The White House has said the operator of Donald Trump's teleprompter has been fired after being accused of placing bets on a predictions platform about the content of the US president's speeches.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the teleprompter operator had been placed on unpaid administrative leave by order of the president and "will no longer be working at the White House."
She said Trump considers the employee's alleged actions "very unfortunate and frankly deplorable."
"There are very strict ethics rules here at the White House that clearly state you should not be doing that," she added.
According to ABC News, Gabriel Perez is suspected of earning more than $100,000 through bets on the platform Kalshi by predicting specific words or phrases likely to appear in the president's speeches.
The platform reported what it considered suspicious activity to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the regulatory body overseeing the markets. Perez, who has operated Trump's teleprompter since 2016, is currently in talks to reach a settlement with the commission.