Donald Trump Jr. says his family “didn’t have a choice” but to get into crypto because banks didn’t want to do business with them after January 6, 2021, referring to the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol as “all the nonsense.”
“We got into crypto because we didn’t have a choice,” the president’s eldest son said on Fox & Friends Wednesday morning while discussing his family’s cryptocurrency business’s $1.5 billion digital coin deal.
The Trump family’s crypto business, World Liberty Finance, announced Monday that technology firm ALT5 Sigma would make a big purchase of its digital coin, $WLFI. ALT5 said it would sell $1.5 billion worth of shares, then use that money to purchase the Trump signature digital coin, which the family founded last year.
“Every major banking institution, the people that, two weeks before we were debanked, we could’ve called and gotten a loan in five seconds. They disappeared. We were left high and dry,” he said.
“Basically, during the first term, certainly after the…let’s call it January 6… all the nonsense, it got significantly worse,” he said, referring to the deadly mob of his father’s supporters who stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
(Fox News)
Five people, including one police officer, died and several more were injured when the pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol building. The president granted roughly 1,500 people convicted of January 6-related crimes pardons immediately after taking office in January.
“We weren’t even early crypto guys, but we figured, if they can debank the Trump Organization, if they can debank us, who can’t they go after? And more importantly, who won’t they go after?” he continued.
Trump Jr. said that instead of going home and “go cry in a corner,” they decided to launch World Liberty Financial, which he described as the future of banking.
“What we’re doing with World Liberty Financial, I think, is going to shake up the entire banking system. It is literally the future of finance,” he said.
Joining Trump Jr. on the segment was his brother, Eric Trump, and World Liberty Financial’s co-founder and CEO Zach Witkoff, who said they were looking to “democratize” the financial system.
“Put power back in the hands of the people, instead of the big boogy man behind the curtain,” Witkoff said.
Following the Fox appearance, the three men went to ring Nasdaq’s opening bell to celebrate the closing of ALT5’s $1.5 billion offering.
