Just A Little More “Honest” Graft from Our Ethically Challenged President

During the president’s first term in office, his net worth actually fell. I guess he said “never again!” because this time around his fortune has grown by $3 billion in just his first year back in office. Forbes now puts his net worth at $7.3 billion, up from $4.3 billion in 2024. That $3 billion gain vaulted him 118 spots on the Forbes 400, where he now ranks No. 201. No president in American history has used the office to enrich himself as dramatically as this one has — and that figure doesn’t even count the parallel windfalls enjoyed by his sons, Jared Kushner and associates like Howard Lutnick.

So how do voters feel about all this? Predictably, the reaction is mixed. Some are outraged; others simply shrug. It’s no surprise that viewers interviewed on Morning Joe, a program on MS NOW, reacted with anger — and they did. But NPR found a different mood among Pennsylvania voters: about half said the president’s financial gains bothered them, while the other half didn’t seem to care much at all. One voter put it this way: “When it comes to ethics, moral and financial, I think that just about every politician is corrupt. So, the fact that he’s a known huckster — I mean, we’ve known that for years about him.” Another said, “This is the kind of thing that rich people do. They use money to make more money. All politicians do this kind of thing. They’re all corrupt.” A third added, “I am not saying it’s OK. I’m just not troubled by it because I just think it’s typical for politicians to increase their wealth while in office.” Others felt differently. One voter argued, “It is not the businessman Donald Trump who’s interacting. It is the president, Donald Trump, who’s using his powers in manipulative ways to draw something that is of his personal interest. And that to me is morally wrong, and that itself should be a problem — and is a problem to me.”  https://www.npr.org/2026/07/16/nx-s1-5895103/these-swing-voters-shrug-at-trump-earning-billions-last-year

I wonder how these same voters would react to the latest development that the president’s social media company, Truth Social, is now planning to sell faster access to his posts. Many dismiss the president’s posts as little more than frustrated rants, but some of them genuinely move markets — and speed matters to the investors and traders who watch them closely. A Wall Street Journal review of trading data found that in the single minute after two of the president’s posts about Iran last month, investors traded more than 2 million shares, triggering swings of over 2 percent in nearly two dozen energy and industrial stocks.

Trump Media has announced a new data feed, called Truth API, that will give institutional customers millisecond-level access to the president’s posts starting August 1. In its own words, the company says: “Markets already move on Truth Social posts. Truth API delivers a direct, licensed, real-time feed of the platform’s most market-moving Truths while advancing our strategy to monetize proprietary assets through a high-margin, recurring revenue stream.”

The price tag: $100,000 a month. In practice, this means Wall Street will be able to react to the president’s words in a fraction of a second — swinging energy and industrial stocks before ordinary investors even have a chance to refresh their news feed.

Large investment firms already run automated systems that monitor Truth Social, scan for market-moving keywords, and execute trades — often within a fraction of a second — initiating or unwinding positions accordingly. Trump Media’s new Truth API simply lets firms pay for a faster version of that same readout. Five firms have already signed up.

So how might those same voters feel about the president monetizing his own posts for personal profit? We already know how democrats feel. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia called the arrangement a form of self-dealing that would “create a two-tiered system for access to government information and threaten the credibility of U.S. capital markets.” Frankly, I find that response surprisingly restrained — I expected renewed calls for impeachment. As for republicans, there has been no reported reaction so far.

Financially, this is the most ethically challenged presidential administration in American history. Move over Teapot Dome! Yes, Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden all saw their personal wealth grow while in office. But those gains were largely indirect and out of public view. This president’s financial gains are happening in your face in plain sight — at least the portion we can actually see. And that raises the question: if this much is visible, how much more is hidden beneath the surface?