Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) told Fox News viewers this week that Donald Trump did something no president in American history has done by agreeing to comply with the ethics standards that govern elected officials, a claim that collapses the moment it meets the president’s own financial disclosures showing an estimated $2.2 billion in personal gains during the first year of his second term.
“President Trump has done something no other president in the history of our country said yes to, which is complying with the ethics strategy and standard for all elected officials,” Scott said. “We’ve never had a president ever say yes to that issue, that question.”
The record contradicts every part of that statement.
The disclosure Scott’s party keeps ignoring
Trump’s reported revenue jumped from $622 million in 2024 to $2.2 billion in 2025, and reporters who dug through the filing found that cryptocurrency ventures and foreign investment deals account for the bulk of the windfall. Asked about the figure, the president brushed it aside, telling reporters that he was profiting because the stock market was rising and everyone else was, too. Congressional Republicans, including Scott, absorbed the news without objection and moved on to defending him.
The pattern is not incidental. The reporting that documented this self-enrichment won a Pulitzer Prize this year, and the journalists behind it were subsequently hit with subpoenas from the Justice Department.
Trump’s memecoin was a wealth transfer
The clearest illustration of the ethics Scott is praising sits on a public blockchain. Trump launched his official memecoin days before his inauguration, and the token climbed above $75 before collapsing to under $2.
Blockchain analytics firm Nansen counted fewer than 500,000 wallets that captured roughly $4 billion in gains almost entirely in the first hours of trading, before the surge and the crash. Close to 989,000 retail buyers absorbed $3.81 billion in losses. Trump himself collected approximately $636 million from the venture, regardless of the price’s direction.
When insiders control supply, promote an asset to a retail audience, and exit into that demand, regulators call it a pump-and-dump, but when the promoter is the sitting president, Tim Scott calls it an ethics standard.
Saudi money and the policy that follows it
The foreign side of the ledger is no cleaner. The Trump Organization has continued to sign licensing agreements with Saudi developer Dar Al Arkan and its Dar Global arm, covering towers in Jeddah and a resort project in Oman, while the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund has financed LIV Golf tournaments held at Trump National Doral and Trump National Bedminster.
Jared Kushner, who has served as a Middle East envoy for this administration while raising money from Middle Eastern governments, secured a $2 billion investment from the sovereign wealth fund chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in his private equity firm. He has waved off the obvious problem, telling CBS that what critics label conflicts of interest he prefers to describe as experience and trusted relationships.
The crypto business runs through the same capitals. An Emirati state fund put $2 billion into Binance, denominated in World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin after the exchange’s founder applied for a presidential pardon, vaulting the Trump family venture from a small project into one of the largest stablecoin issuers in the world. Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon for Changpeng Zhao in October 2025, then told reporters he had no idea who the man was. CBS News
He didn’t accept oversight. He dismantled it.
Scott’s specific claim is that Trump said yes to ethics oversight. What Trump actually did was fire the people responsible for it. He removed the Senate-confirmed director of the Office of Government Ethics less than two months into a five-year term, two weeks after firing at least 17 inspectors general. More than a year later, no permanent replacement has been named, and the agency’s work has been curtailed or delayed as a result.
The same month brought an executive order pausing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Government watchdogs summarized the effect plainly, noting that the administration halted enforcement of foreign corruption laws, operated without a meaningful ethics executive order to slow the revolving door, and rolled back disclosure requirements for foreign lobbying.
That is the opposite of saying yes. It is the systematic removal of everyone empowered to say no.
Scott is not confused about any of this. The disclosures are public, the blockchain data is public, the firings were announced on a government website. He went on television and described a president who accepted accountability because the alternative was describing the one who exists.
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