PHOTO_ President Donald Trump speaks with CNBC’s Joe Kernen in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on July 2, 2026.
President Donald Trump defended his family’s business dealings in an interview Thursday with CNBC’s Joe Kernen in the Oval Office at the White House.
Trump said the presidency is so powerful that almost anything his children do could be considered a conflict.
“If they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information,” Trump said, while arguing that his children face unusually broad scrutiny because presidential policy touches nearly every part of the economy.
“I tell my kids, ‘stay away,’” Trump said. “But they also have a life. You know, they were doing business long before I ever thought of … running for president.”
The comments came after Trump’s 2025 annual financial disclosure report released Tuesday revealed that he made hundreds of millions of dollars in 2025, his first year back in the White House, from cryptocurrency-related ventures linked to his family.
The disclosure showed more than $580 million in crypto-related income, including about $515 million from Trump-linked World Liberty Financial token sales and $65 million from sales of equity in WLF’s holding company.
Trump said there was “nothing illegal” or “wrong” with the crypto venture and pointed to federal conflict-of-interest laws, saying the president and vice president are not required to recuse themselves from decisions that could affect their financial interests.
Trump spoke about a wide of topics, also touching on the Supreme Court, economy, markets, Iran, the Federal Reserveand the 2026 midterm elections.
When asked to name either his favorite U.S. president, or if he considers any period of American history to be especially formative, Trump said, “We’ve had some very bad presidents.”
He then referenced a recent Supreme Court ruling that was seen as empowering the presidency by allowing the commander in chief to remove members of independent federal agencies that carry out functions under the executive branch.
“It gave a lot more power to the president, but it has been a strong presidency, not just me, it’s been a strong presidency. It’s considered a strong office,” Trump said.
“You know, other presidents are not considered a strong office, even if you’re president, you can’t do as much,” he said, appearing to be referring to other countries’ presidents.
“But now with this additional — I mean, it’s very special. We are respected again as a country, maybe like never before. A year and a half ago, we were laughed at. They’re not laughing anymore,” he said.
Trump defends Iran war handling: ‘This is the de-nuking of Iran’
Trump broadly defended his decision to go to war with Iran and his prosecution of the conflict, while doling out criticism for past U.S. presidents for their approach to the Middle East and the media for its wartime coverage.
“This is not a war per se. This is the de-nuking of Iran,” Trump said.
“You can’t let them have a nuclear weapon,” he said, adding that he thought the roughly four-month duration of the war is a relatively short amount of time.
Trump claims US blockade of Hormuz was not breached
Trump said Thursday that “not one ship got through to Iran,” suggesting the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran war was not penetrated.
“It was a wall of steel,” he said.
However, according to shipping industry information service Lloyd’s List, the blockade was breached multiple times by an “Iranian shadow fleet.”
Trump says he thinks Musk will donate SpaceX stock to Trump Accounts
Trump acknowledged that he had a “little dispute” with Elon Musk, but said he has a “very good relationship” with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.
The president said he thinks Musk will donate SpaceX stock to Trump Accounts, a new savings and investing vehicle for kids under 18 in the U.S. that launches on July 4.
“I think that he will do that,” Trump said.
Trump claims he solved eight wars, using tariffs
Trump said he used the tariff authority the Supreme Court stripped from him to resolve eight wars, a claim that fact checkers have repeatedly called misleading.
Politifact, part of the Poynter Institute, rated a statement he made last year that he had solved seven wars “mostly false.”
Politifact noted that the statuses of the conflicts are “more varied and tenuous than his statement portrays.”
Trump also started a war with Iran in February, with the aim of stopping Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The war remains in a delicate ceasefire while both sides attempt to broker a permanent peace deal.
Trump says he does not want to be ‘Herbert Hoover’
Trump invoked former president Herbert Hoover in the interview, saying he does not want to be remembered as a president who oversaw a depression.
“I always said I don’t want to be a president with a depression on his resume. I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover,” Trump said. “Herbert Hoover was the president that probably took us into the Great Depression.”
Trump blamed Hoover for raising interest rates and taxes, saying, “That didn’t work out too well.” Hoover was president when the Great Depression began in 1929, and he signed the Revenue Act of 1932, which sharply raised taxes. But interest rates were set by the Federal Reserve, not directly by Hoover.
Trump has previously said low tariffs caused the Great Depression.
Trump also said it took “30 years” to get out of the Great Depression and that “FDR didn’t get us out of it.” That overstates the timeline. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the contraction that began in 1929 as ending in March 1933, though the broader Depression lasted for years and the economy suffered another severe recession in 1937-38 before World War II.
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