US government: Trump’s teleprompter operator suspended over betting affair

An employee of Donald Trump, who was responsible for his teleprompter, is suspected of having made money by betting on words in the US president’s speeches. According to ABC News, he earned more than $100,000. Trump therefore had the man suspended, said White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.

Trump considered the process “extremely regrettable and, frankly, a disgrace,” Leavitt continued. The suspect has been placed on leave without pay and will “no longer work in the White House,” the spokeswoman said.

Betting on State of the Union Address

According to ABC, Trump’s staff had been using his teleprompter during speeches since 2016. He is said to have placed bets on certain words, sentences or topics in his speeches on the prediction platform Kalshi. He therefore bet on Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January and his State of the Union speech in February.

When asked, Kalshi stated that he had informed the US supervisory authority CFTC about suspicious activities in connection with Trump’s speeches that had “caught the eye” of experts. More than $90,000 of the winnings were frozen in the teleprompter operator’s account before he could withdraw them from the platform.

Leavitt said the U.S. government has “strict ethics policies” prohibiting such transactions. It is not the first case of its kind. In April, the US Department of Justice accused a soldier of having earned over $400,000 on the Polymarket platform with secret knowledge of plans to arrest Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in early January.