Stephanie Ruhle says Trump’s grift could cost him politically
stephanie ruhle said Donald Trump’s use of power for personal gain is becoming easier for some of his supporters to see, and she argued that could hurt him politically. She made the case on The Daily Beast Podcast, where she tied the reaction to Americans who say the country does not work for them.
Ruhle said the backlash is not coming only from Democrats. She said it is being led by Americans, including original MAGA voters who once backed Trump but are no longer necessarily aligned with him.
Ruhle on Trump’s supporters
“I think this ‘Eat the rich’ sentiment is not being led by a group of Democrats—I think it’s being led by Americans who are saying, ‘This country doesn’t work for me,’” Ruhle said. She added that many of those Americans were “the original MAGA voters who Donald Trump appealed to because he said, ‘You feel forgotten. You feel that there aren’t jobs for you in this country. I’m your guy,’”
She said those voters are looking less at legislative details and more at their own finances. “I don’t think it has a direct knock-on effect. I think your average person, even your informed person, can’t—isn’t digging that much into the Big Beautiful Bill,” she said.
Big Beautiful Bill and daily prices
Ruhle said the Big Beautiful Bill raised healthcare premiums, lowered taxes for high earners, and shifted wealth toward the richest Americans. She said people are more likely to look at their own lives and conclude, “Hold on. You’re the person in office,” than to sort through the bill itself.
Her argument was that the political problem comes from lived experience, not just partisan messaging. “You now, finally, have the supreme wealth you always said you did. A group of business people are wealthier beyond belief, and I’m not. This isn’t working,” she said.
World Liberty Financial claims
Ruhle said “Every single day, there’s another story out there about the grift.” She pointed to World Liberty Financial, Trump’s crypto business, and Trump “suddenly, you know, buying thousands and thousands of shares of companies that he just met with” as examples.
The article said Trump and his family have made an estimated $2.5 billion from various digital schemes since he took office last January, and that House Oversight Democrats’ Trump Family Corruption Tracker made that estimate. It also said Trump tried to create a $1.8 billion slush fund of taxpayer money to compensate his political allies, potentially including Jan. 6 rioters, before the Justice Department said earlier this month that it would abandon the plan after it was blocked by the courts.
Anna Kelly response
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly responded to Ruhle’s remarks by calling her a “left-wing hack.” Ruhle answered that “great journalism is alive and well and strong as ever,” and said the larger political split could matter because the people struggling economically are doing so, in her view, as a direct result of Trump’s policies.
She contrasted that with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, saying what hurt them was that people were still struggling economically. Her view is that Trump faces a different problem: voters who once bought his message may now see their own finances and the president’s enrichment at the same time.
