Trump's corruption hurting him more than ever for 2 'lethal' reasons

President Donald Trump attends an event at the White House in Washington, D.C., February 23, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

President Donald Trump's blatant second-term corruption is souring him for more and more high-profile former supporters, and as one former White House official told MS NOW, there are two clear reasons why he cannot get away with it as he used to, and they are becoming a "lethal combination for him."

During the Saturday broadcast of MS NOW's Deadline: White House, host Nicole Wallace shared a clip of famed podcaster Joe Rogan expressing disgust at the ways in which Trump has enriched himself and his family, and scammed followers out of money, via his cryptocurrency ventures. This marked another sharp departure for Rogan, who voiced support for Trump in the lead-up to the 2024 election.

Wallace also welcomed Ben Rhodes, a former Obama administration national security adviser, to discuss the phenomenon, and he put forward what he viewed as the two main reasons that voters could no longer stomach Trump's corruption like they managed to in his first term.

"I think part of what's going onhere, Nicole, is, number one,the scale and obvious nature ofthis corruption is much simplerof a story to tell than some ofthe more bank-shot corruptionof the first term," Rhodes explained. "Youknow, Saudis paying a lot ofmoney to stay in Trump hotelrooms or something like that.The scale [this time] is billions ofdollars, and it's pretty clearwhen you juice, like, a meme coin,and then it collapses in value,and you walk away with a lot ofmoney and all the people thatyou convinced to invest in itwalk away losing a lot of money.Well, that's an easystory to tell. So that's thefirst thing: the scale of itand how clear it is."

He continued: "I thinkthe second thing that's reallyimportant here is that the economy is not good, thatprices are still up. If the economy was going gangbusters for peopleand oil wasn't through the roof,and the price of grocerieswasn't through the roof, maybe,maybe some of these peoplewould be kind of less focusedon this. But the reality is,it's that context. It's thosetwo things together. Mostpeople cannot afford things, and Donald Trump is gettingfabulously wealthy in theprocess. Like, that is a lethalpolitical combination, andthat's something that, frankly,some Democrats like Jon Ossoffare making the case. But youalmost don't have to. Even a Joe Rogan is doing hisown research and coming to thesame conclusion."

Wallace further expressed continued shock at how much disdain Trump appeared to have for his own voters, given how much he takes advantage of them. Rhodes concurred and called the trend one of the "dark truths" of Trump's political career.

"Thepeople that they need to takeadvantage of are the peoplethat most believe in them," he explained. "Whoever thinksthat they're going to benefitby getting close to Trump, youknow, always ends up losing inthe end."

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