President Trump has shattered norms around public service ethics in ways that have enriched himself and his family, and the numbers keep piling up while the rest of the country gets told to swallow it.
The latest accounting, cited in an NPR article titled “5 takeaways on Fauci’s diaries during COVID-19 response,” says good governance watchdog groups have cataloged a litany of apparent corruption and conflict of interest incidents in Trump's second term. That includes a settlement between Trump and his own government that prevents the IRS from auditing the Trump family, high-dollar stock trades of companies directly involved in administration policy and outside cryptocurrency ventures that have dramatically increased his net worth. The apparatus doesn’t even bother to hide the arrangement anymore.
Who Pays for the Grift
Trump told The New York Times in January that “I found out that nobody cared.” He also said, “I prohibited [my children] from doing business in my first term, and I got absolutely no credit for it.” That’s the language of a man who treats public office like a family business and the public like a captive audience.
A tally from The New Yorker estimates that Trump and his family have pulled in an estimated $4 billion during the first year of the president's second term. His financial ventures include branded sneakers, Bibles, guitars, his social media company Truth Social, settlements from lawsuits against the press and social media companies, gifts from foreign countries including a luxury jet gifted by Qatar destined for his presidential library, hospitality deals and increased Mar-a-Lago resort fees, his children's private equity and crypto deals as well as Trump Media's own bitcoin holdings and the TRUMP meme coin. The spoils are broad. The extraction is open.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told NPR in May, “Watergate was like a Cub Scout prank compared to what we're living through.” He also said, “No other president came remotely close to what Donald Trump has done.” Raskin added, “Every part of the government has been prostituted and co-opted for moneymaking purposes. And the president made more than a billion dollars in his first year in office.” He said, “There's nothing remotely comparable to that in all of American history.”
The System They Call Reform
Nearly all voters say corruption is a big problem in American politics. That’s true of 90% of Republicans and 93% of both Democrats and independents, according to recent polling by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy organization that advocates for reforms. Marina Pino, an attorney with the organization's Elections and Government Program, said Americans see corruption as “an embedded structural problem.” She said, “Part of this is this perception that the government is primarily working for the ultra wealthy and the well-connected.”
Pino said, “Voters are defining corruption expansively,” and they tie it directly to the political issues they care most about. Eighty-eight percent of voters, for instance, say that “corruption is responsible for big problems that our government has failed to solve,” like the high cost of living. The message from below is plain enough. The people feel the squeeze; the people at the top keep cashing in.
Since President Trump first took office in 2017, Democratic lawmakers have tried to make the president's financial and foreign entanglements a key issue in the minds of voters, with limited success outside of their base voters. Lately, though, some Democrats have been expanding their message on the issue, arguing that corruption extends beyond the president to the whole of the U.S. political system. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., told the crowd at a Savannah rally in June, “The Mar-a-Lago Mafia has taken American corruption to spectacular new heights. But corruption in America runs a lot deeper than Donald Trump.” He also said, “American politics is coin operated. Money goes in, favors come out.”
NPR observed two focus groups of swing voters in Pennsylvania earlier this month. Half of the 12 participants, when asked, said they were “troubled” by the president's earnings. The other half waved it off. One participant, Todd A., said, “When it comes to ethics, moral and financial, I think that just about every politician is corrupt. So, the fact that he's a known huckster, I mean, we've known that for years about him.”
What They Call Accountability
Paige Cognetti, a Democratic House candidate running against Republican incumbent Rob Bresnahan to represent the northeast corner of Pennsylvania, said, “It's hard for us at any level of government to get to the substance of how we improve people's lives if corruption is getting in the way.” Cognetti currently serves as mayor of Scranton. Her predecessor in that office was embroiled in a corruption scandal that ultimately resulted in a seven-year prison sentence.
Cognetti's eight-point anti-corruption proposal includes a prohibition on congressional stock trades, a ban on former lawmakers becoming lobbyists and term limits for members of Congress and Supreme Court justices. She said that if Congress can put those reforms in place, “then we can get to the actual substance of reforming our healthcare system, reforming our education system, making sure that everyone has a fair shot and that we have true economic opportunity for people all across the country.” The pitch is familiar: clean up the machine first, then maybe the machine will work for the people. But the machine keeps the gears.
Reform proposals like Cognetti's have been Democratic priorities for years, but have gained new traction this campaign season in conjunction with the party's focus on affordability. The party has announced numerous groups and policy agendas focused specifically on anti-corruption measures. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced another new initiative last week.
Some Republican campaigns are also embracing an anti-corruption message. House Republicans have conducted investigations into alleged abuses of social safety net programs and advanced legislation to curtail fraudulent abuses of federal spending. House Republican lawmakers also advanced limited restrictions on stock trading and ownership last week. The same institutions that feed the problem keep offering managed fixes, narrow rules, and campaign-season theater.
Bernadette Breslin, national press secretary at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said, “Jon Ossoff claims the moral high ground while cashing checks from the very 'Epstein class' billionaires he condemns — proving his so-called fight against corruption is nothing more than a campaign talking point.” Ossoff's campaign has received donations from billionaires at the legal maximum contribution limit of $7,000, and his campaign is supported by the national Senate Majority PAC, which can receive uncapped donations. His fundraising is majority-funded by contributions under $200, with an average amount of $42, according to the campaign.
Republican operatives have levied corruption allegations against Democratic candidates, including Cognetti, whose campaign denies wrongdoing, and highlighted more serious criminal charges faced by Democratic members of Congress. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, was accused by federal prosecutors of accepting roughly $600,000 in bribes. Former Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., resigned this year after being charged with theft by federal prosecutors. Both have denied wrongdoing.
The whole spectacle runs on the same fuel: money in, favors out, and ordinary people left to watch the rich and connected turn public office into a private revenue stream.