White House teleprompter operator put on leave over alleged bets on Trump speeches

Summary

Karoline Leavitt calls apparent bets on Kalshi prediction platform ‘deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace’ Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator has been placed on administrative leave, the White House said on Thursday, after reports that he used his position to win $100,000 by placing bets on the president’s speeches using the online prediction market Kalshi. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president had been informed about the situation, which she described as “deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace”. Leavitt said the employee had been placed on unpaid administrative leave and that another person would be operating Trump’s teleprompter during Thursday night’s address to the nation on election integrity. “The White House has extremely strict ethical guidelines with respect to issues like this,” she added. Sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News that the employee, Gabriel Perez, is negotiating with federal regulators to resolve allegations that he used advance knowledge of the president’s speeches to generate more than $100,000 in winnings. One source told CNN that Perez earned more than $90,000 from the trades under investigation, though those profits have since been frozen. Perez worked Trump’s teleprompter since 2016 as a technical assistant to the president. The activity reportedly centered on Kalshi’s “mentions” market, where participants can place bets on whether certain words, topics, or phrases will be said during a public speech. According to the sources, Kalshi detected unusual betting patterns and alerted the federal agency responsible for overseeing prediction markets, the CFTC. “Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC, and we are cooperating and assisting regulators,” Kalshi’s head of enforcement, Robert DeNault, said in a statement to ABC News. Government records show Perez earned an annual salary of $175,000 as a deputy assistant to the president and a technical adviser. Kalshi, along with its main competitor Polymarket, had in March rushed to institute new industry guardrails and add new surveillance tools after two key senators announced legislation that could severely curtail the industry’s prospects.