CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said markets on mentions in President Donald Trump's speeches were never available on US exchanges, calling such reports 'fake news'. But Kalshi, a platform regulated by the CFTC, offered and continues to offer trading on these markets in the United States.
Selig made the statement at a meeting of the CFTC's Innovation Advisory Committee, where crypto, AI and prediction markets were discussed. CME chief Terry Duffy criticised the regulator for allowing trading on such markets and mentioned insider-trading scandals: 'If you look at what happened with Maduro, with Trump's teleprompter — a lot of it is susceptible to manipulation. It's terrible for our industry. We're not circus performers.'
In response, Selig said: 'These products were not listed in the US. Never. These were offshore platforms, and this is fake news.' He likely meant the international exchange Polymarket. But Trump-mention markets traded on Kalshi, which the CFTC fully regulates.
According to investigators, Gabriel Perez placed bets on Kalshi on at least twelve Trump speeches over three months, using information from the teleprompter. Kalshi's monitoring service flagged suspicious activity and passed the data to the regulator.
Duffy gave Selig a chance to correct himself, but Selig repeated: 'Maduro and teleprompter contracts were not listed in the US.' The Maduro scandal did happen on Polymarket — soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke took part in an operation to capture the Venezuelan leader and bet on his resignation. But Kalshi also offered a market on Maduro leaving office, with trading volume exceeding $7.7 million.
Kalshi continues to offer bets on Trump's words even after the teleprompter scandal. The platform removed mention markets in sports but kept them in politics. Duffy noted that since January 2025 the CFTC has received 2,500 self-certification applications for markets and has not rejected a single one. Selig remains the only CFTC commissioner instead of the standard five.
