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Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
From Trump whisperer to West Wing pariah: What went wrong for lobbyist Brian Ballard
On a Sunday morning in early March, President Donald Trump greenlit a Truth Social post promoting a 'Crypto Strategic Reserve.' Hours later, he felt like he'd been played. That weekend at Mar-A-Lago, an employee of the lobby shop run by Brian Ballard who was attending a donor event at the resort, had personally buttonholed the president and encouraged him multiple times to tout his desire to promote the industry. She even gave him a copy of a message she thought he should write. It was only after he posted that missive that Trump realized a company behind one of the tokens named in the post, Ripple Labs, was a Ballard client. He was furious and felt like he'd been used, according to two people familiar with the incident who were granted anonymity to speak candidly. 'He is not welcome in anything anymore,' the president told associates at the White House that month, the people said, referring to Ballard. Ballard has been persona non grata in the West Wing ever since. Since Trump's return to Washington, Ballard has established a reputation as perhaps the go-to lobbyist in town. Stories about his firm often note that he once employed White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Attorney General Pam Bondi. They routinely mention that his relationship with Trump goes back decades. Ballard represented the Trump Organization on and off over the years and he's been a top fundraiser for the president's campaigns. His image as a Trump whisperer has allowed his firm to rack up a staggering 130 new clients since the November election, including Chevron, JP Morgan, Palantir, Netflix, Bayer, United Airlines and T-Mobile. In April, POLITICO's parent company, Axel Springer, hired Ballard Partners to engage with the administration. Ballard's firm hauled in $14 million during the first three months of 2025 — more than triple its lobbying revenues from the same time a year ago. But there is a chasm between Ballard's reputation and how he's currently perceived in the West Wing. Ballard has been at least temporarily iced out of the White House after the crypto post, as White House staff were instructed not to take meetings with him, according to the three people familiar with the matter. But the irritation with Ballard goes beyond that incident, five people close to Trump said. Some White House officials believe that he is cashing in on Trump's name, touting relationships with the president and Wiles that are not nearly as close as advertised. 'One way to get yourself in the doghouse is for the president to think you're trading on his name,' said another close Trump ally, who said Ballard 'overstates his importance and value.' 'The president understands that lobbyists make money — he gets that. But I mean, to go out there and brag and hold yourself out?' The White House declined to comment. In a statement, Ballard said he and his firm 'are accustomed to false accusations from unnamed sources due to the success our firm has enjoyed.' He told POLITICO he has never touted his relationships with people in the West Wing to try to win clients, and he disputed the notion that he has been frozen out as well. There is some evidence that he is not completely cut off. POLITICO has viewed invitations sent to Ballard for Trump fundraisers and records of a scheduled call with a senior Trump administration official since the March incident. And Ballard clients have secured face time with senior people in the administration, including earlier this week when the president met with executives from the NFL, which Ballard represents. '[D]espite the efforts of these unnamed sources, Ballard Partners will continue to deliver results and effective advocacy for our clients as we have done for more than 25 years,' he said. As for the Truth Social incident, a Ballard associate said there was never an effort to mislead the president about the missive. But the situation appears to have caused Ballard some business heartburn. Some Ballard clients have reached out to other Trump allies to try to get meetings with the president or his inner circle, according to two of the people. Others close to the inner circle were more blunt. 'Ballard is making himself out to be this all-powerful Trump lobbyist with unfettered access to the administration, but that's simply not true,' said one of the four people. Since Trump won in November, Ballard has seen a deluge in new business, especially as Trump has brought to bear the full weight of his bully pulpit against perceived enemies. Ballard's clients have seen some wins under Trump. TikTok, which hired the firm last fall, is still online in the U.S. thanks to Trump's vow not to enforce a ban on it temporarily. BMW, another Ballard client, will benefit from a partial tariff reprieve Trump announced last week, along with the rest of the auto industry. One of the firm's first clients in D.C. was tobacco giant Reynolds American, which makes the best-selling menthol cigarette in the U.S. and went all in on Trump in last year's election. That bet paid off days into his new administration, when Trump withdrew a proposal to ban menthol cigarettes. And Ripple Labs, the crypto firm behind the XRP token named in Trump's crypto announcement, saw Trump's top financial regulator drop its appeal in a landmark enforcement case involving the company. Ballard has also been a rainmaker for the president. A formidable fundraiser who chaired the Florida finance committees of every GOP presidential nominee since John McCain in 2008, he raised tens of millions of dollars for Trump's presidential campaigns and allied PACs. He served as finance vice chair for Trump's 2016 inaugural committee. Ballard set up shop in D.C. shortly after Trump was sworn in in 2017, as the business community and global leaders scrambled to make sense of the political novice in the White House. He quickly reeled in prominent clients and by the end of the firm's first year in Washington, Ballard Partners was among the top-earning firms on K Street. The firm's lobbying revenues declined while Trump was out of office — though Ballard, which has a number of Democratic lobbyists on staff, remained competitive with other D.C. lobbying stalwarts. Ballard Partners' Washington office was its first location outside of Florida. Now, the firm has outposts in nearly a dozen cities across three continents. Last year, Ballard launched a series of strategic partnerships with government affairs firms around the globe, including in Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, the U.K. and Italy. In some ways, Ballard's reputation as the top Trump administration lobbyist was always amiss, given his past with the president's chief of staff. Many Trump insiders who admire Wiles believe that Ballard pushed her out of his firm at a time when Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was trying to ruin her career. Wiles had worked at Ballard Partners in Florida for years before departing in 2019, citing a health issue. At the time, DeSantis reportedly spread word that he told Ballard to fire her — though Ballard, like Wiles, has said that her exit had nothing to do with DeSantis. Some thought their relationship has recovered since then. Wiles put on a good face as Ballard started to come into the fold during the 2024 campaign, declining to hold a grudge, two people close to her say. Plus, the money he put in Trump's campaign coffers was particularly welcome. 'Susie puts the campaign first,' said one of these Trump associates. Still, much of Trump's inner circle — who are deeply loyal to the chief of staff — continued to view him with suspicion. 'People don't forget,' the Trump associate said. In his statement, Ballard said that 'Susie Wiles has been and will be my dear friend well beyond our time in politics and anyone who suggests otherwise is badly misinformed.' Ballard's client list has also raised some eyebrows inside the White House. He recently signed on Harvard and PBS, both of which the president has gone after. But the Truth Social episode was a turning point. That weekend, the Ballard employee at Mar-A-Lago more than once asked Trump to post the missive. 'He'd been brushing her off — then she kept bothering him and then he finally just gave it to a staffer to put out,' said one of the people familiar with what happened. Within minutes of the president's posting, a furious David Sacks — the White House 'crypto czar' — called Wiles to complain, according to three people familiar with what occurred. The White House was hosting a crypto summit in Washington the following week, and it looked bad that the president was singling out some companies for praise but not others. Wiles, who hadn't been with the president that morning, started working the phones trying to find out what happened. Soon White House officials realized that one of the clients in the Truth Social Post was Ballard's — and that the tweet hadn't even mentioned Trump's own budding crypto company. Trump would later follow up on the message in a second Truth Social post, adding the names of other crypto companies. But by then, it was too late — and Trump was furious. Trump's aides were incensed, too, accusing Ballard of assigning his employee to get Trump to hawk his client. One of them, a top aide to the president, called and yelled at Ballard.
Politico
08-05-2025
- Business
- Politico
From Trump whisperer to West Wing pariah: What went wrong for lobbyist Brian Ballard
On a Sunday morning in early March, President Donald Trump greenlit a Truth Social post promoting a 'Crypto Strategic Reserve.' Hours later, he felt like he'd been played. That weekend at Mar-A-Lago, an employee of the lobby shop run by Brian Ballard who was attending a donor event at the resort, had personally buttonholed the president and encouraged him multiple times to tout his desire to promote the industry. She even gave him a copy of a message she thought he should write. It was only after he posted that missive that Trump realized a company behind one of the tokens named in the post, Ripple Labs, was a Ballard client. He was furious and felt like he'd been used, according to two people familiar with the incident who were granted anonymity to speak candidly. 'He is not welcome in anything anymore,' the president told associates at the White House that month, the people said, referring to Ballard. Ballard has been persona non grata in the West Wing ever since. Since Trump's return to Washington, Ballard has established a reputation as perhaps the go-to lobbyist in town. Stories about his firm often note that he once employed White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Attorney General Pam Bondi. They routinely mention that his relationship with Trump goes back decades. Ballard represented the Trump Organization on and off over the years and he's been a top fundraiser for the president's campaigns. His image as a Trump whisperer has allowed his firm to rack up a staggering 130 new clients since the November election, including Chevron, JP Morgan, Palantir, Netflix, Bayer, United Airlines and T-Mobile. In April, POLITICO's parent company, Axel Springer, hired Ballard Partners to engage with the administration. Ballard's firm hauled in $14 million during the first three months of 2025 — more than triple its lobbying revenues from the same time a year ago. But there is a chasm between Ballard's reputation and how he's currently perceived in the West Wing. Ballard has been at least temporarily iced out of the White House after the crypto post, as White House staff were instructed not to take meetings with him, according to the three people familiar with the matter. But the irritation with Ballard goes beyond that incident, five people close to Trump said. Some White House officials believe that he is cashing in on Trump's name, touting relationships with the president and Wiles that are not nearly as close as advertised. 'One way to get yourself in the doghouse is for the president to think you're trading on his name,' said another close Trump ally, who said Ballard 'overstates his importance and value.' 'The president understands that lobbyists make money — he gets that. But I mean, to go out there and brag and hold yourself out?' The White House declined to comment. In a statement, Ballard said he and his firm 'are accustomed to false accusations from unnamed sources due to the success our firm has enjoyed.' He told POLITICO he has never touted his relationships with people in the West Wing to try to win clients, and he disputed the notion that he has been frozen out as well. There is some evidence that he is not completely cut off. POLITICO has viewed invitations sent to Ballard for Trump fundraisers and records of a scheduled call with a senior Trump administration official since the March incident. And Ballard clients have secured face time with senior people in the administration, including earlier this week when the president met with executives from the NFL, which Ballard represents. '[D]espite the efforts of these unnamed sources, Ballard Partners will continue to deliver results and effective advocacy for our clients as we have done for more than 25 years,' he said. As for the Truth Social incident, a Ballard associate said there was never an effort to mislead the president about the missive. But the situation appears to have caused Ballard some business heartburn. Some Ballard clients have reached out to other Trump allies to try to get meetings with the president or his inner circle, according to two of the people. Others close to the inner circle were more blunt. 'Ballard is making himself out to be this all-powerful Trump lobbyist with unfettered access to the administration, but that's simply not true,' said one of the four people. Since Trump won in November, Ballard has seen a deluge in new business, especially as Trump has brought to bear the full weight of his bully pulpit against perceived enemies. Ballard's clients have seen some wins under Trump. TikTok, which hired the firm last fall, is still online in the U.S. thanks to Trump's vow not to enforce a ban on it temporarily. BMW, another Ballard client, will benefit from a partial tariff reprieve Trump announced last week, along with the rest of the auto industry. One of the firm's first clients in D.C. was tobacco giant Reynolds American, which makes the best-selling menthol cigarette in the U.S. and went all in on Trump in last year's election. That bet paid off days into his new administration, when Trump withdrew a proposal to ban menthol cigarettes. And Ripple Labs, the crypto firm behind the XRP token named in Trump's crypto announcement, saw Trump's top financial regulator drop its appeal in a landmark enforcement case involving the company. Ballard has also been a rainmaker for the president. A formidable fundraiser who chaired the Florida finance committees of every GOP presidential nominee since John McCain in 2008, he raised tens of millions of dollars for Trump's presidential campaigns and allied PACs. He served as finance vice chair for Trump's 2016 inaugural committee. Ballard set up shop in D.C. shortly after Trump was sworn in in 2017, as the business community and global leaders scrambled to make sense of the political novice in the White House. He quickly reeled in prominent clients and by the end of the firm's first year in Washington, Ballard Partners was among the top-earning firms on K Street. The firm's lobbying revenues declined while Trump was out of office — though Ballard, which has a number of Democratic lobbyists on staff, remained competitive with other D.C. lobbying stalwarts. Ballard Partners' Washington office was its first location outside of Florida. Now, the firm has outposts in nearly a dozen cities across three continents. Last year, Ballard launched a series of strategic partnerships with government affairs firms around the globe, including in Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, the U.K. and Italy. In some ways, Ballard's reputation as the top Trump administration lobbyist was always amiss, given his past with the president's chief of staff. Many Trump insiders who admire Wiles believe that Ballard pushed her out of his firm at a time when Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was trying to ruin her career. Wiles had worked at Ballard Partners in Florida for years before departing in 2019, citing a health issue. At the time, DeSantis reportedly spread word that he told Ballard to fire her — though Ballard, like Wiles, has said that her exit had nothing to do with DeSantis. Some thought their relationship has recovered since then. Wiles put on a good face as Ballard started to come into the fold during the 2024 campaign, declining to hold a grudge, two people close to her say. Plus, the money he put in Trump's campaign coffers was particularly welcome. 'Susie puts the campaign first,' said one of these Trump associates. Still, much of Trump's inner circle — who are deeply loyal to the chief of staff — continued to view him with suspicion. 'People don't forget,' the Trump associate said. In his statement, Ballard said that 'Susie Wiles has been and will be my dear friend well beyond our time in politics and anyone who suggests otherwise is badly misinformed.' Ballard's client list has also raised some eyebrows inside the White House. He recently signed on Harvard and PBS, both of which the president has gone after. But the Truth Social episode was a turning point. That weekend, the Ballard employee at Mar-A-Lago more than once asked Trump to post the missive. 'He'd been brushing her off — then she kept bothering him and then he finally just gave it to a staffer to put out,' said one of the people familiar with what happened. Within minutes of the president's posting, a furious David Sacks — the White House 'crypto czar' — called Wiles to complain, according to three people familiar with what occurred. The White House was hosting a crypto summit in Washington the following week, and it looked bad that the president was singling out some companies for praise but not others. Wiles, who hadn't been with the president that morning, started working the phones trying to find out what happened. Soon White House officials realized that one of the clients in the Truth Social Post was Ballard's — and that the tweet hadn't even mentioned Trump's own budding crypto company. Trump would later follow up on the message in a second Truth Social post, adding the names of other crypto companies. But by then, it was too late — and Trump was furious. Trump's aides were incensed, too, accusing Ballard of assigning his employee to get Trump to hawk his client. One of them, a top aide to the president, called and yelled at Ballard.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Stephanie Ruhle: What scares me most about Trump's tariff whiplash
This is an adapted excerpt from the April 10 episode of 'The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle.' It has been more than a week since Donald Trump's trade disaster began. I have spent that week speaking with investors, both at home and abroad, and what I feel most at this moment is scared. I'm scared that what we are facing is a crisis in confidence — confidence in us, the United States. I'm not alone. On Friday, we found out consumer sentiment fell to its second lowest level on record going back to 1952. And, based on the conversations I've had, no one can tell me exactly what might restore that confidence — at least not right now. Yes, the markets rallied Wednesday, but that is only because we avoided, at least temporarily, some of the sweeping tariffs Trump was set to implement across the globe. But, quickly, reality set in. We still have the rest of his tariffs to worry about. Markets are still shaky — both the bond and stock markets — because the basis on which the administration is negotiating trade is not rooted in truth. For those who believe countries were scrambling to make a deal because they were so panicked by these enormous tariffs: What is that deal? What do you think the likes of Vietnam can do to erase its trade deficit with the United States? The answer is that it can't. And if you want to onshore all of our manufacturing, that will take trillions of dollars and 20 years. For our allies in the West, they are certainly not rushing to partner up with us — not with a president who goes on national television and brags about how other countries are 'kissing my a--.' It's safe to say the perch that we and our American exceptionalism sat on, even a few months ago, has certainly been lowered. We have an agriculture secretary who tells us to build chicken coops because eggs are expensive. A defense secretary sharing military secrets in a private, unsecured group chat. We're deporting people without due process. We're potentially lawlessly firing thousands of federal workers and defunding science while planning to set up a 'Crypto Strategic Reserve.' We have lost an enormous amount of credibility and trust. But what scares me is that every investor I speak with, even those who backed the president, gives me the same message: If the bond market continues to drop, that will effectively bankrupt the country. And bankruptcy is something Trump knows a lot about. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
GameStop goes full crypto bro as board votes unanimously for Bitcoin investment
GameStop, the video game retailer famed for becoming a meme stock and causing chaos in the stock market during the COVID-19 pandemic, is back in the spotlight for a new pursuit: investing in Bitcoin. Housing markets in Florida and Texas are so weak that builder Lennar spent the most on buyer incentives since 2009 'Signalgate' has turned a string of patriotic emoji into a meme that will live in infamy We asked the world's most creative people how they're using AI. This is what they said GameStop's board has voted unanimously to add Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset, investing the company's corporate cash into the oldest and most popular digital currency. In a recent regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), GameStop explained that in addition to cash, equity issuances and future debt may be invested in Bitcoin, with no set ceiling for the amount of Bitcoin accumulated. The company's stock rose 15% before dropping back down a bit on Wednesday following the announcement of GameStop's investment policy. At time of publishing, the stock was up 10%. GameStop also revealed on Tuesday that its net income increased during its fourth quarter, rising to $131.3 million from the previous year's $63.1 million. However, the retailer also projects more store closures in addition to the 590 locations it's already closed, as brick-and-mortar retailers have continued to struggle. GameStop is not the first company betting on cryptocurrency. Software company Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, has become the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin after large investments in recent years. GameStop's decision comes as President Trump has embraced crypto, and after his administration announced the creation of a 'Crypto Strategic Reserve' earlier this month. Still, despite the renewed interest in cryptocurrency, Bitcoin's price fell 1.6% on Wednesday. 'The Bitcoin markets have historically experienced significant volatility,' GameStop said in the regulatory filing. 'We are continually examining the risks and rewards of our strategy to acquire and hold Bitcoin.' This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company newsletter: Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Strategic Crypto Swindle
In the months between Donald Trump's election and his inauguration, cryptocurrency prices soared on speculation that the president would appoint crypto-friendly regulators and set up a 'strategic bitcoin reserve.' Trump has delivered on the regulatory front: The Securities and Exchange Commission has a new pro-crypto commissioner and has dropped or paused lawsuits against crypto exchanges. Trump also issued an executive order in his first week calling for an evaluation of the 'potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile.' Still, crypto prices fell sharply after he took office; the slide has intensified in the past couple of weeks. And that has caused considerable discontent among Trump's major backers in the industry. So, in what certainly looked like an attempt to halt the drop, Trump took to social media over the weekend and promised that a 'Crypto Strategic Reserve' would soon be on the way, and that the government would be filling it with not only bitcoin and ether (the two biggest crypto assets) but also more speculative assets such as ripple, solana, and cardano. Trump's announcement initially had the desired effect: The prices of bitcoin and ether each rose more than 10 percent on the news, while the total value of crypto assets jumped by more than $300 billion. But over the course of yesterday, many of those gains were given back, in part because of uncertainty about exactly what Trump was promising and whether he can deliver. The government already owns about $17 billion in bitcoin, and another $110 million or so in ether, most of which it has seized from criminals; one option would be for it to simply hold on to those assets. But what the crypto advocates want, and what Trump seems to be promising, is for the government to fill this new strategic reserve by buying billions of dollars' worth of crypto assets. What they hope for, in other words, is a handout for crypto holders—or, from the point of view of non-crypto-holding Americans, a misbegotten government backstop for purely speculative assets. Filling a crypto reserve would effectively represent a huge transfer of wealth from taxpayers to crypto HODLers (a nickname derived from a common online typo of hold, also said to stand for 'hold on for dear life'). That's an abysmally bad idea, especially at a time when, in the name of efficiency, the Trump administration is slashing other government programs and spending. [James Surowiecki: Trump Media is the new Bed Bath & Beyond] The phrase strategic crypto reserve (or, more commonly, strategic bitcoin reserve) is of course intended to draw a parallel between this putative crypto hoard and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a stockpile maintained by the Department of Energy that consists of hundreds of millions of barrels of oil. The genuinely strategic reasons for having the government own an oil reserve are obvious: Oil is essential to the functioning of the U.S. economy. In the event of an oil embargo, such as the one in 1973, or major disruption to oil-supply chains, the strategic reserve has historically helped keep things running (even if the growth in domestic oil and gas production has now made the U.S. less vulnerable to such shocks). In contrast, the government has no strategic reason to own crypto assets. They have no use value either to the U.S. government or to the American economy. We can get along without them just fine. Crypto advocates point to the fact that the United States does hold reserves of foreign currencies, and has a large hoard of gold as well. But the U.S. actually holds very little foreign-exchange moneys, and the foreign currencies it does own are held in the event that it needs, or wants, to exchange them for dollars—as a hedge, for example, against a situation when the dollar is falling sharply and the government buys its own currency to prop up its value. That's a very unlikely scenario to begin with—the U.S. has never used its foreign-exchange hoard to fend off a speculative decline in the dollar's value—and, in any case, no such use case exists for bitcoin or other crypto assets. As for American gold holdings, they're essentially pointless: Fort Knox is a legacy of the days when the U.S. promised to exchange gold for dollars on demand. Today, the U.S. holds on to its gold solely out of inertia—and perhaps a desire to not crash the market by dumping the stash or incur political blowback for liquidating the reserve from Americans who still think that the Gold Standard is a thing. None of that is an argument for adding a new hoard of digital assets. Crypto advocates also argue, mysteriously, that for the U.S. to have large stores of bitcoin and other crypto assets would strengthen the dollar. But the dollar is a fiat currency, which means that its value does not depend on the backing of any assets the government owns. More to the point, bitcoin was created to be an alternative to the dollar, not a support for it. Far from strengthening the dollar, having the U.S. purchase billions of dollars of assets that were created to be alternatives to the dollar would at best be economically pointless and at worst would actually weaken confidence in the dollar. Nothing says 'We're worried about the future value of our currency' like having a government purchase billions of dollars' worth of speculative alternative currencies. What crypto advocates really mean when they say that buying crypto will strengthen the value of the dollar is that crypto prices will keep going up, which in turn will make the U.S. richer. But any gains in the value of a crypto stash would be trivial relative to the size of the U.S. budget. Either way, requiring the government to wager on tremendously volatile assets is a reckless use of taxpayer funds. What next—a federal Department of Sports Betting? So far, Trump has been cryptic, so to speak, about how the assets for a crypto reserve will be acquired. Some schemes, for instance, call for the government to sell some of its gold reserve to pay for the assets. One way or another, however, any acquisition of crypto assets will require the government to dedicate financial resources to crypto that it could use otherwise—to reduce the budget deficit or spend on government programs. [James Surowiecki: The Trump-whim economy is here] Last, but not least, a crypto reserve would be a ready-made vehicle for corruption, creating colossal conflicts of interest over corporate regulation and government policy generally. Being included in a government reserve would be a huge boost to crypto assets, particularly less established ones. That would create major financial incentives for crypto bros to try to win favor with Trump, who himself has a huge stake in the memecoin $TRUMP. Committing the government to buying crypto would essentially institutionalize his administration's accumulating conflicts of interest. All of this is hardly a surprise coming from Trump, for whom patrimonial governance and self-dealing are a way of life. In that sense, he may have no reputational risk, but the U.S. government certainly does, as an issuer of debt, as well as a creditor of last resort. The crypto advocates' embrace of a crypto reserve speaks to the way that bitcoin and its peers have evolved from being revolutionary alternatives to the traditional financial system into little more than speculative vehicles; now the crypto lobby is asking Uncle Sam to inflate and support their prices. A crypto reserve would be a government-backed grift—one that makes the government itself the easy mark. Article originally published at The Atlantic
