According to a May 8 Politico report, US President Donald Trump was deceived by a lobbyist associated with Ripple Labs into announcing that the XRP token would be included in a proposed United States national cryptocurrency reserve. The incident occurred after an employee of pro-Trump lobbyist Brian Ballard gave Trump the text for a social media post, which suggested forming a digital asset reserve comprising XRP, Solana (SOL), and Cardano (ADA). Trump published this message on March 2 on his social media platform, only to later discover that Ripple was a client of Ballard. The revelation reportedly angered Trump.
Ripple's chief legal officer and CEO had met Trump before his announcement, and the company has been a significant contributor to pro-crypto political actions, including donating $5 million in XRP to Trump's inaugural fund. Four days after Trump's post, he signed an executive order to create a 'Digital Asset Stockpile,' formalizing the crypto reserve plan. Notably, XRP's price rose by approximately 5% in the past 24 hours following the report, although the initial announcement did not cause significant price movement.