Topline
President Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator is on unpaid leave amid a federal investigation after allegedly using insider information to bet on what the president would say in his speeches, the White House said Thursday.
President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber at the Capitol on February 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)
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Key Facts
Federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission reportedly believe Gabriel Perez, the operator who has worked for Trump since 2016, made money betting on Trump’s State of the Union address and more than a dozen other Trump speeches, according to ABC News, citing unnamed sources.
Perez is on unpaid leave, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday shortly after the ABC story broke, and is reportedly in talks to settle the allegations he has earned more than $100,000 trading on the president’s speeches, which emerged when the trading market, Kalshi, alerted the CFTC of suspicious activity on its site.
Trump, Leavitt said, believes Perez’s alleged behavior is “deeply unfortunate” and “frankly a disgrace.”
Perez allegedly made the bets over three months on speeches including a primetime address in December, a speech at the World Economic Forum in January and at a Medal of Honor ceremony in March, ABC reported.
Perez—who often makes final edits to Trump’s speeches, including from the president himself—backed out of bets mid-speech in some instances when Trump deviated from the script, the unnamed sources reportedly said.
Perez is reportedly in talks to settle the allegations he has earned more than $100,000 trading on the president’s speeches, which emerged when the trading market, Kalshi, alerted the CFTC of suspicious activity on its site.
Kalshi confirmed the report to ABC News, telling the network in a statement from its lawyer, Bobby DeNault, “our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC, and we are cooperating and assisting regulators.”
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle also corroborated the report, telling ABC, “the White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow . . . the staffer in question is fully cooperating with the CFTC.”
What To Watch For
Federal regulators are reportedly considering banning Perez from making similar trades and requiring him to give back his profits, according to the ABC sources.
Key Background
Federal lawmakers have taken steps to place guardrails around insider trading on prediction markets, a relatively new phenomenon. The Senate passed a resolution in April banning all senators from trading on prediction markets, and the House is weighing similar legislation. The Justice Department charged a special operations soldier involved in Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s capture, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, with profiting more than $400,000 trading on Polymarket about the operation. He was charged with unlawful use of confidential information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud and wire fraud. He has pleaded not guilty.
further reading
Donald Trump Jr. Joins Prediction Market Kalshi (Forbes)
George Santos Under Investigation Over Kalshi Bet On His Own State Of The Union Attendance (Forbes)
Polymarket, Kalshi Reach Monthly Traffic Peaks—Greater Than Election-Fueled November 2024 (Forbes)