Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer used a Wednesday morning post on X to deliver one of his sharpest public rebukes yet of President Donald Trump, accusing him of turning the presidency into a personal money-making operation while stacking up a list of grievances ranging from rogue immigration enforcement to a stalled reckoning over the Jeffrey Epstein files. The New York Democrat’s remarks, posted at 11:08 a.m. on July 29, 2026, arrived hours after a new CNN poll showed a record-high share of Americans saying Trump has failed to focus on the country’s most pressing problems, giving Schumer’s broadside a data-backed foundation as the 2026 midterm campaign moves into its final stretch.
Schumer’s post read in full: “Who could’ve imagined posting through the night on Truth Social, building taxpayer-funded ballrooms and faulty reflecting pools, starting new endless wars, hosting UFC fights at the White House, covering up the Epstein files, letting ICE go rogue in our cities, renaming airports and train stations after himself, pardoning January 6th insurrectionists, pushing voter suppression bills, and personally profiting to the tune of billions off of all of that would lead to this result? Donald Trump has spent two years selling out Americans to the highest bidder. In November, Americans will respond.”
The post functioned as a direct response to a CNN poll published the same day, conducted by SSRS, which found that 73% of U.S. adults say Trump has not paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems, while just 27% say he has had the right priorities. Schumer’s message stitched together nearly every major flashpoint of Trump’s second term — from construction spending in Washington to immigration enforcement to the president’s personal finances — into a single argument that voters are preparing to punish Republicans for it in November’s midterm elections.
A Broadside Built on a Grim Poll for Trump
The CNN/SSRS survey Schumer was reacting to found Trump’s overall approval rating at 34%, matching the career low he last hit at the close of his first term following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Half of Americans now strongly disapprove of him, a high point across both of his terms, while only 15% strongly approve — also a record low. Even within his own party, the numbers have softened considerably: Trump’s approval among Republicans has dropped to 78%, and just 19% of Republicans say they are enthusiastic about the remainder of his second term, down sharply from 38% last spring.
The poll’s most damaging findings for the White House cluster around three interconnected issues that have dogged Trump for months: only 28% of Americans approve of his handling of the situation in Iran, 25% approve of his handling of inflation, and just 21% approve of his handling of gas prices. Roughly two-thirds of respondents said Trump’s policies have made economic conditions worse and that his military decisions regarding Iran have hurt the United States, while about three-quarters said the president is out of touch with the problems facing ordinary Americans in their daily lives.
The Ballrooms, the Reflecting Pool, and a Pattern of Vanity Spending
Central to Schumer’s post is a jab at the taxpayer-funded construction projects Trump has pursued in Washington, including a new White House ballroom and a renovation of the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool. The CNN poll gives that line of attack some numerical backing: 58% of Americans say they feel dissatisfied or angry about the construction projects Trump has undertaken in the capital, while only 17% express positive feelings about them. Even among Republicans, the projects have struggled to win enthusiasm, with just 43% saying they feel positively about them and another 35% saying they simply don’t matter to them.
Schumer has hammered this same theme repeatedly on the Senate floor in recent months, at one point accusing Trump and Republicans of “skewed priorities” for funneling taxpayer money into what he called a “gold-plated ballroom” instead of passing stalled Department of Homeland Security funding legislation.
“ICE Go Rogue” — A Reference to Deadly Shootings and Falling Public Trust
Schumer’s accusation that Trump has “let ICE go rogue in our cities” tracks with another finding buried in the CNN poll: following two recent deadly shootings involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Americans said by a 20-point margin that the agency is making cities less safe rather than more safe. Just 39% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of immigration overall, a marked decline from the start of his second term, when it ranked among his stronger issues.
Profiting “To the Tune of Billions” — What the Record Shows
The financial accusation embedded in Schumer’s post is not a new one for the Senate Democratic leader, but it lands alongside fresh figures from Forbes documenting just how much Trump’s wealth has grown since returning to office. According to Forbes’ most recent tally, published in March 2026, Trump’s net worth stood at $6.5 billion, up $1.4 billion over the previous year, driven substantially by his family’s cryptocurrency ventures, a rebound in his real-estate licensing business, and the elimination of a roughly $500 million legal judgment against him. An earlier Forbes analysis found his net worth had climbed from $4.3 billion in 2024, while he was still campaigning, to $7.3 billion by September 2025 — a $3 billion jump that vaulted him 118 spots up the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, landing him at No. 201.
Schumer and a group of Senate Democrats put a more pointed number on that growth earlier this month, releasing a report titled “The Cost of Corruption: How Trump Turns Power Into Profit at Americans’ Expense.” The report, unveiled alongside Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, Catherine Cortez Masto, Alex Padilla, and Andy Kim, alleges that Trump has personally earned more than $2 billion since returning to the White House in 2025, while his extended family has taken in upward of $4 billion over the same period through ventures the senators describe as “intractably linked to Trump’s presidential role.”
“Trump is without question the most corrupt president in American history,” Schumer said when the report was released. “Trump has betrayed the American people by using our highest office not for the good of country, but to pad his own bank account, at the expense of working families.”
Kazakhstan Tungsten, Crypto, and Defense Startups
The Senate Democrats’ report singled out several specific business arrangements it says illustrate the pattern. Among them: a billion-dollar tungsten mining agreement between the Trump administration and Kazakhstan, in which the president’s sons reportedly hold a financial stake, and a portfolio of defense-technology startups backed by Trump’s sons that has collectively generated an estimated $3.2 billion in direct government contracts. The report reserved its sharpest criticism for World Liberty Financial, the family’s cryptocurrency venture, which is backed in part by investment from the United Arab Emirates; the Trump family holds more than $1 billion in assets tied to that fund.
Senator Merkley, one of the report’s co-authors, described the arrangement bluntly: “The Trump swamp of corruption is a mile deep and MEGA-wide. Trump and his family use his office and official connections to rake in billions for themselves at every turn. Not only is this making life more expensive for hard-working Americans, it’s a threat to government ‘by and for the people.'”
Schumer has since continued to press the point on the Senate floor and in local media appearances, framing it as a consistent theme of the administration. “The only people who think America is getting more affordable are Donald Trump and his cronies as they cash in on unprecedented corruption,” Schumer said in comments distributed after the report’s release. “We see a new con come out of the Trump administration almost every day, but the scheme’s always the same: Americans pay, Trump profits.”
A Pattern of Warnings on Trump “Selling Out” the Country
Wednesday’s post was not the first time Schumer has used the phrase “selling out” to describe Trump’s conduct in office. In May, he warned on the Senate floor against Trump conceding ground to Chinese President Xi Jinping during trade negotiations, saying Trump had “fantasized about $1 trillion in Chinese investments in America” in a way that would be “selling out American manufacturers and workers.” Days later, during Trump’s trip to China, Schumer said the president had “arrived with a posse of billionaires in tow, including his own son, who oversees the family business,” and warned that the trip risked compromising American economic interests for personal gain.
January 6th Pardons and Voter Suppression Also Named in the Post
Schumer’s Wednesday post also revisited two subjects that have defined much of his criticism of the administration over the past year: Trump’s pardons of January 6th defendants and what Democrats describe as a coordinated push toward voter suppression ahead of the midterms. Schumer has led efforts within the Senate Democratic caucus to combat what he has called an “assault” on elections, writing in a recent letter to colleagues that “the President and his allies continue their assault on that foundation — spreading lies about lawful results, intimidating the election officials and even terminating workers who make democracy function.” Schumer and other Senate Democrats have also launched what they describe as the earliest and largest election-protection effort in the party’s history ahead of November, alongside top election law experts.
What the Numbers Say About November
Schumer’s closing line — “In November, Americans will respond” — is a direct reference to the 2026 midterm elections, where control of the House of Representatives currently sits at a narrow 220–215 Republican majority, meaning Democrats need to flip only a handful of seats to reclaim the chamber. Multiple independent forecasting models currently favor Democrats to do just that. Decision Desk HQ’s forecast, updated as the campaign entered its final hundred days, found Democrats favored to win the House, though the party’s generic congressional ballot advantage has narrowed somewhat, from as much as 7 points in May to roughly 3.5 points more recently. The Race to the WH forecast, which simulates the election tens of thousands of times using polling, fundraising, and historical trends, has put Democrats’ odds of winning the House at more than 70%, citing a consistent Democratic advantage in individual-donor fundraising as a signal of voter engagement. Democrats remain longer odds to retake the Senate, where Republicans currently hold a 53–47 majority and are defending fewer vulnerable seats.
The Bigger Picture Heading Into the Midterms
Taken together, Schumer’s post reflects a broader Democratic strategy heading into the fall campaign: tying economic discontent, war fatigue over Iran, and questions about Trump’s personal finances into a single, cohesive midterm message. The CNN poll underscores why Democrats believe that message may resonate — just one-quarter of Americans say the war in Iran has been worth its toll in American lives and dollars, and 74% say rising gas prices have caused them at least some hardship, up from 63% in March. More than 6 in 10 Americans say Trump has gone too far in pursuing his personal business interests while in office, according to the same survey, a finding that dovetails directly with the argument Schumer advanced in his Wednesday post. Whether that argument moves enough voters will become clear only in November, but for now, it stands as the clearest distillation yet of the case Senate Democrats intend to make against the president through Election Day.