Attendee slams ‘Walmart steak’ at controversial dinner hosted by Trump

After buying enough of President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency “meme coin” to get into an exclusive dinner with the president, an influencer says his reward was “Walmart steak.”

The remarks by 25-year-old Nicholas Pinto, first reported by Fortune, have provided a window into an event billed as an “unforgettable Gala DINNER” and “the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World.”

The dinner was held May 22 at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia.

The $TRUMP coin was launched with an initial public offering in January, accompanied by extensive criticism that a sitting president should not be trading on his position in a financial venture, let alone one in the volatile cryptocurrency arena. A White House spokewoman has argued that the president’s assets are in a blind trust managed by his children and that he is not acting for direct personal gain.

The ups and downs of the coin, plus considerable foreign investment in it, have raised additional concerns about possible insider trading and foreign interests using it to buy favor with the president. The coin was offered at an initial price of 18 cents and soon hit a short-term peak reportedly as high as $75.

The price gradually sank until the coin was trading at below $10 for most of April.

Trump and the coin’s backers began promoting a dinner open only to the Top 220 investors in the coin. The price rose considerably afterward.

The event came complete with hecklers outside and famous people inside, including former NBA star Lamar Odom.

Pinto is an entrepreneur and influencer who reckoned to Fortune that he’d accumulated more than $360,000 in $TRUMP coins to rank No. 72 among investors. That got him entry to dinner, but not a private White House visit for the very top investors.

Reuters reported that investors spent an estimated $148 million on the $TRUMP meme coin to secure their seats at the dinner.

The menu at the dinner included a “Trump organic field green salad,” filet mignon and pan-seared halibut. But according to Pinto, “Everyone at my table was saying the food was some of the worst food that they ever had.”

“I was hoping for either Big Macs or pizza,” Pinto told Fortune. “That would have been better than the food that we were served.”

Pinto also griped that he, like most attendees, got no face time with Trump, didn’t get to meet Elon Musk and that the president’s speech at the event was “pretty much like bulls–.”

Other attendees appear to have had mixed reactions, including some with a much more positive outlook than Pinto. NBC News quoted an unnamed source as saying, “He helicoptered in, he helicoptered out. We didn’t really get to shake hands with him or anything, but it was a really interesting group of crypto people all in the same room … It’s about what I expected. I got the chance to be pretty close to the president when he was giving his speech.”

On Sunday, the coin was trading in the $12 to $13 range.