The Corruption Is the Point
An awful lot of folks are okay with bribing Donald Trump, his family, and his administration. What will the reckoning look like -- or will it happen at all?
Back in November 2024 I warned about, “the inevitable corruption that will compromise U.S. policies” in Trump’s second term, suggesting, “it will not be surprising if foreign benefactors approach Trump’s coterie of advisers with implicit and explicit promises of lucrative deals after their time in office—as long as they play ball while in power.”
The corruption radiating from the second Trump administration was apparent from the the first hundred days. The administration made zero effort to conceal its corruption under the theory that acting shamelessly renders corruption moot. By last November I had concluded, “Credit where due: during his second term Trump has really innovated, developing new and exciting ways to get bought off.”
And yet as it turns out that my November 2024 warning was too circumspect. Foreign benefactors and domestic firms alike have not restricted themselves to Trump’s advisers. They have explicitly focused on Donald Trump and his family.
Indeed, I have heard from multiple sources that the difference between Trump’s first term and his second term is the degree of personal corruption. This time around, anyone lobbying the White House for a particular policy is asked how the Trump family will prosper from acceding to such a move. The palms couldn’t be greasier.
The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey, Dana Mattioli, Annie Linskey, and Emily Glazer have a gangbuster story that basically confirms the depth of Trump’s corruption:
Almost every night in the White House, President Trump calls his fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, for an update.
Trump asks O’Rourke which companies and donors have cut checks and which haven’t, and for how much. He often asks her to make much larger financial requests than she was planning—for some donors the ask is $5 million, for others it is $50 million. And the president gives her names to call, often including people who have recently met with him, according to people with knowledge of the calls.
“This is very important to the president. He’s asked me to call you and ask you for this donation,” O’Rourke has relayed on phone calls with companies, persistently following up with them. In some calls, she has referred to Trump as the boss, saying “the boss wants this money.” In turn, Trump has called her the “princess of darkness” because she is such a “killer” with donors, according to people who have heard his comments.
SoftBank donated $50 million toward Trump’s presidential library. Apple cut a check for around $25 million toward his White House ballroom project, while Microsoft gave around $10 million and Amazon chipped in around $5 million, according to people familiar with the contributions. Meta Platforms recently gave $10 million to a Trump-aligned political committee, people familiar said, on top of a multimillion donation to the ballroom and a prior $22 million payment to the planned presidential library.
Trump stands out for taking personal control of the fundraising, and no sitting American president has ever raised these amounts for his pet projects. At the same time, companies have paid new attention to the White House as Trump has gotten involved in regulatory decisions that once were made by independent agencies, dramatically shifting the balance of power across Washington….
All told, the second-term president has raised more than $800 million since returning to office, according to an updated Wall Street Journal analysis….
When some donors have been put on the phone with Trump after giving millions, they expected to receive thank yous, but instead were asked for more money, people familiar with the calls said. In one case, O’Rourke asked an executive to cut a $1 million check to a Trump entity just days after he’d attended a thank you dinner for a separate multimillion-dollar donation he’d made to the president’s ballroom, according to a person familiar with the exchange….
O’Rourke isn’t a government employee, although she is often at Trump’s side in the White House and elsewhere. She sometimes sits in on meetings, including when Trump meets with corporate executives about issues that affect them. O’Rourke also travels with top officials on Air Force One. She often posts photos of herself with Trump, including in the Oval Office, on her social-media accounts and has referred to Trump as a mentor….
Executives said Trump is one of the most accessible presidents in recent times. In private, they acknowledged that this administration is much more transactional than prior ones. If a company encounters an issue with the federal government that comes to Trump’s attention, he will want to know how much money the company gave, according to a person familiar with the matter. At times he’ll rib the corporate leaders who haven’t met the goals he set, the person said.
Several CEOs and board members said they believe there is a link between their contributions and their access to the president. One chairman of a publicly traded company said that if you give the money, you know you are either checked on a list, or crossed off a list if you don’t.
Trump’s shift towards a more statist brand of economic policymaking creates even more opportunities for grift. For example, the recent effort to maintain high tariffs have generated fierce lobbying from foreign exporters for exemptions. According to the New York Times’ Ana Swanson and Jeanna Smialek, the U.S. exempted tariffs on diamonds after negotiations with European officials — but also after Trump received, “an 18-karat gold ring the size of a watch. The ring was encrusted with 321 diamonds and dozens of sapphires, emeralds and rubies, and it was a gift to Mr. Trump to mark America’s 250th anniversary. The ring features two large diamond ‘Ts’ on either side, and ‘45’ and ‘47’ — references to Mr. Trump’s presidential terms — ringed in diamonds in a Superman-style logo. On its interior is engraved, ‘Crafted in Antwerp for Donald John Trump.’” Now imagine what domestic firms might offer Trump in return for federal equity stakes in their businesses. Heck, even Senator Ted Cruz has warned that the leaders of economies with heavy state intervention enrich themselves by stealing and robbing from those they govern.
The Trump family’s corruption is massive, leading Trump himself to extract more than $2.2 billion in 2025 alone from a variety of shakedowns and grifts that include foreign gifts, insider trading, bogus legal settlements, and cryptocurrency investments.1 As one presidential historian told the New York Times’ Eric Lipton, “It is the openness, the flagrant nature of what they are doing, almost with pride — cashing in on the office itself. That’s what makes it dramatically different.”
Trump basking in his corruption is not really a surprise at this point. What is a bit more surprising is the degree to which others have been willing to pay to play with Trump. They are acting as though the new Trumpian levels of corruption are the new normal in American political economy — and I’m not sure if they have thought through the implications of whether they are right or wrong about that.
