A new AP-NORC survey finds that most Americans believe the president has put his own fortune ahead of the country, and 41 percent believe he has crossed into illegality. That belief did not come from nowhere. It came from crypto windfalls, foreign stakes, a gifted jet, and a Justice Department that now works for the man it once prosecuted.
Polls usually measure opinion. This one measures something closer to a verdict. In a survey released October 13 by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 41 percent of American adults said that when it comes to allegations he has profited from the presidency, Donald Trump has done something illegal. Another 18 percent said his conduct was unethical but legal. Only 18 percent said he has done nothing wrong. The rest said they did not know enough to judge.
Put plainly, roughly three in five Americans now look at the president’s business dealings and see wrongdoing of some kind. And they reached that conclusion with a sitting Justice Department that has shown no interest in investigating him, a Republican Congress that has declined to hold a single hearing on the biggest deals, and a White House that insists nothing improper has occurred. The public got there on the evidence alone.
I. The Number, and What Sits Under It
The headline figure is only part of the story. AP-NORC also asked what the president has actually prioritized since returning to office. A majority, 56 percent, said he has prioritized his personal business interests “a lot,” and 54 percent said the same about the business interests of his friends and family. Just 23 percent said he has prioritized the country as a whole “a lot.” Only 11 percent said he has prioritized people like them that much, and half of Americans said he has not prioritized people like them at all.
Has Trump profited from the presidency?
Share of U.S. adults, AP-NORC poll of 2,140 adults, Sept. 24–28, 2026
Party bars show approximate share saying "illegal," as reported by AP-NORC. Margin of sampling error ±2.9 points. Remaining 2% did not answer.
The partisan split is real, and AP-NORC is careful to note it: about eight in ten Democrats say the president has acted illegally, compared with roughly three in ten independents and one in ten Republicans. The pollsters also point out that a 2023 survey about Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s overseas business dealings produced a similarly lopsided partisan result. That is a fair caution. But the more telling finding is what Republicans themselves conceded. About half of them agreed that Trump has prioritized his own business interests and those of his family at least “some.” When the president’s own voters see the pattern, it is no longer a partisan talking point.
II. An Atmosphere Built for Suspicion
Why is it so easy for Americans to believe the president has broken the law? Because the president has spent twenty-one months removing every reason to believe otherwise.
Previous presidents divested, used blind trusts, or at least pretended to keep public office and private profit apart. This one keeps his assets in a trust run by his children and launches new ventures in industries his own administration regulates. He sells a personal cryptocurrency while setting national crypto policy. He accepts a $400 million aircraft from a foreign monarchy. His family takes a half-billion-dollar stake from a foreign spy chief, and that government then wins access to chips that had been off-limits. He pardons a convicted crypto executive whose company helped the family’s coin. And when questions come, the answer from the White House is a flat denial with no documents attached.
Suspicion grows where transparency dies. The president has also fired or driven out the officials who would normally investigate such questions, filled the Justice Department’s top job with his former defense lawyer, and used that department against critics. When the referees work for one of the players, the public stops trusting the scoreboard. That is the atmosphere the AP-NORC numbers capture.
III. The Ledger
Here is the documented record that preceded the poll. None of these items is rumor. Each comes from the president’s own financial disclosure, court filings, or reporting by major news organizations.
Crypto income
Trump took in more than $1.4 billion from crypto-related ventures last year, according to his financial disclosure, including at least $635 million in royalties from a licensing deal tied to the $TRUMP meme coin, as CBS News reported.
A foreign spy chief’s stake
Four days before the inauguration, an entity tied to UAE national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed agreed to buy 49% of World Liberty Financial. Trump entities reportedly received $187 million and Witkoff entities $31 million, per Decrypt’s account of the Wall Street Journal report.
Chips that followed
After the stake, the Commerce Department authorized the transfer of roughly 35,000 advanced Nvidia Blackwell chips, worth about a billion dollars, to G42, an AI company also chaired by Tahnoon, according to the Senate Democrats’ letter reported by Unchained.
A pardon after a boost
Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who had pleaded guilty to a money-laundering compliance charge. Earlier that year, Binance accepted the family’s USD1 stablecoin for a $2 billion Abu Dhabi investment, giving the venture a major lift, Reuters reported.
A gifted Air Force One
A retrofitted Boeing 747 from Qatar began flying as Air Force One on July 1, repainted in Trump’s preferred colors. Trump has said the plane would later go to his presidential library, the AP reported.
Paying himself
Trump filed claims seeking about $230 million from his own Justice Department for past investigations of him, with any settlement potentially approved by officials who had defended him, The New York Times reported. He later sued the IRS for $10 billion.
And the dinners continue. A third $TRUMP meme coin gala is set for November 22 at Trump National Golf Club, with seats going to the coin’s 185 largest holders. A CBS News analysis found that at least 52 of the top 100 holders on the leaderboard moved money through exchanges that bar American customers, a strong sign that many buyers are overseas. Virginia Canter, an ethics lawyer who served in Republican and Democratic administrations, put it bluntly to CBS: “Foreign actors are literally buying a seat at the president’s own table.”
“Brazen, open corruption. And we shouldn’t pretend it’s normal.”
— Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), on the UAE stake in World Liberty Financial, via Decrypt
IV. Congress: One Party Investigates, the Other Mostly Watches
Democrats in the minority have done what minorities can do. In January, House Oversight ranking member Robert Garcia released a report and public tracker estimating $2.25 billion in realized profits for Trump from foreign payments and other pay-to-play arrangements. Garcia warned that the family’s dealings signal to foreign governments that “our institutions are for sale.” Senators Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, Gary Peters, Dick Durbin and Ron Wyden asked five Republican committee chairs to hold hearings and take sworn testimony on the UAE deal. Those hearings have not happened.
Republicans control both chambers, and on the core corruption questions they have mostly looked away. The exception proves the rule. When the Justice Department unveiled a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” in May, Republicans balked, because the fund could have paid people who assaulted Capitol Police officers. Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis blocked Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination until he rescinded the fund in writing. Then the Senate confirmed Blanche anyway, 50 to 49, in a predawn August vote, with only Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joining Democrats in opposition, as GovConWire recorded. The GOP drew a line at paying rioters. It has not drawn one at the president’s own profits.
Democrats are now campaigning on the issue. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, in line to become speaker if his party wins, told the AP, “There is a cost to the American people of the out-of-control corruption,” and Garcia has laid out an oversight agenda that begins with the Trump family’s business dealings, according to the AP. Subpoena power, not letters, is what would change the picture. Only the voters can grant it.
V. The Press: Pulitzers and Payouts
Much of what the public knows, it knows because reporters dug it out. The Wall Street Journal exposed the secret UAE stake. Bloomberg and CBS traced meme coin buyers to offshore exchanges. New York Times reporter Eric Lipton shared a Pulitzer Prize this year with colleagues for investigating how the president and his family profited from White House deal-making, work that estimated Trump made about $2.2 billion in his first year back in office, as he described on NPR’s Fresh Air. That is the press doing its job.
The failures are just as instructive. ABC agreed to pay $15 million and Paramount, CBS’s parent, $16 million to settle Trump lawsuits that most legal experts considered weak. Both settled for business reasons, a media lawyer told AFP, at a time when Paramount needed federal approval for its Skydance merger, as Dawn reported. And when CBS’s own Norah O’Donnell asked Trump on 60 Minutes whether he worried about the appearance of corruption in the Zhao pardon, that part of the exchange was cut from the broadcast, Cointelegraph noted. In the aired interview Trump said he had “no idea” who Zhao was. A network that edits out the corruption question has made a choice about whom it serves.
The picture has improved since. Trump’s later suits against The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were thrown out, and AFP described his legal campaign against the press as faltering. Courts, more than corporate boardrooms, have defended the free press this year.
VI. The Courts Hold the Line
Where Congress has hesitated, federal judges have not. The clearest case is the Internal Revenue Service lawsuit. In January, Trump sued his own government for $10 billion over a 2019 leak of his tax returns. In May he dropped the suit, and hours later the Justice Department announced the $1.776 billion fund as part of the settlement, NPR reported. Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami had already questioned whether the president was negotiating with himself.
“…not brought to vindicate rights; it was brought to manipulate the judicial process…”
— U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, on Trump’s IRS lawsuit, via CPA Practice Advisor
Williams went further in July, finding that the settlement’s promise to shield Trump and his family from audits had no basis in law and that the plaintiffs acted in bad faith. She reopened the case after 35 former judges warned of manipulation of the courts. In Virginia, Judge Leonie Brinkema blocked the fund indefinitely, and in September she told the government she remained unconvinced it was truly gone, calling the Williams ruling “very problematic” for the Justice Department, ABC News reported.
- Oct. 21, 2025
Trump’s $230 million claim against his own Justice Department becomes public. Officials who once defended him could approve any payout.
- Oct. 23, 2025
Trump pardons Changpeng Zhao, whose exchange had boosted the family’s stablecoin earlier that year.
- Nov. 24, 2025
Judge Cameron Currie dismisses the indictments of James Comey and Letitia James, finding prosecutor Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed.
- Jan. 2026
Trump sues the IRS for $10 billion. House Oversight Democrats publish their $2.25 billion profit tracker.
- Apr. 2026
Trump removes Attorney General Pam Bondi; Todd Blanche becomes acting AG. Weeks later, Comey is indicted again over a seashell photo.
Trump drops the IRS suit; DOJ announces the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund. Republican senators revolt.
- July 1, 2026
The Qatari 747 flies as Air Force One.
- July 13, 2026
Judge Williams rules the IRS audit-immunity deal has no basis in law.
- Aug. 8, 2026
Blanche confirmed 50–49 after rescinding the fund to win over GOP holdouts.
- Sept. 15, 2026
Fourth Circuit hears DOJ’s bid to revive the Comey and James cases and appears poised to uphold their dismissal.
- Oct. 13, 2026
AP-NORC poll: 41% say Trump has done something illegal to profit from the presidency.
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VII. The Justice Department, Turned Inward
A justice system has two duties that matter here: to investigate wrongdoing by the powerful and to refrain from persecuting the powerless or the disfavored. Under this administration, the Justice Department has abandoned the first and embraced the reverse of the second.
Consider the prosecutions of Trump’s critics. Former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a civil fraud judgment against the Trump Organization, were indicted in the fall of 2025 by Lindsey Halligan, a former Trump lawyer with no prosecutorial experience. A federal judge threw both cases out because Halligan had been unlawfully appointed, and at a September hearing a Fourth Circuit panel appeared ready to agree, the Spokesman-Review reported. Two separate federal grand juries refused to re-indict James, a record House Judiciary Democrats Jamie Raskin, Ted Lieu and Dan Goldman cited in a March letter telling the department it should not wield the law against perceived enemies.
Then the department tried again with Comey, this time in North Carolina, charging him with threatening the president because he posted a photo of seashells arranged as “86 47.” Comey’s lawyers filed a sworn statement from John Gleeson, the former federal judge who prosecuted mob boss John Gotti, calling the claim that “86” is mafia slang for murder “preposterous,” NOTUS reported. The trial has now slipped to 2027.
Those who know the department best are alarmed. More than 1,200 former Justice Department employees from 14 administrations, Republican and Democratic, signed a letter opposing Blanche’s confirmation. They reported that about 16,000 employees, including more than a quarter of the department’s attorneys, have left under his watch. Stacey Young, who leads the alumni group Justice Connection, said his “guiding star is fealty to the President, not the Constitution.” When the attorney general is the president’s former criminal defense lawyer, and the president files claims against the department that lawyer runs, justice is not blind. It is on retainer.
The law that is supposed to stop this
“…no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 (Foreign Emoluments Clause)
The Framers anticipated exactly this danger: a head of state enriched by foreign powers. The Foreign Emoluments Clause does not require proof of a bribe or a quid pro quo. It requires something simpler: Congress’s consent before an officeholder accepts anything of value from a foreign state. A 747 from Qatar’s government and a half-billion-dollar stake from a firm tied to the UAE’s national security adviser are the kinds of transactions the clause was written for. Congress has not consented to either.
Article II separately bars the president from receiving any “Emolument” from the United States beyond his salary. A settlement paid to the president from the Treasury, approved by his own appointees, would test that limit directly, and Judge Williams’ ruling that the IRS deal lacked any basis in law shows how far outside normal practice it sits.
The enforcement problem is structural. The Justice Department will not investigate the president, and the clause leaves the remedy to Congress. That puts the burden on the legislative branch, and on the voters who choose it.
VIII. The Defense, Weighed
Fairness requires hearing the other side. The White House says the president acts only in the best interest of the American people and calls the meme coin gala a private event that promises no official action, as it told CBS News. Trump’s businesses are held in a trust managed by his children. World Liberty Financial and Binance deny that the Zhao pardon was connected to their dealings, and administration officials call any link between the UAE stake and the chip approvals false. The Justice Department says it is redressing real abuses committed against conservatives under the prior administration. And AP-NORC’s own comparison to the Biden poll is a reminder that partisans tend to see corruption on the other side.
Each defense, examined, rests on the same foundation: trust us. A trust run by the president’s sons is not a blind trust. Denials without disclosure are not evidence. A department led by the president’s former lawyer cannot credibly clear its own client. The administration could end the suspicion tomorrow by releasing the records, divesting the holdings, and inviting independent review. It has chosen not to.
IX. What This Says About His Priorities
Leadership is revealed by what a leader spends his time and power on. This president has found time to promote a meme coin, attend dinners for its largest holders, negotiate his own compensation from his own government, and direct prosecutions of his critics. Over the same period, half of Americans told AP-NORC that he has not prioritized people like them at all. Families facing grocery bills and housing costs see a president whose fortune has soared while theirs has not.
The pattern is consistent. Where the president’s interests and the public’s diverge, the record shows which one wins. That is why 41 percent of Americans believe he has broken the law, and why that number may yet climb.
X. What You Can Do
An honest assessment: with Republicans in control of Congress and the Justice Department led by the president’s former lawyer, there is no quick federal fix before January. The courts are working, but slowly and case by case. The most powerful tool available is the one on the calendar. These five steps put pressure where it can actually move.
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Vote on November 3
Control of the House and Senate decides whether anyone can subpoena the Trump family’s business records. Confirm your registration and polling place with your state election office this week, and make a plan for early or mail voting if your state allows it. -
Ask candidates one question
Before you vote, ask every congressional candidate on your ballot whether they will support hearings on the UAE stake, the Qatari jet and the meme coin dinners. Their answers tell you whether they will check the president or shield him. -
Press for ethics rules in the crypto bill
Congress is still negotiating crypto market legislation. Call your senators and representative and ask that any bill bar the president, vice president and members of Congress from issuing or profiting from digital assets while in office. -
Back the people doing the work
Watchdog groups such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Democracy Forward and Common Cause brought the lawsuits that stopped the $1.776 billion fund. Career-staff alumni groups support Justice Department employees who refuse improper orders. They depend on public support. -
Pay for accountability journalism
The UAE stake, the offshore coin buyers and the $2.2 billion estimate came from reporters with time and legal backing. Subscribe to the outlets that break these stories, and support local newsrooms that face the same pressure with fewer resources.
Editorial Conclusion
Four in ten Americans believe their president has broken the law to enrich himself, and six in ten believe he has at least crossed an ethical line. They are not imagining it. The deals are documented, the dollars are disclosed, and the institutions meant to investigate have been captured or sidelined.
A republic cannot survive a presidency for sale. The Constitution gave Congress the power to say no to foreign money and the duty to investigate a president who will not police himself. That duty has been abandoned. The only way to restore it is to elect a Congress willing to use it. The ballot on November 3 is a vote on whether public office remains a public trust.
Sources & References
- AP-NORC · More Americans say Trump has prioritized his personal business interests than the country as a whole
- CBS News · Trump meme coin buyers vie for dinner with the president. Many appear to be overseas.
- Decrypt · Senator warns of “potentially criminal conduct” over UAE–World Liberty Financial deal
- Unchained · Senate Democrats demand hearings on UAE’s reported $500 million stake in Trump family crypto venture
- Reuters via Yahoo News · Trump pardons convicted Binance founder “CZ” Zhao
- Cointelegraph · White House defends Binance founder CZ pardon
- AP via WFTV · Retrofitted Qatari jet takes flight as Air Force One
- The Boston Globe / New York Times · Trump said to demand Justice Department pay him $230 million for past cases
- NPR via MPR News · Trump drops IRS lawsuit, paving the way for a settlement
- CPA Practice Advisor · Judge rules Trump IRS immunity deal has no “basis in law”
- ABC News · Judge questions whether aim of “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is really dead
- GovConWire · Senate confirms Todd Blanche as attorney general
- The Spokesman-Review · DOJ seeks to revive cases against Comey, James a year after dismissals
- House Judiciary Democrats · Judiciary Democrats launch investigation into DOJ’s retaliatory prosecution of Letitia James
- NOTUS · James Comey accuses DOJ of lying and “vindictive” prosecution in seashell case
- Justice Connection · 1,200+ former DOJ employees oppose Todd Blanche’s nomination
- House Oversight Democrats · Ranking Member Garcia releases report, launches Trump Digital Grift Tracker
- AP via WPXI · House Democrats plan vast oversight of Trump administration
- Dawn / AFP · Trump’s fight against news media falters
- NPR, Fresh Air · How Trump made an estimated $2.2 billion during the first year of his second term
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