The president's financial disclosures highlight a second term built around corruption
Donald Trump’s first term in office was a test run — four years spent mapping the ins and outs of how to leverage the federal government to make himself, his family, and his cronies as rich as possible. He’s spent the past 18 months putting what he learned into practice.
The president’s financial disclosures revealed this week that in 2025 he made $2.2 billion — including $1.4 billion on crypto. This is more than he made across all four years of his first term combined. It’s also over three times the $622 million he made in 2024 before returning to the White House, which should tell you all you need to know.
It feels trite to say this kind of naked corruption would end the political career of anyone not named Donald Trump. Of course it would, but so would countless things Trump does on any given day. The harsh reality is that the year is 2026 and Donald Trump is indeed the president, and he’s able to dispose of the media’s questions about, say, selling out the country for billions, as casually as he might remove the lettuce from his Big Mac before tossing it into the Air Force One trash can.
“I don’t get involved,” he said Wednesday as part of a word salad that also involved telling reporters they should be thanking him for how well their 401Ks are doing. “I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash and I give it to institutions,” he added. “I don’t know if they know what they’re doing or not. They buy a vast array of things.”
