Donald Trump’s opposition to cryptocurrencies was unambiguous. Over the course of several years, the Republican called them a “disaster waiting to happen,” adding that as far as he was concerned, Bitcoin seemed “like a scam.” As regular readers know, when it came to crypto, the former president said he was “not a fan,” adding, “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”
With this record in mind, it’s only natural to wonder why, exactly, the presumptive GOP nominee completely changed his mind.
In fact, Trump overhauled his position to such a degree that he published a statement last week in which he both touted Bitcoin, condemned President Joe Biden’s crypto skepticism and even pretended to know what a central bank digital currency is.
It’s against this backdrop that Reuters reported:
The billionaire Winklevoss twins, founders of cryptocurrency company Gemini, said on Thursday they had each donated $1 million in bitcoin to support Donald Trump, the latest crypto executives to get behind the Republican presidential candidate. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, whose crypto firm in February entered settlement agreements with U.S. and New York state financial regulators after accusations of wrongdoing, announced the donations in posts on social media site X.
As the Reuters report added, Trump’s generous new donors didn’t specify exactly where their contributions were sent, though it seems likely that the money was donated to a pro-Trump super PAC.
Nevertheless, in a lengthy, 1,400-word online statement, Tyler Winklevoss claimed that the Biden White House has “declared war on crypto,” while Trump (the one who thought Bitcoin seemed “like a scam”) was “pro-Bitcoin” and “pro-crypto.”
All of this reminded me of a similar set of circumstances from a few months ago.
During his presidential tenure, Trump was a clear opponent of TikTok. In fact, the Republican announced plans four years ago to go after the platform, and an executive order soon followed. That policy ultimately failed in the courts, though Trump made no effort to hide his belief that the app should not exist on Americans’ phones.
“As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States,” the then-president said during his 2020 re-election campaign.
This year, however, Trump decided to tell voters he’s now a TikTok champion, a position he arrived at after chatting with Jeff Yass, a billionaire hedge fund manager — and prospective campaign donor — who has a multibillion-dollar stake in ByteDance, TikTok’s parent corporation. As my MSNBC colleague Zeeshan Aleem put it, “Trump is nothing if not transactional.” Soon after, some Bitcoin mining executives gathered at Mar-a-Lago, and wouldn’t you know it, the former president started echoing their talking points a day later. Roughly a week after that, the billionaire Winklevoss twins gave Trump 2 million reasons to feel good about his flip-flop. I don’t doubt that cryptocurrency and TikTok proponents are delighted to see the presumptive GOP nominee become an ally, though given the circumstances, they should probably keep their expectations in check. What happens if some deep-pocketed rivals tell Trump they’d prefer to see the former president return to his original positions?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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