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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Will Donald Trump’s Corruption Matter in November?

Oct 10, 2026 · 50m

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The Washington Roundtable weighs in on how Donald Trump’s rampant corruption will play out at the polls. Although conventional wisdom in Washington suggests that graft doesn’t move voters, Democrats have nonetheless spent more than three hundred million dollars on ads that portray the President’s self-enrichment as a tax on everyone else. They are joined by a former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, Rebecca Slaughter, who discusses what, if anything, can be done about corruption in the federal government, and why criminal prosecution may not be the most effective tool to combat it. Slaughter argues that officials must find ways to make corruption costly for those who engage in…