U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, the Texas Democrat who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, used a Sunday afternoon post on X to accuse President Donald Trump of corruption and to renew his call for Congress to tax the wealthy, arguing that American workers are being governed by a system tilted toward billionaires and corporate lobbyists rather than toward them.
“Working people deserve a government that works for them — not one captured by billionaires and corporate lobbyists. Congress needs to tax the rich and hold Trump accountable for his corruption,” Casar wrote in the post, sent at 2:31 p.m. Eastern from Washington, D.C.
The post distills two arguments Casar has made repeatedly since Trump’s second inauguration: that the federal government under Trump has been reshaped to serve wealthy donors and corporate interests at the expense of ordinary Americans, and that Congress has an obligation to respond both by raising taxes on the rich and by holding the president accountable for what Casar and other progressives describe as unprecedented profiteering from the office.
Casar’s language Sunday echoed a statement his office released on the day of Trump’s second inauguration in January 2025, when the Congressional Progressive Caucus declared that “Trump’s White House is government by the billionaires, for the billionaires,” warning that the caucus would “not stand by as our government is sold to the highest bidder” while Trump filled his Cabinet with what the statement called “corrupt billionaires.”
The Austin congressman struck a similar note in May 2025 after House Republicans passed their sweeping reconciliation bill, saying in a statement that Trump’s “massive tax giveaway to billionaires” was so unpopular that Republicans had passed it “in the middle of the night” and were refusing to hold town halls to defend it, warning there would be “a political price to pay” for a vote he said stripped Americans of health care and nutrition assistance to fund “handouts to the ultra-rich.”
Casar has built much of his political identity in the current Congress around the idea that Democrats need to run directly at economic populism rather than moderate toward the center or lean further left on cultural issues. In a June 2025 interview with the Texas Tribune, he said the message of taking on billionaires and corporate power “resonates with all different kinds of voters, from Democrats to independents and even former Trump voters who are looking for a political home right now.”
That framing has taken him on the road alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as part of Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, including stops in deep-red Texas districts, where Casar has focused on wages, taxing the wealthy and union rights rather than on social issues.
In an April 2026 press release announcing the Progressive Caucus’s “New Affordability Agenda,” Casar said affordability “is not a ‘hoax,’” pushing back directly on Trump’s repeated dismissal of the cost-of-living issue, and argued the agenda would show “how Democrats can actually make things cheaper for working people by taking on special interests who are ripping people off.”
Sunday’s post arrives against the backdrop of a well-documented rise in Trump’s personal wealth since he returned to office. Forbes has reported that Trump’s net worth climbed from roughly $3.9 billion in 2024 to about $7.3 billion by September 2025, before settling near $6.5 billion in the winter of 2026 as markets fluctuated — a jump driven largely by cryptocurrency ventures, including the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial project and a memecoin launched days before his second inauguration.
The Brennan Center for Justice estimated in February 2026 that Trump had added roughly $3 billion to his net worth since returning to office, with about two-thirds of that gain tied to his cryptocurrency ventures and additional gains from Trump-branded international real estate deals — a pattern the organization said was without precedent among modern presidents, who have historically sold off assets or placed them in blind trusts to avoid conflicts of interest.
Casar’s accusation of corruption also comes after Trump drew widespread criticism in June 2026 for remarks dismissing concerns about the financial strain the Iran conflict was placing on American households. Asked whether he was factoring in the cost of living as oil prices spiked amid tensions over the Strait of Hormuz, Trump told reporters, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situations. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump later defended the remark rather than walk it back, telling Fox News’ Bret Baier, “That’s a perfect statement. I’d make it again.”
Trump has otherwise sought to cast himself as focused on lowering costs for ordinary Americans, at one point branding himself “the affordability president” in a Truth Social post and claiming, using disputed percentage math, that prescription drug prices were falling by “500%, 600%, 700%, and more.” He has also called affordability concerns pushed by Democrats a “hoax” at other points in his term.
The tension between those two messages — a president promoting affordability wins while his own fortune grows and while he has said he does not weigh Americans’ financial circumstances in major decisions — is the underlying contrast Casar’s Sunday post is aimed at, according to the pattern of statements he and the Congressional Progressive Caucus have issued since Trump’s second term began.
Casar has not been alone among House Democratic leadership in using the language of corruption to describe the administration. Democratic Whip Katherine Clark said in January 2025 that Trump was “stealing from taxpayers to fund tax cuts for billionaires,” while accusing the administration of dismantling the inspectors general responsible for policing corruption within federal agencies.
Casar’s Sunday post did not lay out specific legislative text or a formal proposal, and his office had not published an accompanying press release elaborating on the message as of Sunday evening. It follows a consistent line from the Texas Democrat, who has said in previous interviews that he believes Democrats’ path back to a House majority depends on convincing working-class voters, including those who backed Trump, that the party is willing to confront concentrated wealth and corporate power on their behalf.