White House responds after teleprompter operator reportedly made over $100,000 betting on Trump's speeches

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has spoken out after it was revealed that an investigation was taking placed after a teleprompter operator had allegedly been using 'inside information' to place bets on Donald Trump.

Gabriel Perez, has been placed on unpaid administrative leave after he was accused of winning almost $100,000 by placing bets on President Donald Trump's speeches.

He has worked for the President a decade, starting his role in 2016. Events he has been accused of making bets on include the State of the Union speech.

During a press briefing on Thursday, Leavitt was asked 'who was running the teleprompt tonight' after the investigation into Perez.

"Obviously I'm aware of the report, the President is to," she said. "I spoke with him about it. He believes it is deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace.

Trump has called the matter 'a disgrace' (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

"The individual that was cited in the report is complying with the CFTC but has been put on paid administrative leave," she confirmed.

Ending on a light hearted note, she added: "There will be a teleprompter tonight, of course, but it will not be the one, unfortunately, from that story."

It's reported that the man in question used his inside knowledge to place bets on Kalshi, which is a prediction market platform, launched in 2021.

Sources tell ABC that Kalshi made their regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), aware to the 'suspicious activity'.

As per the outlet, this was based in the 'mentions' market, which is where users are able to bet on words, phrases and topics that will come up in a public speech.

The bets were made on Kalshi (Photo Illustration by Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Kalshi's head of enforcement, Bobby DeNault said in a statement provided to the outlet: "Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC, and we are cooperating and assisting regulators."

As per the BBC, the company realized it was a federal employee operating White House teleprompters, by using account data.

CFTC told the outlet they could not "confirm or deny" any probe.

Having worked with Trump since his first time in office, the two actually share a close working relationship, and he has even received public shoutouts from the President.

During a Reno campaign stop in 2024, he said: "I have a guy, Gabe, he's excellent. I've had some real bad ones, but I have Gabe, some of the bad ones, they go so fast. I will go and I say, slow the damn thing.

"No, a good one is really like gold."