Trump Stopped Bashing Comcast and CNN. His Stock Portfolio Tells The Full Story.
(SeaPRwire) –
By: Gavin Thorne
The Trump administration’s official line that the president has zero input on his personal investment portfolio is laughable on its face. No one buys that a man who obsesses over media coverage and personal public feuds would leave trades of his most hated media targets entirely to third-party managers. The gap between his nonstop 2025 rants against Comcast and CNN, and his total 2026 silence on both firms, lines up too cleanly with his trade activity to be written off as random coincidence.
Trump’s 2025 annual financial disclosure, released to the public in June 2026, shows 30 separate Comcast trades across five of his brokerage accounts last year. That figure is higher than Apple’s 28 trades or Nvidia’s 25 trades individually, and higher than Boeing and Disney’s combined 21 total trades. Only Meta saw more trading activity in his portfolio, with 33 total recorded transactions over the same 12-month period. Warner Bros. Discovery, parent of CNN, also appears in his 2025 trade records alongside the other five S&P 500 firms he’s publicly commented on this year.
2025 saw Trump repeatedly attack Comcast CEO Brian Roberts by name, calling him a “lowlife” and “dopey” and demanding Comcast be investigated for harming the country. He also called CNN leadership “corrupt or incompetent” late last year, pushing for the network to be sold or overhauled during its ongoing Paramount Skydance merger talks. None of that sharp, public criticism has carried over into 2026, with no direct comments on either firm from the president all year.
Comcast donated millions to Trump’s inaugural ballroom effort earlier this year, a detail that flew largely under the radar at the time. The firm also announced plans to spin off its NBCUniversal division on June 29, a move that will require formal approval from the FCC. The FCC is run by Trump appointee Brendan Carr, who opened a formal investigation into Comcast’s DEI practices back in February 2025 that has never been formally closed. Any major Comcast transaction will face regulatory scrutiny directly tied to the administration’s priorities.
The White House has repeatedly stated that neither the president nor his family has ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest related to their personal finances. But senior leadership ethics experts say the very question of whether his silence on Comcast ties to trade activity exposes a critical flaw in existing executive branch financial disclosure rules. Neither Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery, nor the Trump Organization responded to requests for comment on the pattern of trades and shifting public rhetoric.
The FCC will delay formal closure of its Comcast DEI investigation until after the NBCUniversal spinoff review wraps, and Trump will never publicly criticize Comcast again for as long as the firm remains in his investment portfolio.
Author bio: Gavin Thorne, an investigative journalist tracking special interests and legislative affairs based in Washington, D.C.