Trump Aide Made $100K Betting on President's Own Speeches
Left says
- •This case illustrates a broader risk highlighted since prediction markets exploded in popularity: people with privileged access to nonpublic information can exploit these platforms in ways ordinary bettors cannot.
- •The episode reflects poorly on White House ethics enforcement, since the misconduct was caught not by internal oversight but by an outside company's surveillance systems.
- •Trump calling the conduct a 'disgrace' while his own family maintains financial ties to a competing prediction market platform raises questions about consistency in how the administration treats conflicts of interest.
- •That federal prosecutors declined to pursue a criminal case, leaving only a civil settlement on the table, suggests accountability for insider-style trading by government insiders may be weaker than for outsiders.
Right says
- •The system worked as intended: Kalshi's own surveillance caught the irregular betting pattern, froze the funds, and voluntarily referred the matter to federal regulators without prompting.
- •The White House acted swiftly and decisively once informed, placing the employee on unpaid leave and having the press secretary publicly condemn the behavior as a 'disgrace.'
- •This is the conduct of a single low-level technical staffer, not evidence of a broader administration scandal, and the White House has reiterated that strict ethics guidelines already prohibit this kind of trading.
- •Perez has cooperated fully with investigators, most of the disputed profits remain frozen and recoverable, and federal prosecutors saw no basis to pursue criminal charges.
Common Take
High Consensus- Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant who has operated Trump's teleprompter since 2016, is at the center of the investigation.
- Kalshi's surveillance systems detected unusual trading patterns and referred the matter to the CFTC, freezing roughly $90,000 of the disputed profits.
- Perez is cooperating with regulators and negotiating a potential settlement rather than facing criminal charges.
- The White House placed Perez on unpaid administrative leave and Karoline Leavitt publicly called the conduct 'deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace.'
The Arguments
Left argues
This case exposes a structural vulnerability in prediction markets: insiders with privileged access to nonpublic information — like a teleprompter operator who literally sees the speech text in advance — can exploit these platforms in ways ordinary traders never could, undermining the fairness of the market itself.
Right counters
The fact that Kalshi's own surveillance system detected the anomalous pattern and froze the funds before Perez could withdraw most of his winnings demonstrates that the market's self-policing mechanisms are actually working as designed to catch exactly this kind of abuse.
Right argues
The system functioned exactly as it should have: Kalshi's surveillance flagged irregular trading without any prompting, the company froze the disputed funds, voluntarily referred the case to the CFTC, and the White House acted swiftly by suspending Perez without pay and publicly calling the conduct a disgrace.
Left counters
Swift action after the fact doesn't address why internal White House ethics enforcement failed to catch this on its own — the misconduct only came to light because an outside company's surveillance systems caught it, not because of any internal compliance mechanism.
Left argues
Trump's condemnation of the trading as a 'disgrace' rings somewhat hollow given that his own son, Donald Trump Jr., is a high-level investor and strategic advisor to Polymarket, a direct Kalshi competitor, raising questions about how consistently this administration applies conflict-of-interest standards.
Right counters
A family member's investment in a competing platform is a fundamentally different matter from a low-level staffer using nonpublic government information to trade on that same information; conflating the two conflates legitimate business activity with an actual breach of confidential access.
Left argues
The fact that federal prosecutors in Manhattan declined to pursue criminal charges, leaving only a civil settlement on the table, suggests that government insiders who exploit inside information may face softer accountability than ordinary citizens accused of similar financial misconduct.
Right counters
Declining criminal prosecution isn't necessarily leniency — it may simply reflect that existing law doesn't clearly criminalize this novel type of conduct on a lightly regulated market, and Perez still faces disgorgement of profits and full cooperation obligations under a CFTC settlement.
Right argues
This is the conduct of one technical staffer acting alone, not evidence of a broader administration-wide scandal, and the press secretary made clear that strict ethics guidelines already explicitly prohibit this kind of trading.
Left counters
The press secretary herself admitted she had no idea whether other staffers were engaged in similar trading, which suggests the administration lacks any proactive mechanism to verify compliance with those 'strict guidelines' beyond reacting to outside tips.
Challenge Questions
These questions target genuine internal contradictions — meant to provoke honest reflection.
Right asks Left
“If Kalshi's independent surveillance system caught this misconduct, froze the funds, and voluntarily reported it to regulators without any prompting, on what basis can you argue the system 'failed' rather than worked exactly as designed?”
Left asks Right
“If the administration is confident this was an isolated incident by one low-level staffer, why did the press secretary acknowledge she had no way of knowing whether other staffers were doing the same thing, and what proactive steps — beyond a memo — has the White House taken to actually verify that?”
Outlier Report
Left Fringe
Progressive commentators like those at HuffPost and some MSNBC contributors who frame this as emblematic of Trump-era corruption and double standards (e.g., pointing to Don Jr.'s Polymarket ties), representing roughly 15-20% of the left who see this as part of a broader pattern of administration graft.
Right Fringe
Pro-Trump commentators at outlets like RedState who joke about the story and frame it as an isolated, almost comedic incident rather than a serious ethics lapse, representing about 10-15% of the right who dismiss it entirely as a non-story or media overreaction.
Noise Assessment
High relative to actual stakes; cable news and social media (X) discourse amplified this into a bigger culture-war flashpoint than most Americans likely care about, given the modest dollar amount and quick resolution.
Sources (13)
<p>Federal regulators are investigating whether a White House teleprompter operator capitalized on his knowledge of President Trump's prepared speech text by making trades on the prediction market Kalshi, according to two sources familiar with the matter. </p><ul><li>The speeches the person allegedly traded on included the State of the Union in February.</li></ul><p><strong>Why it matters:</strong> The rise of prediction markets has <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/04/16/prediction-markets-insider-trading-cftc" target="_blank">raised concerns about insider trading</a>, which Kalshi and federal regulators say they're well positioned to combat.</p><hr /><p><strong>Driving the news: </strong>Gabriel Perez, the teleprompter operator, is under investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the allegations that he bet on Kalshi "mention markets" using information on Trump's planned remarks," according to the sources, who were aware of the CFTC's investigation but were not authorized to speak publicly.</p><ul><li>Perez won more than $100,000 on such trades, the sources said.</li><li>Perez has been cooperating with the investigation, one of the sources said.</li></ul><p><strong>The CFTC has discussed</strong> terms of a settlement with Perez, which could include him giving back profits from the trades, sources told <a href="https://abcnews.com/US/white-house-teleprompter-operator-made-100k-betting-trumps/story?id=134764573" target="_blank">ABC News</a>, which was first to report the investigation.</p><ul><li>Federal prosecutors in Manhattan reportedly declined to open a criminal investigation, per ABC.</li></ul><p><strong>Zoom in: </strong>"Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC after an exchange investigation," Robert DeNault, Kalshi's head of enforcement, said in a statement to Axios. "We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided evidence we collected, as we do in any referral."</p><ul><li>Kalshi — which did not identify the trader to Axios — froze Perez's account after flagging his alleged bets, preventing him from capturing most of the profits, the sources said.</li></ul><p><strong>What they're saying: </strong>Efforts to reach Perez for comment through the White House were unsuccessful.</p><ul><li>A CFTC spokesperson said the commission can't confirm or deny an investigation.</li><li>"The White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow," White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told ABC News. "The staffer in question is fully cooperating with the CFTC."</li></ul>
President Trump's longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on the contents of Trump's speeches, sources say.
After detecting suspicious activity on the teleprompter operator's account, Kalshi investigated and then referred the case to federal regulators.
The longtime Trump staffer allegedly made $100,000 on the insider bets.
Kalshi's surveillance systems detected patterns betting on the markets involving the president that didn't follow typical behavior. The company examined the accounts behind it and discovered that the user was a federal employee.
A technical assistant to President Trump won around $100,000, according to the prediction market, which flagged the activity to the federal government.
It's the first known instance of officials investigating suspected insider trading on a prediction market from inside the White House.
President Donald Trump's teleprompter operator is on unpaid leave after reports that he used his inside knowledge to make bets about the president's speeches on the online prediction market Kalshi, the White House said Thursday.
<p>Karoline Leavitt calls apparent bets on Kalshi prediction platform ‘deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace’</p><p>Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator has been placed on administrative leave, the White House said on Thursday, after reports that he used his position to win $100,000 by placing bets on the president’s speeches using the online <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/prediction-markets">prediction market</a> Kalshi.</p><p>The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the president had been informed about the situation, which she described as “deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace”.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/16/trump-teleprompter-operator-kalshi-bets">Continue reading...</a>
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the teleprompter operator accused of placing bets on President Trump’s speeches has been put on administrative leave. “The individual that was cited in that report is complying with the CFTC [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] and has been placed on administrative leave,” Leavitt told reporters at the White House…
The prediction market platform Kalshi said Thursday that it flagged suspicious trades on President Trump’s speeches to federal regulators that are reportedly connected to the president’s longtime teleprompter operator. ABC News reported that Gabriel Perez, who was first hired by Trump in 2016, is in settlement talks with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over…
A White House teleprompter operator has been placed on unpaid leave after his online prediction market activity, which showed he was placing wagers related to President Donald Trump’s public remarks, was flagged to federal regulators.