Donald Trump went off on a rant at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins when she tried to get him to explain why he pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
The president lashed out at the CNN anchor after she appeared to ask whether Zhao’s presidential pardon had anything to do with Binance’s reported interest in working with the Trump family’s crypto business.
“I believe we’re talking about the same person, because I do pardon a lot of people. I don’t know, he was recommended by a lot of people,” Trump said. “A lot of people say that he wasn’t guilty of anything. He served four months in jail, and they say that he was not guilty of anything.”
“You don’t know much about crypto,” Trump pointedly told Collins as she tried to ask a follow-up during a Q&A session at the White House. “You know nothing about nothing—you’re fake news.”
Zhao, a Chinese-born Canadian who is one of the world’s richest people, served four months in prison after pleading guilty in 2023 to violating anti–money laundering requirements by failing to prevent criminals from using Binance to move money connected to drug trafficking and child abuse.
Binance was forced to pay $4.3 billion in fines, and Zhao stepped down as chief executive following his guilty plea. The company has also been barred from operating in the U.S. since 2023 because of Zhao’s conviction.
Zhao was released from prison in September 2024 and spent months lobbying for the Trump administration to offer him a pardon, wiping away his crime. In March, The Wall Street Journal reported that representatives of the Trump family’s crypto venture met to discuss taking a stake in the U.S. arm of Binance.
Zhao, widely known by his online pseudonym CZ, denied that he sought to make a deal in exchange for a pardon.
“Fact: I have had no discussions of a Binance US deal with … well, anyone,” he posted on X. “No felon would mind a pardon, especially being the only one in U.S. history who was ever sentenced to prison for a single BSA charge.”
While taking questions from the press on Thursday, Trump reiterated that he did not know who Zhao was before granting him a pardon.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever met him, but he had a lot of support, and they said that what he did is not even a crime, that he was persecuted by the Biden administration” Trump said. “So, I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.”
