In Donald Trump’s telling, he’s a model of incorruptible self-sacrifice. I donated it to fixing the White House. I donated the salary into the White House preservation.” Trump’s ethical self-depiction was undercut in startling fashion a day later when the crypto company that runs his memecoin offered “the most exclusive dinner in the world” at the president’s members-only Trump National club in Washington.
The top 29 buyers were promised an invitation to an additional “VIP reception with your favourite president and one of the legends”. For the top four donors, a Trump 18-karat gold watch lay in store. The aim appeared to be to boost sales of the memecoin – called $Trump – over the next two months.
Trump personally profits from the coin, and disclosures show he made about $636m from it last year. With just over a month to go before November’s midterm elections, Democrats seized on the dinner invitation as a political gift as they try to convert concerns over Trump’s perceived corruption into a groundswell of outrage. They theorize it will power a “blue wave” that could enable the party to retake control of the House of Representatives and the Senate on 3 November.
With the US president’s approval ratings already at record lows amid discontent over rising living costs fueled by the unpopular war with Iran, ethics experts say “unprecedented” levels of corruption engaged in by Trump, his family and close associates are sufficiently serious to make him vulnerable to a popular backlash. The question is whether the myriad of accusations – many of them technical in nature – are straightforward enough to carry popular resonance. The administration vigorously rejects the assertions, which a White House spokesman, Davis Ingle, called “irresponsible” and likely to “reinforce the public’s distrust in what they read”.
President Trump has taken on a broad swath of entrenched special interests: negotiating most-favored-nation pricing deals with major pharmaceutical companies, launching TrumpRx.gov to lower drug prices, ending unfair trade practices that international corporations have exploited to offshore jobs, and implementing schedule F to fire unelected bureaucrats who actively subvert a democratically-elected president’s agenda. A Gallup poll published in September recorded 89% of both all adults as saying the problem was widespread. Only Lebanon, Peru, Ghana and Nigeria have registered higher levels of public concern in the past three years.
Analysts insist the US public has ample cause for complaint. Observers identify at least three main areas of potential abuse; crypto, a venture which Trump denounced as a “fraud” just five years ago; stock trading by government officials, including the president himself; and the predictions markets, represented by companies such as Kalshi and Polymarket, both of which have links to Donald Trump Jr, and which have raised concerns about well-connected figures profiting through putting bets on government decisions and the content of official speeches. There are also concerns about the growth of “pay to play” practices that have seen wealthy donors being granted special access and favorable decisions, including dropped criminal investigations, in exchange for donations to Trump’s campaign and political Super Pac.
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