The Democracy Index

May 16, 2025

The Trumpian kleptocracy approached full flower this week. As the president took the first major foreign trip of his second term, heading to the Middle East, the brazenness of his corruption repelled even his most ardent supporters and revealed one of the core features — and weaknesses — of his regime: corruption. That rot has spread throughout his Administration, infesting accountable democratic governance.

That is reflected in this week’s Democracy Index indicators, our thermometers. Check out the interactive graphic here , where you can get our top-level qualitative assessment of where we are and click through to dive deeper into the key stories of the week.

In perhaps the most blatantly corrupt act a president has taken, Trump revealed plans to accept a luxury jumbo jet from the Qatari royal family costing in the range of $400 million. The plan is for the jet to first be used as Air Force One — the designated aircraft that transports the president — and then, when Trump’s tenure in office ends, for it to be “donated” to the Trump Presidential Library. There, the plane will surely assist generations of scholars investigating the true nature of the Trump presidency, and will serve as perhaps the most obvious representation of the corruption at the heart of his reign.

The acceptance of the “flying palace,” as it’s known, is a scandal in its own right. Trump has defended himself, saying only “losers” and a “fool” wouldn’t accept this gift. Of course, it’s not a gift, it’s a grift — and the Founders were no “fools.” This is precisely the type of “gift” they worried about: a valuable offering from a foreign nation to the leader of this country, raising legitimate concerns about ulterior motivations and incentives. That is why they prohibited foreign emoluments in the Constitution, restricting what a president can receive from foreign countries without the consent of Congress. [Side note: You’d think Trump might have rejected the offer, which should have offended his pride since this is a used plane the Qataris are offloading on him. They tried, but couldn’t sell it back in 2020, so now they’re giving it away.]

But beyond that, the plane poses even greater problems to national security and the safety of the President and all who would travel with him. That is, assuming it ever goes into service, since three years and north of $1 billion in taxpayers’ dollars will be necessary to ensure the plane is safe and to upgrade it with top-secret security equipment. Security experts immediately warned about the dangers of using a foreign country’s plane as the central nerve system for the president’s travel — in many respects, it’s the perfect surveillance and interference mechanism. None of this concerns Trump, who seems to be besotted by the lavish new digs and flattered by the blandishments the Qataris are bestowing upon him.

This is just the latest instance of the Trump White House’s cavalier approach to the nation’s security — even if it is not the most glaring to date (see, for instance, Signalgate). And it’s not even the only episode this week, as the Administration has repeatedly appeared to put other interests — whether financial or political — ahead of national defense. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, for example, fired two career officials who led the National Intelligence Council. They oversaw the drafting and ultimate public release (required under a Freedom of Information Act request) of an intelligence assessment refuting the Administration’s public position that the gang Tren de Aragua is coordinating with the Venezuelan government — the justification the Administration is using to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove Venezuelans from the country.

Taking a step back, the plane is a symbol of the flagrant profiteering that defines the entire Trump governmental enterprise. The countries Trump is visiting on this momentous trip — not only Qatar, but also Saudi Arabia and the UAE — just so happen to have major business dealings with his family in both real estate and the crypto space. Among the baubles:

• Eric Trump announced plans for the Trump Organization to build an 80-story hotel and residential building in Dubai

• Eric Trump is also planning to build $5.5 billion Trump International Golf Club in Qatar with “an 18-hole golf course, exclusive clubhouse, and Trump-branded villas”

• The Washington Post reports that a Trump-affiliated entity has a 60 percent stake in the crypto enterprise World Liberty Financial. Eric Trump sits on the board of managers o WLF Holdco LLC, the controlling company, and is a prominent figure in the crypto space. And Trump himself was listed as the “Chief Crypto Advocate” in a paper the company released last year. Meanwhile, a state-backed investment company in Abu Dhabi announced it had chosen World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin to back a $2 billion investment in Binance. The web of connections may at times be murky, but it’s lined with money.

• The Trump Organization will be building a Trump Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

• In January, Trump announced a $20 billion investment for U.S. data centers by DAMAC Properties, an Emirati company led by a billionaire Dubai developer.

And, if that lucre weren’t direct enough, Trump is still selling off personal access to anyone willing to purchase his Trump coin cryptocurrency, perhaps the most heinous grift of all. It creates the potential for interested entities to pour money into the man’s wallet while seeking favors from the president.

As scholars have demonstrated, this type of corruption goes together with autocratic takeover. History is replete with countries that have fallen prey to government by rackets and fiefdoms, rather than ensuring a democratic and equal playing field. The battleground where those power centers will either become entrenched, or successfully defeated, will be our upcoming elections. Thus, the quiet, steady work of corroding their integrity and failing to enforce legal protections for voters continues apace. The recent ruling by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that held private parties cannot sue to vindicate their rights under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (which protects against racial discrimination) is a step in the wrong direction, especially in an era where the Justice Department is eviscerating its voting rights section — as DOJ is the only mechanism the 8th Circuit held can seek to enforce Section 2.

Yet in spite of these depredations — material and democratic — one encouraging development is the groundswell of anger about Trump’s hypocritical corruption coming from Republicans. From Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to pro-Trump conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, a chorus of allies bellowed against the president's undisguised greed. They are not heroes, but the fact they have, at least momentarily, managed to speak up is a positive sign, even as the courts, at least the lower ones, continue to reject Trump’s efforts to assume power the Constitution did not grant him. All of that reflects a fundamental understanding that we, as Americans, should share: that the presidency, and this nation, should not be for sale, and that this president is putting the country at risk by doing so — spotlighting the dangerousness of this money-hungry and power-mad regime.

Until next week,

The Democracy Index team