The Quick Answer
What will Trump say this week? With the market's clock running out tonight, Kalshi's weekly "mention" board has already resolved itself in slow motion: 19 words sit at 99¢: everything from "Netanyahu" to "Ballroom" to "Sleepy Joe," which the market reads as already spoken between Aug. 10 and now, while only a shrinking pool of longshots is still live, led by JD/Vance at 11¢ and "Rigged Election" at 9¢. This is not a preview board; it is a countdown. The full 31-word board, the one banked word that carried more volume than anything else, and the last handful of prices still worth watching before midnight are all below.
The Event: A Whole Week Of Trump, Priced Word By Word
Most of these Kalshi markets are built around a single speech. This one is different, and that difference is the whole story. The KXTRUMPSAY board is a weekly market: it asks whether Trump says each of 31 specific words or phrases at any point between Aug. 10 at 8:00 a.m. ET and Aug. 17 at 12:00 a.m. ET, which is to say before midnight tonight. It counts anything he says in public remarks, direct quotes carried by wire services, or posts on his personal Truth Social and X accounts. Executive orders and signed bills do not count; the word itself has to come out. One timing note worth keeping straight: the saying window shuts at midnight tonight, but the contracts themselves keep trading until 10:00 a.m. ET tomorrow before they settle, so the outcome effectively settles tonight even though the market stays open a few more hours.
That week-long window changes how you read the prices. On a single-speech board, everything is a live question until he steps to the microphone. Here, six days into a week-long window, the board has mostly already happened. A word at 99¢ is not a prediction anymore; it is the market's record that Trump has said it this week, closing the contract in everything but the final settlement. The only genuine questions left are the words he hasn't reached for yet, with a few hours on the clock.
How A Kalshi Mention Market Actually Works
This is the part people get wrong the first time, so it is worth being exact. Each word on the board is its own independent yes/no contract. "Netanyahu" at 99¢ is not competing with "Marijuana" at 99¢ for a single slot. Both can hit, neither can hit, or every word on the board can hit. That is why the prices do not add up to 100 the way a moneyline or a win-total market does; there is no single winner here, just 31 separate questions about one week. If the whole idea of a price-as-probability is new, our primer on how prediction markets work covers it before you read a single cent figure below.
A price in cents is just the market's probability. JD/Vance at 11¢ means the crowd puts about an 11% chance on Trump saying "Vance" before the window closes. "Rigged Election" at 9¢ is a 9% read; the bid sits at 8¢ and the ask at 9¢, so it reads as an 8% bid and a 9% ask. By contrast, a banked word like "Netanyahu" shows a 97% bid against a 99% last, a read the market treats as all but closed. If the word gets said, that contract settles at 100¢; if it doesn't, it settles at 0¢. New to seeing probabilities quoted as cents? Our explainer on how to bet on Kalshi walks through the mechanics from scratch.
The settlement rule is stricter than it looks, and it is where the longshots live or die. The exact word, or a plural or possessive form of it, has to be spoken or written by Trump himself. Grammatical tense changes don't count, and for slash contracts like "Crypto / Bitcoin," either word satisfies it. That precision is why a name as central to his orbit as "Vance" can still be sitting at 11¢ this late: the market is not betting he ignores his vice president, it is betting he doesn't happen to type or say the exact name in the final hours of a quiet mid-August week.
The Full Board: 31 Words, Priced
Here is every contract, sorted by price, as of 5:47 p.m. ET on Aug. 16, 2026, with roughly six hours left before the saying window closes at midnight (the contracts keep trading until 10:00 a.m. ET tomorrow). Treat these as a live snapshot; they move as money comes in and, obviously, the moment Trump posts.
| Word Or Phrase | Price | Contracts traded | What it's really pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bibi / Netanyahu | 99¢ | 174,199 | The week's dominant theme, by volume |
| Marijuana / Weed / Cannabis | 99¢ | 80,031 | A policy talker this week |
| Barack Hussein Obama | 99¢ | 65,245 | The full-name callback, near-automatic |
| Ballroom | 99¢ | 55,362 | His White House construction pet project |
| Windmill | 99¢ | 49,370 | The reliable energy pet peeve |
| Sleepy Joe | 99¢ | 49,358 | His default foil |
| Autopen / Auto Pen | 99¢ | 44,566 | The Biden-signature line |
| Transgender | 99¢ | 40,768 | Culture-war staple |
| Kamala | 99¢ | 40,135 | Still in the rotation |
| Soleimani | 99¢ | 28,576 | Foreign-policy callback |
| Cuba / Cuban | 99¢ | 28,549 | Immigration and Latin America |
| Golf / Golfer / Golfing | 99¢ | 21,052 | A near-certainty any week |
| TDS / Trump Derangement Syndrome | 99¢ | 19,473 | His favorite label |
| Zohran / Mamdani | 99¢ | 17,557 | New York City politics |
| Socialist / Socialism | 99¢ | 14,911 | The go-to opponent frame |
| Landslide | 99¢ | 13,928 | Election self-reference |
| Ukraine | 99¢ | 12,335 | Foreign policy |
| Fraud | 99¢ | 10,885 | Crime-and-elections crossover |
| Karoline / Leavitt | 99¢ | 6,660 | His press secretary |
| JD / Vance | 11¢ | 48,568 | The last live name on the board |
| Rigged Election / Stolen Election | 9¢ | 40,255 | A staple he hasn't reached for |
| Crypto / Bitcoin | 2¢ | 18,752 | Off-theme for a quiet week |
| Newscum | 2¢ | 9,654 | The Newsom nickname |
| Stupid Question | 2¢ | 41,147 | A press-conference reflex, priced as if no presser happens |
| Peace In The Middle East | 2¢ | 17,445 | The phrase, exact |
| TikTok | 2¢ | 12,444 | Policy aside |
| Uranium | 2¢ | 13,763 | Foreign-policy deep cut |
| Melania | 1¢ | 15,614 | Rarely named in remarks |
| UFO / UAP | 1¢ | 20,324 | Pure longshot |
| Who Are You With / Where Are You From | 1¢ | 28,490 | An in-person gaggle line |
| Prediction Market / Predictive Market | 1¢ | 19,465 | The market on itself, at a penny |
The row I keep coming back to is not one of the 99¢ near-certainties; it is JD/Vance at 11¢ on nearly 48,600 contracts, the most heavily traded of every word still in play. That is a lot of money agreeing that Trump probably makes it to midnight without saying his own vice president's name this week. It is the cleanest example of what these markets actually price: not importance, but the literal odds of a specific string of letters appearing in the next few hours. Vance matters every day; "Vance" the exact word is an 11% shot tonight.
Reading The Week In The Prices
Start with the banked words, because they are not random; they are a transcript of the week's themes. "Bibi / Netanyahu" isn't just at 99¢; it carried 174,199 contracts, more than twice any other word on the board, which tells you the Middle East was where the week's attention and money went. Around it sit this week's ambient 99¢ words: "Sleepy Joe," "Windmill," "Golf," "Transgender," "TDS," the ones the market treats as background noise; he says them the way other people say "um."
Then look at the genuinely live cluster, because it is tiny and it is telling. Below JD/Vance at 11¢ and "Rigged Election" at 9¢, everything drops straight to 2¢ and 1¢. There is no middle. Six days in, the market has sorted every word into two bins, said (99¢) or all but ruled out (1-2¢), with only two contracts left in real limbo. That bimodal shape is what a mention board looks like at the end of its window, and it is the opposite of the wide spread of live prices you would see on a fresh single-speech board like last week's New York speech board, where every word was still a live question.
The surprise to me is "Stupid Question" at 2¢ on more than 41,000 contracts. It is normally near-certain, but only when he takes questions. Priced at 2¢, the crowd is effectively saying it does not expect a combative press gaggle before midnight. The word isn't unlikely because he wouldn't say it; it is unlikely because the format that produces it may not happen in the hours left. That is the kind of second-order read these markets reward, and it is exactly the gap-hunting we broke down in how to actually win on Kalshi.
A Worked Example: What 11¢ On "Vance" Actually Costs
Say you disagree with the crowd on JD/Vance, sitting at 11¢, and you think a late-night Truth Social post naming his VP is more like a 25% shot. Here is the whole trade. One Yes contract costs you 11¢ at the last price, or 13¢ (a 13% price) if you have to pay the ask, and it pays out $1.00 if Trump says or writes "Vance" before midnight. So you are risking 11 to 13 cents to win 87 to 89. Your breakeven is right there in the price: at 11¢ you need the word to hit more than 11% of the time just to profit. If your real read is 25%, you are getting a 25% outcome for an 11% price, and that 14-point gap is the entire edge. Buy 100 contracts, about $11 at the last price or closer to $13 if you have to clear the ask, and you are set to win roughly $87 to $89 in profit if he says it. If instead you think the crowd has it right and it is a true 11% longshot with the week this quiet, there is no trade: an 11¢ price on an 11% event is fair, and you keep your money. Every one of these 31 rows works the same way, one word at a time.
The Bottom Of The Board Tells You What This Week Wasn't
The forward promise from the top pays off down here. The penny contracts, Melania at 1¢ (a 1% price), "UFO / UAP" at 1¢, and "Prediction Market" at 1¢, are not close calls, they are the crowd stating in prices that these are not part of how Trump talks in a normal week, the same way the whole 2¢ tier below "Rigged Election" reads as a firm no, priced at 2%. The self-referential one is my favorite: "Prediction Market" sits at a single cent, meaning the market is quite sure Trump won't mention the very kind of market people are using to bet on him. It is a small, confident crowd agreeing on a near-zero, the exact mirror image of the 99¢ near-certainties up top.
It is worth remembering where these contracts sit legally, because the board is quieter than the fight around it. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange, it is 18+, and it is not available in every state. New York's attorney general sued Kalshi on July 31 for as much as $36 billion, calling it an unlicensed gambling operation, and that case is a pending fight rather than a settled ban. If you are not sure where things stand, we track whether prediction markets are legal state by state. Check your own status before you trade, and if you want the fee-and-spread version of how the exchange earns on all this word-counting, we break down how Kalshi makes money.
If parsing a week of Trump's vocabulary isn't your idea of an edge, OddsShopper's free expert picks are a better use of the same hour; that is where you can shop a real number across every major sportsbook instead of guessing at a penny contract.
Frequently Asked Questions
What will Trump say this week, according to Kalshi? As of this evening, the board's 99¢ near-certainties (the words the market reads as already said between Aug. 10 and now) are led by "Netanyahu," "Marijuana," "Barack Hussein Obama," "Ballroom," and "Windmill." The only words still genuinely live are "Vance" (11¢) and "Rigged Election" (9¢); everything else has settled toward 1-2¢.
How does this Kalshi mention market settle? Each word is its own yes/no contract that resolves to 100¢ if Trump says or writes that exact word (or its plural or possessive) in public remarks, wire-service quotes, or a personal Truth Social or X post before Aug. 17 at 12:00 a.m. ET, and 0¢ if he doesn't. Official acts like signed bills don't count.
Why don't the prices add up to 100? Because every word is independent. This is not one market with a single winner; it is 31 separate bets on the same week, and any number of them can hit. If that idea is new, our guide to betting on Kalshi covers the mechanics.
Is Kalshi legal and safe to use? Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange and is 18+, but it is not available in every state and is facing active legal challenges, including New York's. Check your own state's status before you trade.
In Summary
A weekly Kalshi mention board is a strange, honest little document: line up the 31 contracts six days into the window and you are not looking at trivia, you are reading a crowd's record of what Trump has said this week: Netanyahu and marijuana and windmills all banked at 99¢, the Middle East pulling the most money by a mile, next to a short list of what he still might. The one price I will remember is JD/Vance at 11¢, tens of thousands of contracts betting he makes it to midnight without naming his own VP. The saying window closes at 12:00 a.m. ET tonight, which settles the outcome; the contracts stay tradable until 10:00 a.m. ET tomorrow, when they settle.
