Even Republicans are concerned about the amount of money Donald Trump has made since his return to office.
The 80-year-old president and his family have entered into several new money-making ventures since January last year, but none has been more apparent than their foray into cryptocurrency, and a new Reuters/Ipsos poll has revealed a majority of Americans think their profiteering is inappropriate.
The poll was completed on Monday after four days of gathering and found that almost half of Republicans think Trump has allowed business interests to influence decisions he has made as president.
Reuters reports that 48 percent of Republicans felt Trump’s businesses influence his decisions as president, compared to 69 percent of all respondents, 69 percent of independents, and 90 percent of Democrats.
The same poll found that just 32 percent of respondents thought it was appropriate for Trump and his family to make money out of cryptocurrency, including just 6 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of independent voters. Just 27 percent of Republicans think it is inappropriate, compared to 69 percent who found it appropriate.
Concerns about his family’s profiteering come despite Trump rising to power on, among other things, a pledge to clean up Washington, D.C., and “drain the swamp.”
Financial disclosures revealed that Trump made $2.2 million last year, the BBC reports, while Reuters noted that he had earned $1.4 billion through crypto ventures alone.
Among them are meme coins and family firm World Liberty Financial, which is run by his two sons, Eric and Don Jr. While in office, Trump called his meme coin the “Greatest of them all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“There are no conflicts of interest,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Reuters in a statement. “The president only acts in the best interests of the American public.”
Trump has claimed that, since his return to the White House, he has not been involved in the running of his family’s finances.
This comes despite him taking several measures to create a crypto-friendly environment and cozying up to several leading figures in the tech world.
“There’s just no precedent for this,” Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, told the BBC in July. “It’s beyond anything we’ve ever seen in the presidency.”
As November’s midterms approach, Democrats have pointed to fears about conflict of interest and corruption.
Richard Painter, the top ethics lawyer for Republican President George W. Bush, told Reuters, “We have seen nothing like this before, even the first Trump administration did not have as many complex business interests as the second Trump administration.”
“The only special interest guiding President Trump’s decision-making is the best interest of the American people,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement to the Daily Beast.
