The shameless corruption of Donald J Trump

He sat slouched in the middle of the room, hunched forward in an uncomfortable chair. His legs were planted wide, his hands looked like they were covering another bruise, and his voice was thick with defiance. Donald Trump jumped right back in, justifying his corruption, rewriting his past, and making it clear that he plans to make the American people pay him actual money, through the government. His weak posture didn’t match the over-the-top setting in the background, which showed the newly “enhanced” White House, with its gold lamé medallions stretched across every open wall space. It looked less like a democratic republic and more like a palace built to feed one man’s ego.

But this is exactly how he wants to be seen, not as a servant of the people, but as a king surrounded by gold. Across from him sat NBC’s Tom Llamas, doing what journalists have been forced to do for years now: try to get a straight answer from a man who treats interviews as theater, not accountability. And in that moment, Llamas pressed him about one of the lawsuits Trump has filed against the federal government. Here are the basics of what was said:

TRUMP: I brought a lawsuit. Essentially, the lawsuit’s been won. I guess I won a lotta money.

LLAMAS: H — h — how would this work —

TRUMP: No, but listen.

LLAMAS: though? Scott Bessent’s the head of the IRS.

TRUMP: I know. What I will do —

LLAMAS: Pam Bondi’s the head of the d — Justice Department. They’re gonna defend the IRS against you.

TRUMP: I know, that’s intere —

LLAMAS: You’re their boss.

TRUMP: Well, there’s never been anything like it. In all fairness

LLAMAS: But — so are you gonna —

TRUMP: No, d — don’t forget —

LLAMAS: are you gonna tell ‘em to pay you —

TRUMP: don’t forget, I sued as a private citizen, because I sued between terms.

LLAMAS: But are you gonna tell ‘em to —

TRUMP: I won three times.

LLAMAS: pay you?

TRUMP: I won three times, but I didn’t assume — unfortunately for this country, I didn’t assume office the second time. But here’s the story, I sued because they broke into Mar-a-Lago. That was before I became president. Now it goes along and it turned out that the suit is a very strong suit.

LLAMAS: You’re gonna tell ‘em to pay you though?

TRUMP: I —

LLAMAS: ‘Cause, you’re the boss.

TRUMP: Well, I w — what I would do, tell ‘em to pay me, but I’ll give 100% of the money to charity. I don’t want any of that money.

LLAMAS: You take it out of the system. Um, a couple more questions here —

TRUMP: No, no, I’m putting it back into the system.

LLAMAS:Yeah.

TRUMP: If I give money to American Cancer Society, I w — I will give 100% of the money away to ch — I don’t want any of it.

LLAMAS: $30 trillion debt and we’re gonna take 10 billion out of the system?

TRUMP: Well, I mean, you give it away anyway. They give away a lotta money.

LLAMAS: Your endorsements

Then Trump changed the subject entirely: “Speaking about that, Minnesota and these other states, we have massive investigations going into fraud… Do you know, if we captured 50% of the fraud of this country… right now, we would have better than a balanced budget. And you gotta mention that… Minnesota…$19 billion in fraud that we know about.”

It’s hard to adequately convey the absurdity of the corruption we are seeing from Trump, but this exchange at least highlights the latest example. And the irony in all of this is that Trump is openly saying he’s going to take money from the federal government, the same pool of money that all of us pay into with our taxes, and somehow thinks we should be impressed because he claims he’ll give it to charity. He wants credit for saying he doesn’t want the money, but we’re supposed to ignore the fact that he’s suing for it in the first place. He’s using public institutions, run by people he appointed, to pay out on a personal lawsuit, and calling it generous. And we’re supposed to believe him? After everything we already know?

Let’s not forget, his own so-called charity, the Trump Foundation, was shut down in 2018 after an investigation by the New York Attorney General found that it was being used to help his businesses and his campaign. He ended up paying $2 million in damages, and the court ordered the remaining money, about $1.8 million, to be split between real nonprofit organizations.

His children, who sat on the board of that foundation, were required to take mandatory training on how to properly run a charity. And while the final settlement didn’t technically ban them from operating charities in New York, it did put strict conditions in place. If Trump wants to start another charity in the state, he’s required to report to the Attorney General every year for five years. That’s not normal. That’s not how honest people operate. And it certainly is not becoming of the President of the United States.

And we can’t forget about Trump’s son, Eric Trump, and his so-called foundation. According to a 2017 investigation by Forbes, the Eric Trump Foundation claimed that 100% of the money raised through its annual golf tournament would go directly to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. But behind the scenes, the foundation was routing hundreds of thousands of those donor dollars back to the Trump Organization—paying to use Trump-owned golf courses and covering event-related costs that directly benefited the family business. Some of the funds also went to other charities with ties to Trump family interests. These allegations weren’t part of the official lawsuit that shut down the Donald J. Trump Foundation, but they show a clear pattern of self-dealing and dishonesty when it comes to charitable giving.

So no, saying he’ll give this money to charity doesn’t mean anything. He’s done this before. He’s used charities to help himself. He’s used donations to prop up his brand. Every time he says, “I don’t want the money,” he ends up finding a way to keep it or reroute it through something that benefits him anyway. This is no different. He’s not putting money back into the system. He’s taking it out and acting like we should thank him for it.

And while he’s out here pretending he wants to give away lawsuit money, let’s look at what his family is actually doing behind the scenes.

The Wall Street Journal broke a story that we should have known about months ago. Just four days before Trump returned to office, a royal from the United Arab Emirates quietly bought a 49 percent stake in the Trump family’s crypto company, World Liberty Financial. The buyer was Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser and brother of the UAE president, who is often referred to as the “Spy Sheikh” because of his intelligence ties and global deals.

The deal included a $250 million up‑front payment, a lump sum, not a promise of future investment or future profits. At the time, World Liberty Financial was still a very early-stage venture with no actual product. It had launched in late 2024 as a decentralized finance platform, but had no operating system, no revenue stream, and no real utility beyond speculative token activity. The company is controlled by Trump’s sons, and it was Eric Trump who signed the deal. Trump family entities were said to have been paid out $187 million directly, with at least $31 million flowing to companies tied to Steve Witkoff, a longtime Trump associate and co-founder of the crypto company, who had just been named Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East.

But the perceived corruption didn’t stop there. Just months after that, the Trump administration approved a major policy shift, granting the United Arab Emirates access to 500,000 of the most advanced U.S.-made AI chips every year. These are chips are under strict national security controls, due to the enormous risks if they’re misused or redirected. The UAE has documented tech ties to China. And yet, not too long after they agreed to this $250 million payout, they got exactly what they wanted.

This isn’t subtle. It’s not complicated. It’s a straight-line transaction. The money came in. The policy went out. When pressed on it, the company claimed that Trump and Witkoff “weren’t involved.” But the money still landed in their accounts. The policy still changed. The benefit still went to a foreign regime. And Trump’s own son signed the deal. It doesn’t matter whether Trump physically typed out the wire instructions. He installed the players. His family took the money. And the UAE got what they really paid for.

This is what the entire second term looks like: Foreign governments pay the Trump family. Trump changes U.S. policy to reward them. And no one gets held accountable.

And all of this is just one piece of the larger picture. According to The New Yorker, Donald Trump and his family personally profited from his return to the presidency by an estimated $3.4 billion in 2025 alone. The breakdown shows exactly how that happened. A significant portion of the gain came from cryptocurrency ventures tied directly to policies and access that only exist because he’s in office.

The New Yorker reported that the family realized gains through crypto profits, with additional earnings from related ventures and digital assets that surged in value under Trump’s control of government policy. These gains were the result of deals, regulatory advantages, and access aligned with Trump’s own political agenda, giving his businesses a competitive edge. Beyond crypto, the Trumps also profited from licensing and investment deals in the Middle East, high-profile real estate and brand arrangements, and other ventures that leveraged the presidency itself to attract foreign capital and corporate interest. That includes the refurbished presidential jet gifted to Trump early in his term, which is set to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions to retrofit for private use once he leaves office. And we can’t forget Melania Trump’s $40 million deal with Amazon to produce her documentary “Melania”.

What that means in practice is this: while everyday Americans face soaring housing costs, unaffordable healthcare, and inflation that eats away at their paychecks, the Trump family’s wealth has exploded through business opportunities that only existed because he was president.

We simply can’t go on with this level of corruption. It’s not sustainable. If, in his first year back in office, Donald Trump was able to turn the presidency into a $3.4 billion personal payday for himself and his family, what happens in the next three years? He’s treating the federal government as just a piggy bank he can crack open whenever he wants.

We are living through the most corrupt presidency in the history of this country. And his chaos has no limits. Just a few weeks ago, European leaders were genuinely worried that his reckless rhetoric could trigger World War III over Greenland. He continues to threaten Canada, our closest neighbor. And when the Epstein files came back into public view, he threatened to attack Iran as a distraction. Before that, it was Venezuela. He’s not consistent on policy. He’s only consistent on disorder. And while he keeps us distracted with noise, he’s concentrating wealth at the top and bleeding the middle and lower classes dry. He’s making people desperate, hoping we’ll care more about our next paycheck than the fact that he’s dismantling our government from within. He wants us too exhausted to notice that our institutions, our norms, and our checks and balances are being stripped away.

We have to stay laser-focused on the corruption. It’s only going to get worse. He’s going to try to rig the next election. He’s going to say more unhinged things. He’s going to tear down more structures and stamp his name on everything he can. We have to keep reminding each other, and everyone we can reach, that this man is corrupt. He is siphoning public money into his own pockets. He is using the power of the presidency to build wealth that most Americans could never imagine. He’s using the presidency to enrich himself, his family, and his enablers at the expense of the American people. And we cannot keep letting this happen. We must continue to demand that our elected officials take a stand against his regime, because it is working.

Today, it was announced that 700 federal immigration officers are being pulled out of Minnesota; whether they want to admit it or not, this is a direct response to public pressure and organized resistance. Minneapolis has become a flashpoint of protest and documentation, and they know the world is watching. And after weeks of bragging, Trump has now backed out of attending the Super Bowl entirely. His own aides reportedly warned him that he’d be booed loudly by tens of thousands of people on live television. They feared it would go viral. So instead of facing the crowd, he’s skipping the most-watched event of the year. And in a win for democracy, the Supreme Court just allowed California to move forward with new congressional maps that will help restore fair representation and strengthen pro-democracy seats ahead of 2026. So yes, tonight we are still up against corruption. But we are not powerless. They are afraid of the people’s voice. They are afraid of accountability. And that fear is growing. That’s why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.