Somebody inside Donald Trump’s White House is apparently losing sleep over a film they haven’t seen yet.
Raw Story reported last night that an administration official told Brian Karem, the veteran correspondent who has covered every White House since Reagan, that the building is in “full panic mode” over CORRUPTIONLAND, the documentary we’re releasing next week.
“Taylor potentially has information that the president wouldn’t want people to see,” the official told Raw America. “We’re anticipating the worst.”
There’s a few big reasons they should be worried, though maybe not for the reasons that keep them up at night.
One of the things we did for the film was try to put a dollar figure on all of the corruption. Our team built a ledger of documented instances of this administration using federal power for wrongdoing, riches, or revenge, and down-selected to the top 100. It’s nowhere near comprehensive, but it’s a start. Even then, the result isn’t pretty. We’re talking massive sums of public funds steered, extracted, diverted, or put at risk. And we’re committed to growing that ledger, along with partners, into a tracker that can be used on an ongoing basis.
The American people are rightfully upset about the eye-popping figures they’ve already seen. Trump’s own financial disclosure shows $2.2 billion in personal income for 2025, most of it from crypto ventures that didn’t exist before he returned to office. Remember, that’s the number his own lawyers were willing to put on a government form. In my personal view, it barely scratches the surface of what might actually be happening with Trump’s opaque finances and the dizzying array of business entities that have been set up by his family since he came back to office.
So yes, the White House should be nervous about a film that reminds people of all of his corruption and assigns a bigger dollar value to it than has been publicly disclosed, one week before an election. But I’d be lying if I said the updated figures or the documentary itself were the real reason they should be anxious.
The real reason — and the much bigger reason — is something in the air that I haven’t seen in my lifetime. It’s a pervasive “anti-corruption spirit” across the country. It’s not a flash in the pan. As you know very well by now (because I can’t stop talking about it), Gallup found last month that a record 89 percent of Americans believe corruption is widespread in their government, Republicans included, and that the United States now ranks worse on that measure than every other developed country. Pew’s long-running “trust in government” question is at a dismal 17 percent, tied for the lowest reading since the series began in 1958.
History tells us that this kind of mood doesn’t clear up after one election. Trust in government was at 77 percent in 1964. Vietnam and Watergate dragged it to 36 percent by the end of 1974, and in the half century since, it has never come fully back. People who’ve concluded that institutions have been corrupted tend to hold that view for a very long time, sometimes for the rest of their lives. Whether or not Democrats retake one or both houses on November 3, the midterm will absolutely not be the crescendo of this anger. Think of it a little more like the opening act.
So what comes next? I believe after the anger, phase two is accountability. That’s where the White House should really be sweating. People far smarter and more versed in the law than anyone in Trump’s orbit are already planning a legislative blitz the likes of which we’ve never seen. They’re devising ways to restore the rule of law expeditiously and to make sure Trump and his enablers are fully investigated, no matter how many pardons and self-pardons they wrap themselves in (along with the outside advisers, corporations, and foreign parties who paid for access and got it).
This next phase, however, will be bigger than just righting the wrongs of the past two years.
The same bipartisan anger that is stirring against government corruption will be the motive power for government reform. Republicans may be standing behind their man today, but they don’t want a Democratic president wielding the office the way Trump has. Just watch, as they miraculously rediscover their consciences the moment a Democrat is elected to the White House. In that window, there will be a once-in-a-generation chance at rebalancing our constitutional order, including with changes far more extensive than those made in the wake of Watergate.
None of that is guaranteed, of course. We’ll have a good indicator of whether we’re headed that direction after the midterms. But the public’s slow-burn spite toward corruption may be what finally forces us to fix our broken system.
Until then, the “full panic” at the White House is certainly warranted.
Your friend, in defiance,
P.S. DEFIANCE.org is a nonprofit “club for the courageous.” We literally exist to FIGHT the corruption you just read about. We announce a new effort every week to counter Trump’s abuses of power. That’s what your membership funds. If you haven’t yet, become a member today.
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