THE SHORT ANSWER IS YOU DON'T
Quick question for you. When a third of the president’s own voters think he’s cashing in, what’s the party’s plan? A Republican strategist answered it out loud this weekend. Take the blue pill with me this morning. It comes with an itemized receipt.
“How do you message around that?”
A new Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll published Sunday finds nearly 2 in 3 Americans say President Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself. The movement is on his side of the aisle. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 34% now say he’s enriching himself, up from 22% in September 2025. Democrats went from 88% to 92%, which is about as surprising as rain being wet.
Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett told the Post why his party is struggling to fight back: “Every single day the president is talking about vanity projects, he’s talking about ownership of companies? How do you message around that? The short answer is you don’t.”
THE SHORT ANSWER IS YOU DON’T: when the receipt is this long, the strategy is to stop reading it aloud.
We’ve been on this beat since Not Personally Profiting, through the ballroom donor list in ME AND SOME FRIENDS OF MINE and the Fox poll in EXTREMELY OR VERY CONCERNED. What’s new is who’s saying it now.
President Trump at the White House on July 18, 2025, the day he signed the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin law. His 2025 financial disclosure reports about $1.4 billion in crypto income, per PolitiFact. Credit: Daniel Torok, The White House, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The receipt
Here’s what Trump’s own 927-page financial disclosure for 2025 shows, per PolitiFact’s line-by-line read:
- $1.4 billion from crypto: roughly $791 million from World Liberty Financial and just over $635 million from Celebration Coins, which appears linked to his $TRUMP meme coin.
- Almost $196 million from real estate, including Mar-a-Lago and his golf courses.
- $88.5 million in legal settlements, including from ABC, CBS, Meta, YouTube and Twitter.
- $65 million in overseas licensing deals, with properties in Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
- $8 million from watches, footwear and published materials.
A New York Times analysis cited by PolitiFact puts his 2025 haul at at least $2.2 billion, up from $622 million in 2024.
Asked on July 1 about profiting off the presidency, Trump said: “You know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market’s going up. Everybody’s profiting. Do you have a 401(k)?” PolitiFact rated that Mostly False and found two-thirds to 80% of his 2025 gains came from non-stock sources.
And the regular folks who bought in? The Times, citing the analytics firm Nansen, reported that nearly 1 million people who bought his meme coin had collectively lost $3.81 billion in value through the end of June.
Your 401(k) did not come with a meme coin and a licensing deal in Oman.
The red costume: “It’s cost him to be in office”
Here’s the part that should bug you no matter how you vote. On Oct. 1 in Durant, Oklahoma, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin warmed up a Trump rally with this: “He doesn’t have to do this. There’s no financial gain like the past presidents have had. It’s cost him to be in office.” PolitiFact rated it Pants on Fire. Forbes estimates Trump is $2.7 billion richer than when he won in 2024 and puts his net worth at $7 billion.
To be fair to the White House, it points out that Trump’s net worth fell during his first term, from $3.7 billion in 2016 to $2.5 billion in 2021, per the figures PolitiFact cites. That was a real argument in 2021. It’s 2026.
The Post notes Republicans made the Biden family a focus of their attacks last cycle, and part of the GOP’s anti-corruption pitch this year is a fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance. Voters are noticing the gap. Ohio’s Matthew Brumbaugh, a 2024 Trump voter now weighing a Democrat in the Senate race, told the Post: “He’s using his power to extremes.” Lisa Lewis, a retiree in New York: “I voted for him, and I was so pro-Trump, and I was so thrilled about the whole thing. Now, I’m just disgusted.” See who funds Ohio’s delegation on our Ohio Money Map.
The party that spent 2024 investigating one family’s business now can’t find the words for another’s.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in his official 2026 portrait. At an Oct. 1 rally he said the presidency has “cost” Trump money; PolitiFact rated the claim Pants on Fire. Credit: Tia Dufour, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The blue costume: the 1 percent message
Now the other side. Democrats in competitive races have spent nearly twice as much as Republicans on ads about corruption, the Post found. But only 1% of corruption-related ad spending in battleground House, Senate and governor’s races went to ads accusing Trump specifically of enriching himself, according to the Post’s analysis of AdImpact data through Oct. 12. They found the scandal and then put it in the small print.
Democratic strategist Adam Bozzi said candidates should promise to go after corruption evenhandedly, “whether it involves Trump or anyone else.” That’s the right standard, and it’s exactly where Democrats get uncomfortable. On Dec. 1, 2024, Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter. His own statement opened: “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decisionmaking, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively and unfairly prosecuted.” Then he signed the pardon.
The poll doesn’t let either party off easy. More than 4 in 10 said neither party can be trusted to reduce corruption. Democrats lead on the question, about one-third to one-quarter. That isn’t a mandate. It’s a shrug with a lead.
Joe Biden’s official presidential portrait, 2021. On Dec. 1, 2024, he pardoned his son Hunter in a statement that began by saying he would not interfere with the Justice Department. Credit: Adam Schultz, The White House, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Both costumes
Here’s the adult version.
Republicans have a president whose own disclosure reads like a crypto prospectus, and their plan is to change the subject. Democrats have the best corruption story in a generation, and 99 cents of every corruption ad dollar goes to something other than Trump enriching himself, while their last president pardoned his own son. Sen. Chris Murphy told the Post he expects some Trump voters to “just stay home.” That’s not a plan either. That’s a weather forecast.
The boring standard: same ethics rules for every president, every family, every party. If your outrage needs a party label to switch on, it isn’t ethics. It’s branding.
Ask your candidates one question this week: will you vote for ethics rules that bind your own party’s next president? Then check who’s funding them on our Money Map and read the president’s own Money Trail, which explains where private enrichment actually shows up in the public record.
Receipts
- The Washington Post (Meryl Kornfield, Lydia Sidhom), Oct. 18, 2026. Post-ABC-Ipsos poll: 34% of Republicans and leaners, up from 22%; Democrats 88% to 92%; more than 4 in 10 trust neither party; 1% of corruption ad spending (AdImpact through Oct. 12); Bartlett, Bozzi, Murphy, Brumbaugh and Lewis quotes.
- PolitiFact, July 7, 2026. Trump’s 2025 disclosure: $1.4 billion crypto, $196 million real estate, $88.5 million settlements, $65 million licensing, $8 million merchandise; “the stock market’s going up,” Mostly False; NYT $2.2 billion; Nansen $3.81 billion meme coin losses.
- PolitiFact, Oct. 5, 2026. Mullin’s “It’s cost him to be in office,” Pants on Fire; $622 million in 2024; Forbes $2.7 billion and $7 billion; White House first-term figures.
- Statement on the Presidential Pardon for R. Hunter Biden, Dec. 1, 2024. Biden’s own words.
- Earlier Hypocrisy Democracy: Not Personally Profiting; ME AND SOME FRIENDS OF MINE; EXTREMELY OR VERY CONCERNED; The swamp takes crypto. Reader tools: Donald Trump Money Trail; Ohio Money Map; Money Map and electoral map.
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Originally published on Substack.
