US President Donald Trump has apologized to Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, claiming he does not know the crypto executive personally and rejecting criticism that the move was politically motivated.
Trump claimed he did not know CZ in an interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes on Sunday, repeating his earlier claims after pardoning him in late October.
“Okay, are you ready? I don’t know who he is,” Trump asked about the pardon in the interview, adding that he had “heard” that the CZ case was a “Biden witch hunt.”
Trump’s remarks about the former Binance CEO, who admitted in 2023 to facilitating money laundering, followed several allegations suggesting potential conflicts of interest stemming from Binance’s ties to crypto ventures linked to the Trump family.
“Pay for Play” girl
Pressed by CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell on reports that Binance had facilitated a $2 billion stable purchase linked to Trump-backed World Liberty Financial (WLFI) before the pardon, Trump rejected the suggestion.
“Well, here’s the thing,” the president said, “I don’t know anything about it because I’m too busy doing something else.”
After O’Donnell interjected, “But he got a pardon,” Trump responded:
“Norah, I can just tell you this – my sons are involved. And I’m happy that they’re probably a huge industry, crypto. I think it’s good. You know, they’re running a business. They’re not in government (…) I’m proud of them, I’m focused on that.”
Under the Biden administration, Trump said of CZ, “I don’t know anything about the guy, other than I’ve heard that he’s being weaponized by the government.”
Related: Elizabeth Warren calls CZ’s defamation threat ‘without merit’
“I only care about one thing,” he added, and that is that he “wants to make crypto great for America.”
If you want to call it that, crypto has proven to be a massive industry. And I am very proud to say that we are far ahead of China and everybody. And China is just getting into it in a big way. “
“If you go after the people, you’re going to kill the industry, and it’s going to be very bad,” the president concluded.
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