Don't call them 'potential conflicts of interest'

Words matter. When the media points out Trump’s “potential conflicts of interest,” as it has in recent days when describing Trump’s growing crypto enterprise, it doesn’t come close to telling the public what’s really going on — unprecedented paybacks and self-dealing by the president of the United States, using his office to make billions.

- Robert Reich

The correct word is corruption.

Trump holds a private dinner at the White House for major speculators who purchase his new cryptocurrency, earning him and his allies $900,000 in trading fees in just under two days. One senator calls this “the most brazenly corrupt thing a president has ever done.”

He’s doing other things as brazen, if not more brazenly corrupt.

He collects a cut of sales from a cryptocurrency marketed with his likeness.

He promotes Teslas on the White House driveway on behalf of a multibillionaire who spent a quarter of a billion backing him during the 2024 election.

He posts news-making announcements on Truth Social, the company in which he and his family own a significant stake. Truth Social thereby becomes the world’s semi-official means of knowing Trump’s thinking and policies.

Trump frequently mentions in his phone calls with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that he'd like the signature British Open golf tournament returned to Trump’s Turnberry resort in Scotland (its home before Trump’s January 6, 2021, attempted coup). Trump’s team asked the British PM again during his recent visit to the White House.

To describe these as “potential conflicts of interest” misses the point.

A “potential conflict of interest” sounds like an unfortunate situation in which it’s possible that Trump might choose his own personal interest over the nation’s. Stated this way, the problem is the conflict.