President Donald Trump tried to brush off ethics concerns over his $1.4 billion cryptocurrency business, claiming he only talks to his children, who run his businesses, to tell them “I love you.”

Speaking with Punchbowl News about Congress’s landmark cryptocurrency bill, Trump criticized lawmakers’ efforts to include a provision that limits the president from profiting off digital assets.

“They want to do a bill, and in the bill, they want me to be different than everybody else,” Trump said of the Clarity Act.

“I don’t mind putting it in a blind trust; I don’t run it myself anyway. I let my kids run it,” he added. “I never talk to them about things… You know, they’re not involved in government; I don’t talk to them about government. I don’t talk to them about much other than to say ‘I love you, kids.’”

The president has made similar claims in the past when questioned about the Trump Organization’s business deals with foreign governments or companies that contract with the U.S.

He’s repeatedly insisted he doesn’t talk to his children about business dealings.

“I purposely, I never speak to any of the people that run the money,” Trump told reporters in June.

But some have remained skeptical, especially of the president’s cryptocurrency ventures after a filing shared earlier this year revealed that Trump made $1.4 billion from the businesses.

In 2025, Trump made more than $600 million from his memecoin, $TRUMP, a novelty cryptocurrency that he launched right before his inauguration.

But one of the Trump family business’s largest sources of profit, more than $800 million, was from World Liberty Financial, its main crypto company. Days before Trump’s inauguration, an investment firm with ties to the United Arab Emirates bought a near 50 percent stake in World Liberty Financial.

After taking office, the White House said it had reached a deal with the UAE to supply American-made computer chips to an AI campus in Abu Dhabi.

The revelation of the Trump family’s profits has led Democrats to demand new terms of the Clarity Act, which would establish rules for the cryptocurrency industry.

Among changes they’re pushing for, lawmakers want to add an ethics provision to address concerns about Trump’s crypto businesses.

Most of Trump’s personal investments, assets and business interests are held in a revocable trust run by the Trump Organization – which is led by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.

The president’s assets are not held in a blind trust, which is overseen by an independent trustee and has stricter communication rules. Other than Trump, every other president dating back to the 1970s has used a blind trust to manage individual stocks and bonds.