One of Wall Street’s most recognizable gurus, Jim Cramer, became notably tongue-tied on Monday after President Donald Trump’s recent stock-trading spree entered into a televised conversation with his colleagues on CNBC.
Disclosures published by the US Office of Government Ethics last week revealed that Trump in the first quarter of 2026 carried out over 3,700 stock transactions, including over 30 stock purchases that were each worth $1 million or more.
As noted by The Financial Times, Trump’s investments included transactions involving Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Meta, Visa, Citi, Boeing, Qualcomm and GE Aerospace, whose executives all accompanied the president on his trip to China last week.
When CNBC co-host Carl Quintanilla brought up these trades during Monday’s edition of “Squawk on the Street,” Cramer spent ten straight seconds mumbling incoherently.
This promoted co-host David Faber to reassure viewers that “we’re not having technical difficulties here,” even as Cramer appeared to short circuit.
Journalist Ryan Grim said that Cramer’s reaction to mention of Trump’s trades was understandable given that some of the companies whose stocks he traded have been direct beneficiaries of the president’s illegal war with Iran and other policies.
“Cramer here is having what should be the normal reaction to Trump actively insider trading on his own decisions,” remarked Grim. “Just sputtering speechlessness.”
Journalist Judd Legum on Monday published an analysis of the Trump stock trades in which he identified multiple instances where the president purchased stocks of companies shortly before – or in some cases, on the exact same day – that he publicly singled them out for praise.
Specifically, Legum found that Trump bought tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of shares in biotech firm Thermo Fisher Scientific on the same day he took a tour of one of its manufacturing facilities, and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of shares in Apple on the same day he delivered a speech calling it “a great company,” while saying then-CEO Tim Cook has “done a good job.”
Trump also bought up shares in Micron Technology and then described it as “one of the hottest companies” during an interview with Fox News just one day later.
And nine days after buying millions of dollars’ worth of shares in Dell, Trump delivered a speech in Georgia where he told his audience to “go out and buy a Dell computer.”
In analyzing the trades, Legum explained how Trump has destroyed any remaining guardrails preventing US presidents from using their office to personally enrich themsleves.
“If Trump wanted to legally remove himself from investment decisions he could do so by creating a qualified blind trust,” Legum wrote. “Instead, before returning to the White House, Trump transferred his assets in a trust that is managed by his son, Donald Trump Jr. There are no legal or practical barriers preventing Trump from being involved in the management of his assets.”
Representative Dan Goldman (D-NY) warned Trump that details of his assorted stock trades would eventually come to light.
“This smells like blatant and criminal insider trading,” Goldman wrote in a social media post. “Even worse, Trump is personally profiting off of his illegal deportation dragnet. Since we know congressional Republicans will pretend like they never saw this and won’t do a thing, anyone involved in these trades should preserve their records for my investigation in January 2027.”
… elsewhere in the world of grift
Also on Monday, 93 House Democrats launched a bid to block Trump’s $1.77 billion taxpayer-funded settlement with the Internal Revenue Service, through which the president could reward supporters, including people convicted of seditious and violent felonies during the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
The Democratic lawmakers joined an amicus brief filed in Trump v. IRS before Judge Kathleen Williams in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Their action followed the Trump administration’s announcement of the creation of a so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” as part of an agreement to drop a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over a leak of the president’s tax returns.
Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche described the fund as “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization” allegedly carried out by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) during the Biden administration “to be heard and seek redress.”
However, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called the settlement “pure fraud and highway robbery,” noting that Trump oversees the agency that agreed to settle with him.
“No president can concoct a fake case for $10 billion in damages against the government so he can be plaintiff and defendant and then ‘settle’ his bogus case against himself as a judge,” Raskin said.
“This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election-stealing schemes,” he added.
The Democratic lawmakers’ amicus filing seeks to block the settlement, which could use taxpayer funds to compensate pro-Trump figures like the nearly 1,600 Capitol insurrection defendants charged or convicted of crimes connected to the Capitol attack, including seditious conspiracy, assault on law enforcement officers with dangerous weapons, and other felonies.
“Trump suing the IRS was never about justice, it’s another self-enrichment scheme on the backs of hard-working taxpayers,” House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said Monday.
“Now, with the court poised to weigh in only days from now, Trump is scrambling to cut a backroom deal and solidify his position as the judge, jury, and executioner,” Neal added. “Reporting detailing Trump’s interest in a billion-dollar slush fund for the J6 criminals and permanent immunity from any further IRS scrutiny only deepens the stench of corruption.”
Matt Platkin and Norm Eisen, lawyers representing the Democrats, said Monday: “It’s against the law for the president to in effect sue himself – and then settle for a huge sum. The court has the power to put a stop to these shenanigans and should do so.”
Trump was accused of rewarding political violence when he granted blanket pardons to the January 6 insurrectionists on his first day back in the White House. According to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, dozens of pardoned Capitol attackers have since been charged or convicted of serious crimes, including child sex crimes, rape, grand larceny, burglary, home invasion, gun violations, death threats against public officials and fatal DUI incidents.
The president and other MAGA figures have accused the Biden administration of “weaponizing” the DOJ against Trump and his supporters. Meanwhile, Trump has targeted political opponents; federal officials involved in investigating and prosecuting him for alleged election interference and mishandling classified documents; pro-Palestine activists; universities and corporations resisting his anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion crusade; journalists; civil society groups; and others.
Progressive advocacy groups and legal experts joined Democratic lawmakers in condemning Trump’s settlement.
“Donald Trump and his compromised Department of Justice have created a slush fund to make payouts to Trump supporters and cronies,” Public Citizen co-presidents Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman said in a statement. “This scheme amounts to the creation of a January 6 payment fund.”
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and public affairs at Stand Up America, said that “while Americans struggle with rising costs fueled by his economic mismanagement and war with Iran, Donald Trump is teaching a masterclass in grift.”
“He’s negotiated with himself to create a $1.7 billion tax-dollar slush fund with no oversight, no transparency, and no accountability,” Edkins continued. “In simple terms, Trump is stealing $1.7 billion in taxpayer dollars to hand out to himself, his cronies, his donors, or anyone he deems sufficiently loyal—including supporters who were convicted by juries of assaulting police officers on January 6, 2021.”
“This is truly unprecedented corruption,” he added, “and American taxpayers will foot the bill.”
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