Stop calling it ‘a break from norms.’ Call it Trump corruption.

It’s the media’s job to make sure everyone knows the president is a crook

Careful news consumers have gotten the message from mainstream media that Donald Trump is a crook brazenly cashing in on the presidency.

But what about the people who are not careful news consumers – which is most Americans?

Have major media made it clear to them that Trump is deeply corrupt, not just a “good businessman”? Have headlines been sharp and straightforward? Have news outlets consistently written hard-hitting stories that bring the full ugly picture into focus?

No, no, and no.

The media have produced one-off stories about various aspects of Trump’s crooked financial tricks, but they rarely connect the dots into a sweeping portrait of corruption that might actually break through to the broader public.

On Monday, the regime announced a slimy scam to funnel $1.8 billion in taxpayer funds to Trump’s friends. Trump had sued the U.S. government for $10 billion over the illegal leak of his tax returns. But when a judge raised questions about the legality of Trump’s government giving Trump money, the Justice Department engineered a scheme to avoid judicial oversight: creation of a Trump-controlled “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that would presumably benefit co-conspirators in his Jan. 6, 2021 coup attempt.

Other Trump actions have more directly benefited the bank accounts of the president and his family. For example, Trump has tasked his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with negotiating for peace in the Mideast while Kushner is simultaneously hunting for business deals in the region.

Last week, we learned that Trump made personal financial transactions totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, primarily in tech stocks, whose value can be affected by government policies he controls. One big purchase of Nvidia stock came just a week before Trump’s Commerce Department officially approved the sale of Nvidia chips to China.

Then there are his kids. Eric Trump’s company received a $24 million Pentagon contract. Meanwhile, Don Jr. has financial ties to two big prediction markets, Kalshi and Polymarket, even as his father shields the industry from regulation.

Team Trump has also launched at least five cryptocurrency enterprises at a time when Trump is dramatically weakening crypto regulation. A United Arab Emirates sheik secretly bought 49% of one Trump crypto business and months later, Trump, in his role as president, approved the UAE’s purchase of AI chip technology.

These examples go beyond “conflicts of interest” – they’re ways Trump is brazenly monetizing the government to enrich himself and his family.

There are other suspicious actions in which Trump’s motives aren’t fully understood. He pardoned the former president of Honduras on drug trafficking convictions (an odd move if you care about drug trafficking) and dropped fraud charges against Asia’s richest man (an odd move when you’ve tasked your own vice president with rooting out fraud). It probably didn’t hurt Indian billionaire Gautam Adani that he hired Trump’s personal lawyer.

There are so many examples of crooked or questionable behavior that there’s no time or space to list them all here. The New Yorker calculated that Trump’s “profiteering” in the first year of his second term netted him and his family $4 billion. But because this calculation was published by a subscriber-only outlet, its reach was limited. We need outlets like ABC, NBC, CNN, the Associated Press and others whose reports are always or often free to become far more direct and blunt. (I’ve given up on CBS.)

Timid journalists often rely on the wording that Trump’s actions are “a break from norms.” They also say Trump tests norms, bucks norms, upends norms, sidesteps norms, shatters norms, defies norms, and undermines norms.

But there’s a problem with that word: Norms aren’t always good, so bucking them isn’t always bad. Susan B. Anthony shattered norms. So did Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

Let’s also dispense with the phrase “highly unusual,” which is what the New York Times used to describe Trump’s outrageous “Anti-Weaponization Fund” scam.

I understand that the media don’t want to accuse Trump of committing crimes in the absence of charges and convictions. Trump, who is already a convicted felon, is violating the Constitution in many ways, but new charges against him are not forthcoming as the Justice Department concentrates on harassing his enemies.

Rather than talking about norms or crimes, I think the media covering Trump should use the word “corrupt” more often. Its meaning is less specific than “criminal,” but it has power. It simply means that you’re “dishonestly using your position or power to get an advantage, especially for money.”

If news outlets are afraid to be direct, they could at least raise eyebrows with headlines like:

• “Trump’s windfall profits come with questions about corruption”

• “Trump’s business deals: highly profitable and highly questionable.”

If news outlets feel the need to attribute the accusation of corruption to someone other than themselves, they could write headlines like:

• “Historians call Trump the most corrupt U.S. president ever.”

• “Corruption watchers appalled by Trump’s money grabs”

But they don’t really need to qualify things. The facts are readily available to support clear headlines like:

• “Trump cashes in on presidency”

• “Trump uses government to amass great wealth”

• “Trump gets richer with schemes big and small”

A few outlets are getting there. Salon recently published the headline: “Trump is openly cashing in on the presidency.”

The New York Times wrote a headline in January reading “How Trump has pocketed $1,408,500,000,” but only in the opinion section. Put it in the news section!

It’s abundantly clear that a corrupt enterprise is operating out of the White House. The news media shouldn’t keep it a secret.

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This week’s media atrocity

A New York Times story was headlined “Republicans Waited to Challenge Trump on the Iran War. Now It May Be Too Late.” As if they were well-meaning lawmakers who just missed their chance when, in fact, they’re co-conspirators in an illegal war.

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