NPR News: 07-02-2026 4PM EDT

Lakshmi Singh· Host0:01

Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. It was disclosed this week that President Trump made over one billion dollars from crypto businesses last year. Those investments have worked out well for the president, but as NPR's Rafael Nam reports, many investors in those ventures have lost a lot of money.

Rafael Nam0:19

When it comes to cryptocurrencies, Trump has followed a plan similar to the ones he has used during most of his business career. He earns a lot of money, but he's careful to protect himself and his family from any downsides. Take a meme coin he launched, or essentially a cryptocurrency based on things like memes or even cartoons. Trump doesn't own the meme coin. He just licenses his name. That earned him over six hundred million dollars. The coin itself, though, it has crashed from over seventy dollars at its peak to about a dollar today, leading to big losses for investors. Rafael Nam, NPR News.

Lakshmi Singh· Host0:57

Hiring slowed to the tune of fifty-seven thousand jobs added to payrolls in June. That is less than half of the gains recorded the previous month. The unemployment rate ticked down to four-point-two percent. The latest report signals companies are cautious about the labor market stability as the inflation rate remains at a three-month high. At the close, the Dow was up nearly six hundred points. The Nasdaq was down more than two hundred points. Extreme daytime heat in much of the eastern U.S. is likely to set records, but as NPR's