2026-09-03T04:01:29.590Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/03/politics/american-corruption-trump
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美国人担忧政府腐败早已不是新闻，也不足为奇。
他们曾两次选举唐纳德·特朗普，而特朗普曾两次承诺要“抽干”华盛顿特区的“沼泽”。
“我们正在将权力从华盛顿特区转移出去，交还给你们，美国人民，”他在首次就职演说中说道。
在第二次就职演说中，特朗普承诺将美国从“贪婪掠夺公民权力与财富的激进腐败体制”中解放出来。
但在这项承诺上，有令人震惊的新证据表明，美国人认为他并未兑现。
有一点应当引起白宫——实际上也应当引起所有美国人——的担忧：在盖洛普的一项民调中，89%的美国人在被问及“美国政府内部是否存在普遍腐败现象”时给出了肯定回答。
并非只有盖洛普得出了这一结论。马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校周二也发布了一项民调结果，97%的美国人——几乎所有人——都表示政府存在一定程度的腐败。其中75%的受访者表示，美国存在“极其严重”的腐败问题。
数十年的民调一直显示民众对政府普遍存在不满与不信任，但盖洛普的最新数据有两个值得关注的核心原因。
盖洛普目前仍在收集经济合作与发展组织（OECD）全部38个成员国的2026年相关数据，但初步迹象显示，在民众对政府腐败的看法方面，美国如今已独树一帜。
此前盖洛普的民调就显示美国的腐败感知率已超过其他OECD成员国，而2022年以来其他OECD成员国的平均腐败感知率一直低于60%，但美国的这一比例却持续攀升，自2010年起就已超过70%。2025年，美国与哥伦比亚并列79%。
究竟是什么发生了变化？
正如盖洛普指出的那样，通常情况下，政权更迭后，支持获胜政党的民众会更难察觉到腐败。但这种预期的下降并未出现。相反，在最新民调中，认为腐败普遍存在的共和党人占比为83%，与2024年拜登政府最后一年时的87%基本持平。
当时共和党曾不遗余力地将拜登家族，尤其是其儿子亨特·拜登描绘成腐败分子，而拜登一家对此予以强烈否认。
与此同时，尽管共和党人对腐败的看法并未改变，但仍有91%的民主党人和90%的无党派人士认为腐败现象普遍存在。
极少有议题能得到如此跨党派的一致认同。而立法者们也并未采取多少行动来扭转这一趋势。
在马萨诸塞大学的民调中，受访者被要求将四个政府机构按腐败程度从高到低排序。大多数人（53%）将总统列为最腐败的机构，仅有18%的人将国会排在首位。41%的受访者认为国会是第二腐败的政府部门。几乎没有人将法院和联邦官僚机构列为第一或第二腐败的对象。
在指责拜登试图利用总统职位为家族谋利之后，特朗普家族在特朗普第二任期内对财富积累采取了“只管冲”（YOLO）的态度。特朗普家族看似入账的金额可能远超亨特·拜登担任企业董事所获得的报酬。
在马萨诸塞大学的民调中，77%的受访者表示，总统不应，或绝对不应从可能受其政府政策和决策影响的商业投资中获利。
特朗普旗下一家名为特朗普媒体的公司正在出售其社交媒体帖子的提前阅读权限，让每月能支付高达10万美元的华尔街投行得以提前了解他的部分政策决策。
特朗普的两个儿子都与国防承包商存在利益关联，而此时特朗普总统正推动一项高达1.5万亿美元的惊人五角大楼预算，这将在一年内增加近5000亿美元的开支。
负责监管父亲资产的埃里克·特朗普和小唐纳德·特朗普，与特朗普在中东和乌克兰谈判代表史蒂夫·维特科夫的儿子共同创立了一家名为“世界自由金融”的公司，借机炒作加密货币热潮。而此时特朗普总统对监管采取了放任自流的态度。
他们正在寻求海外交易，而他们的父亲也在推动贸易协议的达成。
“我发现没人在乎，”他今年1月在接受《纽约时报》采访时表示，暗示他认为自己有权将商业与政治混为一谈。他还称自己在第一任期内曾尝试将两者分开，但“没有得到任何认可”。
小唐纳德·特朗普和埃里克·特朗普表示，他们不会与父亲讨论商业事务。包括维特科夫和商务部长霍华德·卢特尼克在内的其他特朗普政府高级官员的子女，也在开展与其父亲公职相关的商业活动。
卢特尼克在接受CNBC采访时被问及一项有利于其家族和特朗普的矿产交易是否存在利益冲突时，驳斥这是“愚蠢的问题”，是“浪费时间”。
总统显然也无法直接掌控自己的股票投资组合，因此至少有可能他并不清楚第三方金融机构代表他进行的1000多笔近期股票交易，其中包括受其对伊朗战争政策影响的能源公司股票。这些交易已按政府规定向政府道德办公室进行了披露。
特朗普并非唯一进行股票交易的政客。追踪国会议员的股票交易已成为一种投资策略，投资者会选择买入与两党议员相同的股票，其中包括富有的民主党人，如加利福尼亚州的南希·佩洛西众议员和罗·卡纳众议员。这也促使两党越来越多地呼吁禁止国会议员及其直系亲属进行股票交易，但尚未采取任何具体行动。绝大多数美国两党民众都支持通过这项禁令。
国防部长皮特·赫格斯西更愿意被称为“战争部长”，在被提名加入特朗普政府之前，他曾批评将军们为国防承包商工作。但值得注意的是，当民主党参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦施压要求他承诺卸任后10年内不为国防承包商工作时，他拒绝了这一要求。
“我不是将军，参议员，”赫格斯西在确认听证会上对沃伦说道。最近，他与沃伦在一场国会听证会上发生争执，议题是特朗普发动对伊朗战争之前，五角大楼是否应当对时机恰到好处的石油市场押注展开调查。
沃伦本人作为百分之一富豪阶层的财富状况——她在2020年总统竞选期间公布的纳税申报单中披露——可能会被解读为与她的进步派身份背道而驰，尽管她的财富是通过她和丈夫作为教授的丰厚薪水以及图书出版合约积累的，而非通过股票交易。
许多当选官员都家境优渥。（仅仅持有指数基金近年来就会让任何人的资产增值。）这显然不同于利用职权或内幕信息谋取不正当优势。
比议员们通过私人活动赚钱更大的问题，可能是在国家债务已超过40万亿美元之际，政府的资金使用方式。
特朗普政府曾为政府开支问题敲响警钟，但随后又通过大规模减税减少了财政收入，而这些减税政策即使能增加收入，也只能在很久以后才能实现。
世界首富埃隆·马斯克在特朗普政府早期曾被聘为政府特别雇员， tasked with cutting government spending and whittling down the bureaucracy。
但目前尚不清楚他除了对社会安全保障项目中的欺诈和腐败提出大量频繁毫无根据的指控之外，究竟取得了什么成果。马斯克最终离开政府回到了自己的公司，而这些公司从政府合同中获益，他也曾短暂成为全球首位万亿富翁。如今他依然境况不错。已知他在2024年帮助特朗普竞选期间花费的近3亿美元，可以被视为一笔不错的投资。
与此同时，美国选举支出的透明度越来越低，我们无法确切得知究竟是谁在花钱帮助候选人当选。
特朗普也曾对政府中的欺诈和腐败行为提出过大量未经证实的指控，并多次声称美国选举存在腐败。所有这些指控都可能吸引他的政治基础支持者，这些人认同他所谓的体制对他们不利的说法。而民主党人则声称，他的这些举动是对民主的威胁，投票权正面临危机。
退一步来看，绝大多数美国人确实只看到了腐败。
Americans’ ‘government corruption’ problem is in a new league
2026-09-03T04:01:29.590Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/03/politics/american-corruption-trump
A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
It is not news, or surprising, that Americans are worried about government corruption.
They twice elected Donald Trump, who twice promised to drain the “swamp” of Washington, DC.
“We are transferring power from Washington, DC, and giving it back to you, the American People,” he said in his first inaugural address.
In his second inaugural address, Trump promised to liberate the country from “a radical and corrupt establishment” that “extracted power and wealth from our citizens.”
On that promise, there’s striking new evidence that Americans believe he has failed to deliver.
It should be of some concern to the White House — and to every American, really — that 89% of Americans said “yes” in a Gallup poll when asked, “Is corruption widespread throughout the government in this country, or not?”
Gallup isn’t alone on this. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst is also out with a poll Tuesday in which 97% of Americans — nearly everybody — says there is some corruption in government. A smaller portion, 75%, said there is “a great deal” of corruption in the UMass poll.
Decades of polling has found widespread frustration with and mistrust of government, but the new data from Gallup is notable for two main reasons.
Gallup is still collecting data from all 38 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for 2026, but the preliminary indication is that the US is now in a class of its own in terms of how its people view government corruption.
The US already outpaced other OECD countries in Gallup’s polling, but while the average corruption perception has been below 60% since 2022, it has now shot up for the US, which has been above 70% since 2010. In 2025, the US was tied with Colombia at 79%.
What changed?
Usually, as Gallup notes, when power changes hands, those who favor the winning party are less likely to see corruption. That expected drop has not happened. Instead, the 83% of Republicans who see widespread corruption in the most recent poll is broadly in line with the 87% who said corruption was widespread in 2024, the final year of President Joe Biden’s administration.
At the time, Republicans worked very hard to portray Biden’s family, particularly his son Hunter, as corrupt, which the Bidens vehemently denied.
In the meantime, while Republicans have not abandoned their perceptions of corruption, 91% of Democrats and 90% of political independents see widespread corruption.
Very few issues see such cross-party agreement. And lawmakers are not doing much to counter the trend.
In the UMass poll, respondents were asked to rank four governmental institutions from most to least corrupt. Most people — 53% — listed the president first, compared with 18% who listed Congress first. Forty-one percent listed Congress as the second most corrupt branch of government. Fewer pointed to courts and the federal bureaucracy first or second.
After accusing Biden of trying to enrich his family through the presidency, Trump’s family has adopted a YOLO attitude toward wealth acquisition during Trump 2.0. The dollar figures the Trumps appear to be bringing in could dwarf what Hunter Biden was paid to sit on corporate boards.
In the UMass poll, 77% said the president should not or definitely should not be profiting from business ventures that could be affected by the policies and decisions of his administration.
One Trump-aligned company, Trump Media, is selling early access to his social media posts, giving Wall Street firms who can afford up to $100,000 a month possible early looks at some of his policy decisions.
Trump’s sons both have interests in defense contractors at a time when President Trump is pushing for a gobsmacking $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget, which would be an increase of nearly $500 billion in one year.
Overseeing their father’s assets, sons Eric and Don Jr. founded a firm, World Liberty Financial, along with the son of his Mideast and Ukraine negotiator Steve Witkoff, to capitalize on the craze around cryptocurrency. All of this is happening at a time when President Trump is taking a hands-off approach to regulation.
They are pursuing overseas deals at a time when their father is seeking trade deals.
“I found out that nobody cared,” he told the New York Times back in January, suggesting he feels entitled to mix business and politics. He said he tried to separate the two during his first term and “got no credit.”
Don Jr. and Eric Trump say they do not discuss business with their father. The sons of other top Trump administration officials, including Witkoff and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, are also working business angles that touch their wealthy fathers’ public jobs.
Lutnick, pressed on CNBC about the perception of a conflict in a mining deal that benefits his family and Trump’s, dismissed “silly questions” and a “waste of time.”
The president also apparently does not have direct control over his stock portfolio, so it is at least possible he does not know about the 1,000-plus recent stock trades made on his behalf by third-party financial institutions, including in energy companies affected by his war on Iran. The trades were disclosed in government-mandated disclosures to the Office of Government Ethics.
Trump isn’t the only politician playing the market. Tracking the trades of members of Congress, including wealthy Democrats such as Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Ro Khanna of California, has become an investment strategy for people who want to buy the same stocks as lawmakers from either or both parties. It has also led to growing bipartisan calls, but no concrete action, for a ban on members of Congress and their direct family members trading stocks. A large, bipartisan majority of Americans support passing such a ban.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who prefers to be called secretary of war, was critical, before his nomination to join the Trump administration, of generals working for defense contractors. But he notably declined, when pressed by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, to pledge not to work for a defense contractor for 10 years after he leaves office.
“I’m not a general, senator,” Hegseth told Warren at his confirmation hearing. More recently, he and Warren tangled at a congressional hearing over whether the Pentagon should be doing anything to investigate well-timed oil market bets before Trump launched the war in Iran.
Warren’s own one-percenter wealth — divulged when she released tax returns during a 2020 presidential run — could be construed as antithetical to her progressive bona fides, although her wealth was built through her and her husbands’ healthy salaries as professors and her book deals rather through than stock trades.
Many of the people who are elected to office are wealthy. (And simply having money in index funds would have inflated anyone’s bottom line in recent years.) That is clearly different from using knowledge or access to gain an upper hand.
A larger issue than the money made by lawmakers in their private pursuits may be how the government spends money at a time when the national debt has eclipsed $40 trillion.
Trump’s administration has sounded the alarm about government spending, but then cut revenues with massive tax cuts that will only generate more revenue far down the road, if ever.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest individual, was brought in as a special government employee early in the Trump administration with directions to cut government spending and whittle down the bureaucracy.
But it’s not clear what, if anything, he actually accomplished other than making wild, frequently unfounded accusations about fraud and corruption in social safety net programs. Musk ultimately left government to return to his companies, which benefit from government contracts, and briefly became the world’s first trillionaire. He’s still doing OK. The nearly $300 million we know about that he spent helping get Trump elected in 2024 can be viewed as a solid investment.
At the same time, the increasing murkiness of US election spending means we don’t know exactly who is spending what to get candidates elected.
Trump has also made wild and unverified claims about fraud throughout government and repeatedly alleged corruption in US elections. All of these claims could appeal to his political base, which identifies with his claim that the system is rigged against them. And Democrats have alleged that his moves are a threat to democracy and the right to vote is under threat.
Take a step back, and the vast majority of Americans just see corruption.
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