How Democrats should talk about Trump's corruption
"There’s really a need for a whole new set of reforms," Noah Bookbinder says.
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Donald Trump is the most brazenly self-dealing president in history. He’s surrounded these days by an obscene cast of billionaires and his grifts are as shameless as ever (see, for instance, the image at the top of this post). Yet as we just learned the hard way, 49.9 percent of voters who cast ballots don’t seem to give a damn.
How can Democrats change this? That’s one of the questions we put to Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), during our recent conversation about the state of Trump’s corruption just ahead of his return to the White House.
“We’re at a place where there is so much talk about corruption and attacks on democracy that I think some of these terms have stopped meaning very much to the American people,” Bookbinder told us. “If anyone is going to have success calling it out, they’re going to have to specifically show where the corruption is happening and how it’s affecting your life. That’s going to be a challenge. You need to explain what the corruption is and why it matters.”
Bookbinder also explained how Trump’s business interests have changed since his first term, when foreign governments and business bigwigs would curry favor by spending money at the hotel near the White House he’s since sold.
“Now Trump has, among other things, Trump Media, which is the parent company of Truth Social,” he said. “It appears that the bulk of his wealth is tied up in stock in that company, and that means if a foreign country or a company or a wealthy person buys a whole lot of stock in Trump Media, they can pretty directly and significantly increase his wealth.”
Bookbinder and Public Notice contributor Thor Benson also discussed the conflicts of interests created by President-unelect Elon Musk, how the lessons of Watergate are being forgotten, and much more. A transcript of the conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
Thor Benson