Gov. Gavin Newsom listed out a dozen recent examples of possible corruption on the Trump family’s part on Sunday, referring to the president’s penchant for publicly prioritizing himself as an “open sewage system.”
The politician joined Jack Cocchiarella for a MeidasTouch conversation, alongside fellow guests Peggy Flanagan and Jim Acosta. During their interview, Newsom broke down how Trump’s behavior is unprecedented in Modern American history — even when compared to Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un.
“Every other week we learn about, as you suggest, not just Donald Trump’s corruption,” he began. “I’m not talking about the $100,000 watches, I’m not talking about the guitars that he’s selling that you didn’t even know about, or the Bibles, or the sneakers. I’m not talking about all that, I’m talking about what’s happening substantively with these kids, these investments and the Pentagon contracts they’re receiving.”
At that, Newsom launched into a tirade that included allegations of corruption regarding rare Earth minerals, drone companies, the Kushner family, the Witkoff family, the “Board of Peace,” the UAE, tariffs, golf courses in Vietnam, development deals, G7 investments, emoluments issues and even day trading from behind the Oval Office desk.
“All of this happening… this open sewage system,” he further labeled it. “You talk about draining the swamp? He gave it a presidential suite with gold leaf.”
“And you’re seeing this gross corruption at a scale and scope never in modern American history. This is stuff I don’t even imagine even exists at this scale, at a year and a half in, even in Putin’s Russia or Kim Jong Un’s North Korea. I mean it, at this scale, this quickly, in the second term, he’s just winding up,” Newsom concluded. “Forgive the longwinded-ness, but it’s serious damn stuff, man.”
The governor’s commentary came shortly after the U.S. Office of Government Ethics released President Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s mandatory financial disclosures for 2025 last week, revealing $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency sales alone last year.
“Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a prior statement. “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people.”
