The Corruption is the Point
Among all his ventures, "Trump the President" is his most successful yet.
For much of his career, Donald Trump has been an abject failure as a businessman.
His casinos have gone bankrupt, his University went bust. He’s tried to sell everything from steaks, to vodka, to bottled water. There’s also been Trump the Game, Trump the Magazine, and Trump the Shuttle.
But after all of these failures, he’s finally found a successful product: Trump the President.
For Donald Trump, the office of the US presidency is not only the most powerful position on the planet, but also the most personally profitable. According to Forbes, Trump was worth at least $5.1 billion as of March 2025 – or about double what he was worth at the end of his first term in 2020.
Here’s how he’s raking it in – and – more importantly - how he’s getting away with it.
First, he’s still got the tacky merch – who wouldn’t want a Trump flask or a sequined sweatshirt? Don’t forget the Trump watch, or the Trump special-edition Bible for $1,000.
But that’s small potatoes compared to the big-money corruption that’s defining his presidency.
During his first term, Trump scored about $1.6 billion, according to an investigation by the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Much of this money came from business at Trump properties, including the now-defunct Trump International Hotel in Washington and the 399 visits he paid to his golf courses over his first four years.
In his second term, he’s become much more brazen about his tactics for extracting cash. For instance, an investigation by the New Yorker magazine reports that you can now buy a one-on-one with Trump for just $5 million.
He’s also extorting “gifts,” like the infamous Qatari jet, worth $400 million. According to CNN, Trump asked for the plane to be given to him, not the other way around.
Another grift is strongarming settlements from his enemies. He sued CBS News for $20 billion over its interview of Kamala Harris and has since won a “settlement” of $16 million. This is after he settled for $15 million from ABC for alleged defamation. The Freedom of the Press Foundation has called these suits “ a thinly veiled effort to launder bribes through the court system.”
Yet another tactic is selling pardons. According to ABC News, about one in five of the 60 people Trump has pardoned so far have been campaign contributors. These lucky criminals include a Florida nursing home executive convicted of tax fraud and the founder of an electric car company – no, not Tesla – who donated $2 million to Trump’s re-election after his conviction for investment fraud.
And of course there’s his biggest score so far, which is crypto. In addition to the dinner that he held for the top 220 holders of the Trump memecoin – which raised $148 million – Trump is using the parent company of his social media platform, Truth Social, to raise $2.5 billion for bitcoin investments.
This is all appalling. But what’s even more appalling is his systematic dismantling of the legal safeguards intended to prevent this kind of public corruption.
For instance, he’s politicized the Justice Department and the FBI by appointing rabid loyalists like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, who’ve decided not to prosecute, or even investigate public corruption. In one of his first actions as director of the FBI, Patel disbanded the agency’s elite anti-corruption squad. Likewise at the Department of Justice, Bondi fired most of the lawyers in the department’s Public Integrity Section.
Trump also fired most of the nation’s inspectors general, who act as independent auditors for federal agencies. Their job is – was - to root out waste, fraud and abuse. In 2024, Inspectors General found $71.1 billion of government waste. And that’s real savings, compared to whatever DOGE is doing.
Now, House Republicans are working to undermine the Government Accountability Office – the GAO – which is the government’s chief independent auditor. Its job also is to root out waste, fraud and abuse.
And finally, Trump is working to undermine the courts with increasing attacks on judges. He’s not only going after individual judges, he’s seeking to appoint loyalists, like his personal lawyer Emil Bove, to lifetime appointments on federal appeals courts.
All of this means that Trump has cleared the decks to ensure that he is the griftiest president ever to occupy the White House.
Watch a video version of this post here:
Plus… How Michael Pollan’s Acolytes Are Killing the Earth
In this week’s episode of the Washington Monthly podcast, politics editor Bill Scher and I had an eye-opening conversation with journalist Michael Grunwald, author of the new book, We Are Eating the Earth.
Michael talked about the many planet-killing aspects of agriculture and exploded some myths about what’s good for the earth. For instance, while many of us have been led to believe that free-range cattle and organic farming are ideals, Grunwald argues that this kind of low-yield agriculture is terrible for the climate because of its inefficiency. He also slams biofuels as another climate destroyer in disguise.
Watch the interview here:
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Best,
Anne