Truth Social Paid Access, Colorado River Cuts, FIFA's Faceplant

**Ayesha Rascoe** (0:02)
President Trump's social media company will charge people to see posts first.

**Scott Simon** (0:07)
He is the biggest user on Truth Social, and his posts certainly move markets. So will people pay for early access?

**Ayesha Rascoe** (0:14)
I'm Ayesha Rascoe.

**Scott Simon** (0:15)
And I'm Scott Simon, and this is Up First from NPR News. Wall Street trading firms can make money from an edge of just milliseconds in information about the economy and global affairs, rather than Trump wants a cut.

**Ayesha Rascoe** (0:29)
In Arizona, California and Nevada, farms and communities will see steep cuts to their water from the Colorado River over the next decade.

**Scott Simon** (0:39)
And global soccer gets a red card. FIFA's plan to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors is gone just days after it was revealed. So please stay with us. We got the news you need to start your weekend.

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**Ayesha Rascoe** (2:00)
President Trump's social media platform, Truth Social, begins selling a new service today. For a fee of up to $100,000 a month, Truth Social offers early access to posts from prominent users, including the president.

**Scott Simon** (2:17)
And if your correspondent, Bobby Allen, joins us. Bobby, thanks for being with us.

**Bobby Allen** (2:21)
Hey, Scott.

**Scott Simon** (2:22)
First, give us just some of the details about what the service is.

**Bobby Allen** (2:26)
Sure, Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, is calling this Truth API, and it's being offered to banks and other institutional investors as a way to get a jump on what Trump and others post on Truth Social. Now, Trump's announcements about government policy, conflicts in the Middle East, and other developments can send company share prices up or down. So getting Trump's post even a few moments faster could make a difference with stock trading. And I gotta say, Scott, this is just a very unusual product for a president to be selling his social media posts, and it's led to a fair amount of concern in Washington and on Wall Street.

**Scott Simon** (3:02)
What are those concerns?

**Bobby Allen** (3:03)
Yeah, I talked to lawyers who formerly worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and they said this service looks like it violates insider trading laws against misusing public information to give certain investors an upper hand. They say the president posts about the straight of her moves, and a trader uses that to make money on oil futures. Democrats too have taken notice. They've been criticizing this. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff wrote a letter to the SEC demanding an investigation.

**Scott Simon** (3:30)
Are Wall Street traders biting?

**Bobby Allen** (3:32)
You know, this service is being pitched to big banks and institutions. We're talking about a price tag of over a million dollars a year. This isn't cheap. I reached out to a dozen brokers, hedge fund managers, other investors, and nearly all of them declined to be interviewed. But one high profile Wall Street executive did talk to me on the condition that he not be named since this person feared retaliation from the Trump administration. And this person called the service, quote, insane and said, there's no way, quote, myself and 200 of my friends in finance will get anywhere near the service since in another administration, it would be viewed as criminal.

**Scott Simon** (4:05)
How does Trump's media company respond to these criticisms?

**Bobby Allen** (4:09)
Yeah, a spokeswoman for Trump's media company said, Truth API gives customers faster access to public information and said that critics, including law professors and Democrats, have invented new theories of insider trading to attack the president.

**Scott Simon** (4:22)
Bobby, how does this truth social service fit into the larger picture of how the president's been able to profit during his time in office?