The hosts and panelists of MS NOW’s “Money, Power, Politics with Stephanie Ruhle” broke down the new, scandalous report surrounding U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle, calling it proof that corruption is the “central organizing principle” of the Trump administration.
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal released a report containing messages between Guilfoyle and a Trump donor. In them, Guilfoyle sent an urgent request asking for $100,000 she owed to American Express ahead of her congressional confirmation hearing in July 2025. She asked, via Signal messages, that the money be sent in a manner that would not leave a paper trail.
Ruhle called the report another “damaging headline of alleged corruption in the Trump administration,” adding, “When we say, ‘Is this White House for sale?’ This one is a freaking fire sale.” Her sentiments were echoed by The Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, who said that the Guilfoyle scandal is one part of a trend of corruption that has been “normalized” by the Trump administration.
“The Trump administration has so normalized finding ways to monetize the administration that they got all the way to, ‘Well, this would offend anyone,’” Patel explained. “The Trump sons, they’re like, ‘Well, we just do it in the open and everyone’s fine with [it]. Our transparency in our crypto schemes makes it fine.’ There’s at least an argument for why it’s fine. This is just casual [corruption].
You can check out the full “Money, Power, Politics” segment yourself below.
New York Times opinion writer Molly Jong-Fast said she believes the Guilfoyle report is one of many stories about corruption within the Trump administration that Americans should expect to read in the near future.
“We are going to see two years’ worth of these stories now. Because what’s happened is the wheels have fallen off, right? They’re no longer so popular,” Jong-Fast observed. “There’s going to start to be investigations, and so we’re going to see more and more of these stories come out. That’s what this was.”
New York Times global economics correspondent Peter Goodman, meanwhile, categorized the scandal as confirmation of a level of corruption many had already begun to suspect about the Trump administration.
“Corruption is the central organizing principle of this administration in determining who gets access, who gets tariff exemptions, who gets carve-outs, who gets the deal, who doesn’t get the deal, who gets investigated and who doesn’t,” Goodman explained. “So who’s paying for that? We are paying for that.”
“We are paying for it through lack of competition, which means less innovation, fewer choices, higher prices, less transparency. Our market is being perverted and undermined,” Goodman continued. “This is our economy getting hijacked by an administration that is organized like a protection [ring].”
