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering (AML) program at Binance.
Trump appeared on 60 Minutes and was questioned for a lengthy amount of time, ending with a discussion about CZ and crypto.
However, when asked about the appearance of corruption for pardoning the disgraced former Binance supremo, the president became combative and veered off topic.
“Okay, are you ready?” the president asked Norah O’Donnell. “I don’t know who he is. I don’t know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.”
He added, “This man was treated really badly by the Biden administration. And he was given a jail term. He’s highly respected. He’s a very successful guy. They sent him to jail and they really set him up. That’s my opinion. I was told about it.”
Trump’s claim appears to be that while he has a vague understanding of who CZ is and that the crypto executive served four months in prison, he doesn’t know, or even care, about the veracity of the Department of Justice’s charges or CZ’s guilty plea.
Read more: CZ threatens Elizabeth Warren with lawsuit over ‘money launderer’ claim
More importantly, Trump doesn’t understand crypto
What became apparent during the interview is that while Trump is happy to spin up crypto businesses, accept crypto as a form of payment, and seemingly offer quid pro quo agreements that include the purchasing of his personal crypto assets, he doesn’t actually understand what crypto is or how it works.
One very telling moment was his twisted description of his concerns and uninformed ideas about crypto.
“And what I wanna do is see crypto, ’cause if we don’t do it it’s gonna go to China, it’s gonna go to- this is no different to me than AI,” he said.
He also spoke of the US being “number one in crypto in the whole world,” though what this means or how that could be tracked is unknown.
The president continued, “We’re number one in crypto because I’m the president.” He then chastised O’Donnell for bringing up the topic of pay-to-play pardons and possible corruption within the administration.
Read more: MELANIA rugs TRUMP, rearranges CoinMarketCap homepage
CZ: respected, successful, litigious
While Trump may not have a solid concept of who CZ is outside of “highly respected” and “very successful,” many of his opponents across the aisle certainly do.
Within the past two weeks, Elizabeth Warren and CZ have faced off in a war of words, with Warren calling CZ a “criminal money launderer” on X and CZ suggesting, through attorneys, that he’d sue the senator for libel if the post wasn’t retracted.
The post hasn’t been taken down and CZ hasn’t filed a lawsuit.
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