The White House on Thursday confirmed that President Donald Trump's teleprompter operator has been placed on administrative leave following allegations that he used advance knowledge of the president's prepared remarks to place winning bets on a prediction market.

ABC News reported that Gabriel Perez, who was first hired by Trump in 2016, is in settlement talks with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over allegations that he used advance knowledge of the president's remarks to place wagers on Kalshi.

"The individual that was cited in that report is complying with the CFTC, but has been put on paid administrative leave," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. Her comments aired live on Newsmax and the free Newsmax2 streaming platform.

"So there will be a teleprompter operator tonight, of course, but it will not be the one, unfortunately, in that story," Leavitt said, referring to Trump's scheduled national address on election integrity.

Leavitt said she had spoken with Trump about the situation, and he called it "deeply unfortunate and frankly, a disgrace."

Perez allegedly placed wagers on more than a dozen Trump appearances over a three-month period, according to ABC News. The wagers included the February State of the Union address, a January speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and remarks at a March Medal of Honor ceremony.

Kalshi said it alerted regulators after its internal monitoring flagged suspicious trading activity.

"The Kalshi surveillance team promptly flagged, investigated and referred these trades to the CFTC," Robert DeNault, head of enforcement and legal counsel at Kalshi, wrote Thursday on X. "We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided all evidence that we collected, as we do with any referral."
 

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