Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Mastio writes in the Kansas City Star that MAGA voters' lackadaisical attitude about how President Donald Trump has enriched himself and his family may change with his IRS lawsuit.
“Since Donald Trump took office last year, the foundation of America’s economy — the once mighty dollar — has fallen in value by about 10 percent. That means everything in America is worth less,” Mastio wrote in his Thursday column.
And even after devastating the American dollar, Mastio noted Trump's “Liberation Day” tariffs has led to lost U.S. manufacturing jobs for eight months in a row. Spending on manufacturing-related construction has also declined in every one of those months — meaning less blue-collar workers who voted for Trump in the last election.
“Farm leaders are warning Congress that American agriculture like that in Kansas and Missouri faces ‘widespread collapse,’ in part driven by the trade chaos spurred by those same tariffs doing so much damage to American manufacturing. That means there is less for the rural farmers and ranchers who powered Trump’s rise,” said Mastio.
Additionally, while farms and factories fail, Mastio reports Trump’s family has seen its wealth grow by $4 billion, “including a dubious $500 million crypto investment by a shady Arab sheikh, revealed this week by The Wall Street Journal.”
Mastio then wondered what it would take to prove to some people that Trump “might just be in this more for himself than for the people in the political movement that made him president," and suggested it could be when “the president starts transferring taxpayer dollars to his own bank accounts.”
“Trump has sued the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department for $10 billion,” said Mastio. “ … It didn’t get much attention last week when it happened, because there isn’t time in the day to cover all the scandalous things Trump does, from closing the Kennedy Center to usurping the Congressional power to write trade law, or deploying masked immigration police to gun down American citizens on our streets.”
But Mastio said these two lawsuits, in which Trump alleges the Justice Department maliciously prosecuted him and that the IRS leaked his personal information, “are different from all the others the famously litigious kleptocrat has filed.”
“He essentially is filing the lawsuits against himself — and if he wins, it will be our money that makes up Trump’s booty,” said Mastio. “… Decisions about legal strategy and whether to settle will be made by Trump appointee Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary and acting IRS commissioner, and the reliable Trump crony at Justice, Attorney General Pam Bondi.”
“Whom do they report to? Trump,” Mastio added. “Trump will obviously control the plaintiffs’ side of the cases, so who knows how much he will tell his appointees to give him from the public coffers they control when it comes time to settle the disputes? Whether it is millions or billions is up to Trump and a couple of judges who will have to bless any settlement, a move that is a rubber stamp in most normal court cases.”
So, when Trump starts funneling their precious taxpayer money directly into his personal bank accounts perhaps MAGA will wake up to the fact that they’ve elected a grifter, said Masto, but “I doubt they will.”