On Monday, the nation was briefed on the status of the conflict in Iran. There was, of course, a “What Will Trump Say” market on it.
Today, I would like to talk specifically about the “Joe Biden” mention, and why — no matter what your politics or beliefs at the appropriateness of the remarks — “Trump Mentions” markets are our greatest, most underrated current form of entertainment.
Check out this chart:
If you watched the press conference live, you may remember that President Trump, around that 2:30 p.m. dip in the “Biden” mentions, said he’d take “one or two more and we’ll be done” — and then proceeded to take at least five or six more questions.
But at that point the questions weren’t trending toward anything Biden-related, and it looked like everything might be over for this market.
The answer went from NATO’s reluctance to join in the conflict, to South Korea/Australia/Japan refusing to aid with the Iran mission, to noting we had 45,000 soldiers in South Korea to help protect them from Kim Jong Un, “who I get along with very well as you know”… and then he dropped this nugget on everyone:
“He used to call Joe Biden a ‘mentally retarded person,’ okay?”
And what I guess could be considered a giant upset/buzzer beater somehow, some way, came to fruition. Not in the most civil of ways — although, to his credit, Trump did clarify that, Kim Jong Un, “was so nasty to Joe Biden, it was terrible” after he mentioned the quote a second time — but it brings something up that we have to consider in this world of prediction markets and Donald Trump.
He is such an unpredictable speech-giver and stream-of-consciousness answer-er, NOTHING is over until it is over. One or two more questions becomes another 30 minutes of possibility; it’s the prediction markets’ version of overtime. It is a gift.
Plus, there’s always the possibility of malaprops and Trump simply stumbling onto something. During one answer, Trump was trying top say “to the victor belong the spoils” and he started out instead by saying “to the victim.” If “victim” was a market for this speech, you would’ve gotten paid out because of that temporary fumble.
The exchanges could even now just drop something random like a “Paul” or “Brandon” mention in there for 1¢ — because stuff like this happens.
And to fully enjoy the experience, you have to watch live and you have to be buying “YES” markets — the awe of following his logic from one statement to another can lead to endless mention possibilities; buying against that is like buying the “any craps” section at a casino. It might work out sometimes but it’s not entertaining at all.
Kalshi, of course, has figured this out and they now embed a stream of the press conference onto the market page. So as you watch you can guess where he may go next as the numbers move up and down. “Biden,” for instance, is never out, even at 6¢ with one question theoretically remaining.
Trump speeches are going to happen, whether you like him or loathe him. The fact we can now profit from the words coming out of his mouth just heightens the entertainment value.