President Donald Trump publicly brushed aside the Russian businessman who bankrolled his eldest son’s wedding festivities, and in private he has been far less forgiving.
Trump has complained to close aides that Donald Trump Jr. showed poor judgment by letting Umar Kremlev, a businessman with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, pay for the couple’s post-wedding party in the Bahamas. The private grumbling was reported Friday night, Oct. 23, 2026.
In public, the president has treated the episode as nothing at all. Standing in the Oval Office on Friday, Sept. 18, he told reporters, “It’s totally allowed,” and said he had asked about the arrangement and been told his son was paying the money back. He waved the matter off as unimportant.
A Private Island and a Fireworks Show
Trump Jr. married Bettina Anderson, a socialite from Palm Beach, Fla., in May, in a small ceremony. The Russian money behind the three-day celebration that followed did not come to light until September. Kremlev covered hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses, including the rental of one of the two private islands where the party was held and a fireworks display.
Kremlev skipped the wedding ceremony but joined roughly 50 guests for the island festivities, part of a group of Russians whose presence puzzled other attendees. The president’s son Eric Trump was there, as were Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, and Tiffany Trump. Neither Trump Jr. nor his wife, now Bettina Trump, posted any photos showing Kremlev or the other Russian guests.
The president stayed away, as did his youngest son, Barron Trump. He attributed his absence to government obligations in a Truth Social post. Days later, he announced plans to travel to New York City to watch the Knicks in the NBA Finals.
The Repayment Kremlev Calls Unnecessary
In October, at an International Boxing Association (IBA) press conference in Istanbul, Kremlev said Trump Jr. had reimbursed him for the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Kremlev, who heads the IBA and was elected its president in 2020, said he considered the gesture pointless. “Frankly speaking, I do not understand why he decided to do so,” Kremlev said.
No evidence of the repayment has been publicly offered, and there is no indication of when or how it took place. Bettina Trump has defended the spending as a wedding present from a friend and said she and her husband appreciate it. Trump Jr. has played down the scale of the event on his “Triggered” podcast, describing a modest guest list of people close to the couple.
A Republican Senator Wants Him Subpoenaed
Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to open an investigation into the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment or access by domestic and foreign interests — and to subpoena both Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden. Curtis wrote that the country should not live under one standard for a Republican president’s family and another for a Democratic president’s, and that oversight should not switch off when the White House changes hands.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the committee’s ranking member, backed the request, calling it “a gutsy move.” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee’s chairman, said he would “take his request seriously” but that “it takes time.”
Scrutiny of Trump Jr.’s Russian contacts is not new. During the 2016 campaign, his Trump Tower meeting with a Russian attorney became a central thread in investigations into whether his father’s campaign coordinated with Moscow.
Careful Not to Be Photographed Together
The wedding is not the only place the two men’s names appear together. Trump Jr. and Kremlev spent two days in late August on a hunting trip in Mongolia’s Uvs province, where the president’s son shot an Altai argali, an endangered horned sheep. Kremlev documented his flight from Kazakhstan by chartered jet on Telegram and traveled with Arthur Martirosov, a Russian businessman and partner in Voskhod, a venture capital fund under U.S. sanctions. A local involved in the trip said that the two were cautious about being photographed together.
A spokesperson for Trump Jr. said the men have a personal friendship, not a business relationship, grounded in a shared enthusiasm for hunting, fishing and the outdoors. Holden Triplett, who served as counterintelligence director on the U.S. National Security Council during Trump’s first term, said that once Russian security and intelligence services identify a relationship with someone of high value, they will try to weaponize it.
