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By Shane Croucher
Senior Editor
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Just nine days after an election in which voters ranked government corruption alongside the cost of living, Donald Trump has settled on a mission for his vice president. JD Vance is heading into the blue swamp.
The president on Thursday said he had told Vance to give his "complete and total attention" to corruption and crime in Democratic-run states, naming Minnesota, California, and Illinois and claiming that billions of dollars were being stolen every month.
It would come at the cost of Vance’s involvement in diplomacy in Iran. Trump concluded, for now at least, that the U.S. has no need for a deal with Tehran.
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To be fair, this isn’t new territory for Vance, who has eyes on 2028, and pinned the blame for the Republican midterms rout on Trump’s war with Iran, which spiked energy prices. He already chairs the administration’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.
In one sense, Trump has listened to the voters. Corruption was among the defining issues of the midterms. But his problem is where voters were pointing when they raised it as a top concern of theirs.
Election Day polling by CBS that put corruption near the top of the agenda found roughly six in 10 voters believe Trump puts his own personal interests ahead of the country’s. The man who once promised to drain the swamp is perceived as refilling it.
So, Trump is right about the issue and wrong about the swamp most aggravating voters. By making corruption the theme of his post-midterm presidency, he has chosen to fight on ground where many Americans already regard him as part of the problem.
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Give Trump his dues. Minnesota, under Democratic governance, has produced some of the most-brazen theft of public money in recent memory. The Feeding Our Future scheme diverted roughly $250 million from a federal pandemic program meant to feed children.
Sixty-five defendants had been convicted by April. In May, the nonprofit’s founder, Aimee Bock, was sentenced to 500 months in prison by a judge who called the scheme a "fraud vortex."
A day earlier, the Justice Department had announced charges against 15 more people in alleged Minnesota Medicaid and childcare schemes involving more than $90 million in intended loss.
Democrats would be foolish to answer Trump by treating this all as a right-wing fantasy. An administration that prosecutes fraud in programs meant to feed hungry children and support disabled Medicaid recipients is doing decent work. They should assist.
But look at what voters said about corruption. In the AP Voter Poll, conducted by SSRS for The Associated Press, CBS News, and other networks, more than half of voters called government corruption "crucial" to their vote for Congress—slightly more than said the same of the cost of living.
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CBS News’ analysis found roughly nine in 10 voters, across party lines, called it a major factor. About four in 10 voters who called corruption crucial backed Republicans, and many doubtless had scandals like Minnesota in mind. But most backed Democrats.
On Thursday, Trump himself complained that Democrats keep calling his administration corrupt, then challenged them, if they wanted to "root out corruption," to start with blue states. But if we’re cleaning house, Trump should start at the white one.
His own financial disclosure in June reported more than $1 billion in crypto-related income for 2025, a large chunk of which came through his sons’ World Liberty Financial firm. Trump had said he would be the first "crypto president" when campaigning.
The White House vigorously denies conflicts of interest. But the Trump family continues to build vast wealth across industries while enjoying access to the world’s most-powerful man, who sits atop the entire machine that grants public contracts and regulates sectors.
So do former aides, now generating millions of dollars as lobbyists. Nothing new to politics there. But that’s the problem. Trump won the presidency a decade ago this month after closing his campaign with a pledge to "drain the swamp."
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In late October, more voters in a CBS News poll said Trump puts his own and his family’s financial interests ahead of Americans’ than said the reverse.
"I have a lotta money, and far more than I ever thought I'd have. And I guess it's gone up. I don't even know," Trump told 60 Minutes recently. "I have a son who's a very straight, good guy. He watches over money. I don't even talk to him about it."
He added: "I have a company. My sons run the company. It's hard to say to them, ‘Don't do anything anymore for four years because I'm president.’"
In politics, if not in law, corruption has come to mean something broader than crime. It’s about how Washington functions, who gets rich and why, the nepotism, the access, the backroom deals. It’s the swamp, and it still stinks to most voters under Trump.
Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index scored the United States 64 out of 100, extending a 12-point slide over roughly the same decade.
The index measures perceived public-sector corruption, not any one president’s conduct, and the slide has continued under presidents of both parties.
The swamp is bigger than any one of them—and the group’s U.S. chapter has warned specifically of "selective and politically motivated enforcement."
Anti-corruption credibility depends on symmetry. If conflicts of interest are merely questions, they deserve answers—disclosure, divestment, independent oversight—rather than dismissal as partisan noise, or jealousy.
Even Texas Senator John Cornyn, who lost his primary to the Trump-backed Ken Paxton, wrote after the election that voters won’t trust Republicans to cut "fraud and scams out of government programs until we cut them out of our own ranks."
Trump may have rediscovered perhaps his best slogan, after Make America Great Again. But if Vance is permitted to look only toward Sacramento, Springfield, and St. Paul, he’ll miss the swamp voters can smell in Washington.
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