According to Politico, Donald Trump was set up by one of his own allies. In early March, he approved a Truth Social post about a new “Crypto Strategic Reserve,” thinking it would fulfill his crypto promises to voters.
But the president apparently didn’t know he was helping Ripple Labs, a company linked to Brian Ballard, a longtime lobbyist who had deep ties to Trump’s political world. Within hours, Trump was furious. He realized he had just boosted a firm that was paying Ballard—without even knowing it.
That weekend, Trump was at Mar-a-Lago for a donor event. Ballard’s employee—there for the weekend—tracked him down in person and kept pushing him to support crypto publicly. She even handed him a printed message, already written.
Trump ignored her at first but gave in after repeated pressure. He passed the note to a staffer and told them to post it. It wasn’t until later that he learned Ripple, one of the companies named in the post, was a Ballard client. “He is not welcome in anything anymore,” Trump told people at the White House that month.
Trump cuts Ballard off from the White House
After the XRP stunt, Trump completely froze Ballard out. He told his aides to stop taking meetings with Ballard, and Ballard’s name became toxic inside the West Wing. Though Ballard had built a reputation as one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, his access to the White House vanished overnight.
Ballard had been known for his connections—he once worked with Susie Wiles, now Trump’s chief of staff, and had long-standing ties to Pam Bondi, the former attorney general.
Ballard represented the Trump Organization for years. He was one of Trump’s biggest fundraisers and chaired Florida finance teams for every Republican nominee since 2008. After Trump took office in 2017, Ballard opened a D.C. office, quickly becoming one of the top earners on K Street.
That reputation helped him sign 130 new clients since Trump won the 2024 election. Those clients included JP Morgan, T-Mobile, Palantir, and Netflix. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, Ballard’s firm earned $14 million, tripling what it made during the same period last year.
But none of that mattered to Trump after the XRP trick. People in the administration said Ballard had been overstating how close he still was to Trump and Wiles. One Trump ally said, “One way to get yourself in the doghouse is for the president to think you’re trading on his name.”
Another said Ballard “overstates his importance and value.” Even though Ballard denied using his relationships to win clients, the trust was broken.
Ballard told Politico, “We are accustomed to false accusations from unnamed sources due to the success our firm has enjoyed.” He said he wasn’t frozen out and claimed to still have contact with Trump’s people.
And it’s true—Ballard still got invites to Trump fundraisers and even had a call scheduled with a senior official after the XRP incident. His clients, like the NFL, still met with the president.
Crypto czar David Sacks explodes over the Ripple-XRP post
Inside the White House, the XRP post caused a meltdown. As soon as it went up, David Sacks, who leads Trump’s crypto policy, reportedly called Susie Wiles and demanded to know what happened.
There was a crypto summit coming up, and the president had just praised a specific company, Ripple, without even mentioning his own crypto startup.
Susie had not been with Trump that morning. She started making calls to figure out what led to the post. That’s when White House staff learned that the XRP token was tied to Ballard. The employee who pushed the message had asked Trump to post it more than once.
Someone who witnessed the moment allegedly told Politico that Trump “had been brushing her off — then she kept bothering him and then he finally just gave it to a staffer to put out.”
After the backlash, Trump made another post including other crypto names. But it was too late. He was pissed. His aides were pissed. One of them called Ballard directly and yelled at him. They believed Ballard had used his employee to get Trump to promote a client.
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