U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) accused President Donald Trump of unprecedented financial self-dealing in office on Monday, citing polling data showing a large majority of Americans believe the president’s private business interests are shaping his decisions in the White House. The senator’s post amplifies a growing Democratic effort to make Trump’s personal profiteering a central issue heading into the November midterm elections.
The Post
Padilla published the statement on X on Monday, September 7, 2026, at 9:02 a.m., linking to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on public perceptions of Trump’s business dealings. His post read, in full:
“69% of Americans agree that Trump’s own business interests are shaping his decisions as president. No president has ever used the office to enrich himself as much as Donald Trump.”
What The Poll Found
The senator’s post linked to a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted between August 14 and August 17, 2026, which found that a majority of Americans believe Trump and his family have inappropriately profited from cryptocurrency ventures since he returned to power. The four-day poll found that half of Trump’s own Republican supporters believe the president allows his business interests to influence his decisions, a notable finding for a leader who campaigned on rooting out corruption in Washington.
Some 63% of respondents told pollsters it was inappropriate for Trump and his family to have profited from crypto dealings, while 32% said the arrangement was appropriate. The partisan divide was stark: about three in ten Republicans called the deals inappropriate, compared with seven in ten who defended them. Overall, 69% of respondents — including two-thirds of independents and nine in ten Democrats — said they believed Trump’s private business interests were influencing his presidential decisions.
The poll surveyed 1,166 U.S. adults nationwide and carried a margin of error of 3 percentage points for all respondents and 5 points for Democrats, Republicans and independents individually. It also found that Americans are divided on whether corruption is worse under Trump than under prior administrations, with Democrats largely believing graft has increased while Republicans are split roughly down the middle on the question.
Ethics Experts Call The Arrangement Unprecedented
The Reuters report cited experts on presidential ethics who described the current mixing of Trump’s business empire and political power as without historical precedent. Richard Painter, who served as the top ethics lawyer under Republican President George W. Bush, said the scale of business entanglement is unlike anything seen in prior administrations, including Trump’s own first term.
The report also quoted Thomas Schmidt, a semi-retired crossing guard in Cudahy, Wisconsin, who voted for Trump in 2024 but said he has grown uneasy with the president’s conduct this year. Schmidt said Trump “should be more concerned with his presidency than with his business practices,” adding that his chief worries center on inflation and the ongoing war with Iran. Schmidt said he does not believe Trump is unique among presidents in blending business and politics, telling Reuters, “I think every president’s done something like that.”
The White House Responds
The White House has rejected allegations that Trump’s financial holdings present a conflict of interest. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement to Reuters that Trump’s investments are managed independently of his official duties. “There are no conflicts of interest,” Kelly said. “The President only acts in the best interests of the American public.”
Trump has similarly defended his crypto earnings in public remarks, telling reporters earlier this year that his financial gains reflect broader market conditions rather than any use of the office for personal benefit. “You know why I’m profiting, because the stock market’s going up, everybody’s profiting,” Trump said.
Padilla’s Broader Campaign Against Trump’s Self-Dealing
Monday’s post is the latest in a sustained effort by Padilla to make Trump’s business dealings a defining issue of his second term. In July, Padilla joined Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to launch a new Senate Democratic anti-corruption working group alongside a report titled “The Cost of Corruption: How Trump Turns Power Into Profit At Americans’ Expense.” Padilla said at the time, “In this Administration, corruption flows from the top down.”
The following month, Padilla and Schumer introduced the Anti-Corruption Bureau Creation Act, legislation that would allow members of the public and state attorneys general to sue for recoveries from federal officials, including the president and vice president, who profit corruptly while in office. The bill would also establish the first independent federal agency dedicated to rooting out executive branch corruption. Announcing the legislation, Padilla said, “When a president uses the office for personal profit, that is not ‘just the way it is,’ despite what Trump wants you to believe. With Trump, there’s clearly no effort to hide the corruption.”
Padilla has also warned that normalizing presidential profiteering carries long-term risks for American democracy. “The biggest danger is when Americans begin to think this is normal, and that’s just the way it is,” Padilla said. “It is not. It is not how government works… We owe them a government where public office is a public trust, not a private enterprise.”
In August, Padilla introduced separate legislation, the Stop Corrupt Trading Act, aimed at prohibiting the president or vice president from selling advance or exclusive access to their official social media statements after reports that Trump Media was preparing to sell subscription access to Trump’s Truth Social posts for between $60,000 and $100,000 a month. Padilla said at the time, “Trump is openly selling preferential access to his presidential statements on Truth Social — trading insider information to benefit himself and his billionaire cronies.”
That same release noted that Padilla had previously pushed to end the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” settlement fund and had demanded an independent inspector general investigation into the Attorney General and Justice Department’s role in Trump’s acquisition of a $400 million luxury aircraft from the Qatari government.
Trump’s Crypto Fortune Under Growing Scrutiny
The dispute over Trump’s business dealings has centered heavily on his family’s cryptocurrency ventures. Trump’s 2025 annual financial disclosure, released by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics on June 30, showed the president earned more than $1.2 billion from crypto-related businesses last year, including roughly $515 million from the sale of World Liberty Financial governance tokens and more than $600 million from sales of Trump-branded “meme” coins through CIC Digital LLC.
World Liberty Financial, launched in September 2024 by Trump’s sons and associates of Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, directs 75% of token-sale revenue to a Trump family-linked entity, according to Reuters reporting. By December 2025, the Trump family had reportedly profited roughly $1 billion from the venture while still holding billions more in unsold tokens.
Scrutiny intensified last month after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted conditional approval for World Liberty Trust Company, an affiliate of World Liberty Financial that is roughly 38% owned by an entity tied to Trump and his family, to operate as a national trust bank — the first time in U.S. history a sitting president’s family business has been granted such status. Ethics watchdogs and Democratic lawmakers characterized the move as a direct conflict of interest.
World Liberty Financial has defended its operations. CEO Zach Witkoff said the company’s stablecoin business demonstrates real market utility and operates independently of political influence, pushing back on allegations of cronyism surrounding the venture.
Political Stakes Ahead Of The Midterms
The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Americans broadly view corruption as prevalent across government, with four in ten Democrats saying they are extremely angry about the issue compared with one in four Republicans. When asked which party is more corrupt overall, respondents were closely split, with 49% pointing to Republicans and 41% pointing to Democrats.
Democrats have signaled they intend to make Trump’s business dealings a central line of attack ahead of November’s midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress for the final two years of Trump’s term. Padilla’s Monday post, paired with his months-long legislative push on presidential ethics, suggests the issue will remain a recurring flashpoint as the campaign season intensifies.