Trump Is Openly Using the Presidency To Enrich the Trump Brand
And generations of allegedly anti-corruption Republicans just don't care
The president of the United States on Tuesday held a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Balmedie, Scotland, to mark the opening of the new Trump International Golf Links, owned by his family (at least until he exits the White House), and designed by his son Eric.
In his cheery promotional remarks, Donald Trump thanked the media ("today they're not fake news, they're wonderful news"), gave a shout-out to his daughter-in-law ("Lara, I want to thank you, the head of the Republican Party"), and praised various dignitaries on hand.
"I want to thank, by the way, the prime minister, who was here last night, and who was really very gracious; loves the place," he said, referencing the United Kingdom's Keir Starmer, who also joined Trump at another of his Scottish golf properties before hopping on Air Force One with the Trump clan for a sneak peek at Balmedie. "This will," the commander in chief predicted, "be a tremendously successful place."
When it comes to the success of real estate developments, as well as name-branded consumer goods and value-shedding meme coins, it is very good indeed to be the president. During his first term, Trump leveraged his office to funnel more business toward properties such as the Trump International Hotel three blocks from the White House. But "since returning to the White House," Jack Shafer noted in a perceptive and detailed Washington Post article three weeks ago, "Trump has hastened the hustle."
To wit:
The Wall Street Journal reported in May that Trump encourages Republican officials to stage events at his clubs, where he often appears. His latest financial disclosure statement showed him earning about $57 million from his investment in a Trump-family cryptocurrency company. The family has also raised $2 billion to start a bitcoin-mining company and created new meme coins. His Mar-a-Lago resort brings in about $50 million and his golf course and resort company brings in another $119 million. The disclosure also details royalties from his Trump Bible operations ($1.3 million), Trump sneakers and scents ($2.5 million), watches ($2.8 million), and about $1 million for a Trump guitar. The Trumps are peppercorning the globe with real estate developments in which the partners are foreign governments and foreign interests. The intertwining of the family's global business interests with foreign actors — some of whom might be directly affected by the trade policy and diplomacy he commands — will make it hard to distinguish national interest from private enrichment.
And this is only a short list of Trump's rent-seeking exploits.
The scale and brazenness of these self-dealings make previous White House personal-enrichment scandals look quaint. Hunter Biden leveraged his father's name and station to obtain an otherwise unfathomable $1.2 million gig for a Ukrainian oil company; Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, six months after leaving his foreign policy gig at the White House, had his private equity firm receive $2 billion from Saudi Arabia's government-owned sovereign wealth fund. The younger Biden reportedly peddled what has been described as "the illusion of access" to his father (Republicans say it was more real than that); Trump this May straight-up sold access to a gala dinner with him to the 220 top buyers of his $TRUMP meme coin, generating $148 million in $TRUMP sales that evening alone.
Some of us are old enough to remember Republican outrage over Bill Clinton's political contributions rental of the Lincoln Bedroom; his cash-for-pardon of Marc Rich, or even Billy Carter's beer brand back in 1977. Democrats, too, were once fond of needling the gilded failsonning of Neil Bush. Such scandals could fuel late-night comedy for weeks at a time, back when there was still late-night comedy.
Now there is mostly shrugging, and not just because of the inscrutability/ickiness of the word "emoluments." Democrats and their allies in the media have spent the better part of a decade looking at Trump's litany of dubious personal dealings as not just a broader character condemnation, but rather as potential fodder for a non-ballot box knockout blow to Trump's political career. This frequently gives off the impression—and not just to Republican voters—of opportunism, of lawfare, of boys who might be crying wolf.
Also, at any given moment of such a frenetic and aggressive presidency, there are a good half-dozen governing issues more pressing and injurious than the old huckster opening up another golf course. Trump's grubbiness is baked in and seemingly unchangeable; his tariff and immigration policies, on the other hand, seem subject to legal and political challenge.
Among the vast swaths of GOP office holders and political professionals who have expressed umbrage at Democratic self-dealing yet sat on their hands while a Republican president has spelunked to unseen ethical depths, there seem to be three main explanations, none of them satisfying: Either they just don't see the problem, or it's the price for participating in a two-party system where this particular politician is enduringly potent, or they never really meant that stuff about virtue anyway.
I sincerely hope the answer isn't the latter. Bill and Hillary Clinton are ethical grotesques; dispensing access for cash, seeding intelligence agencies with politicized data on political opponents, and making cavalier accusations of treason. Joe Biden spent half a century in public life lying his face off, and created an elaborate censorship regime. Unethical and anti-virtuous behavior among politicians is ever and always worthy of condemnation, particularly from the vast majority of us whose salaries do not depend on the partisan outcome of elections.
We will not soon get better politicians by shrugging at the corruptions on our team, or even grudgingly accepting that it's all a dirty business, so whaddya gonna do? The president of the United States should not be using prime ministers (even British ones!) to hawk his private businesses and enrich his offspring. In your heart, you know I'm right.