U.S. President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 31, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
I don’t believe in conspiracies, but I’ve heard a number of theories about whom Trump is really working for that seem reasonable to me. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe at least one of them is sufficiently credible to merit more investigation. Trump fires the commissioner of labor statistics because the job news is bad, he says Obama ought to be convicted of treason, he’s obviously mixed up in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, he openly takes bribes, he imposes import taxes on Americans, and he cuts Medicaid in order to make room for a giant tax cut for the rich.
Why? For whom is Trump the pawn? Here are the leading theories:
1. He’s the pawn of billionaires. A coterie of some of America’s wealthiest people have not only put money behind Trump but have also staked many of his moves — especially his tax cuts on the super-rich and his decimation of environmental and labor protections. They are intent on keeping Republicans in control of Congress. Among them: Peter Thiel, Mark Andreessen, Steve Schwarzman, and Harold Hamm. What do they offer Trump in return? A bottomless supply of money, which could translate into a continuing hold on power.
2. He’s the pawn of a cabal of far-right ideologues. Some believe that Trump is really working for anti-democracy ideologues. They include Patrick Deneen, a leader in the emerging “post-liberal” Christian movement; Curtis Yarvin, who believes that the liberal American “regime” must be overthrown and democracy replaced by a corporate monarchy; and Christopher Caldwell, who thinks America has become a society that formally discriminates against white people. What do they offer Trump? A coherent ideology that animates many of the people around Trump and gives him a patina of intellectual legitimacy.
3. He’s the pawn of Vladimir Putin, who helped get him elected in 2016 and again in 2024 and who is behind Trump’s efforts to wreck democratic institutions in America, divide Americans against each other, pull America away from Europe and NATO, and entrench its dependence on oil and gas. What does Putin have over Trump? Theories abound, from compromising videotapes of Trump, to vast financial debts owed by Trump to Putin and other Russian oligarchs, to Trump’s involvement in global money laundering and sex trafficking.
4. He started out as a pawn of one or more of them but has become a Frankenstein monster that they can no longer control, whose malignant narcissism and other sociopathic tendencies have overwhelmed whomever he may have once fronted for. In this view, the biggest untold story of Trump’s presidency is the rising discontent of those who once backed him — a discontent that’s only now coming to light (consider Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk) and rapidly becoming a commitment to rid the presidency of Trump and install someone they can more easily control, such as JD Vance.
In your view, which is the most plausible?
NOW READ: There's a very simple reason why Trump will never release the Epstein files
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
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