Republican senator calls out Trump admin corruption: voters ‘were expecting us to drain the swamp, but it seems like the swamp won’

In the days before the 2024 election, Donald Trump told voters that he wanted to return to the White House to fight corruption. He said (per Mediaite), “For the past nine years, we have been fighting against the most sinister, corrupt forces on Earth” and that he wanted to show people that “this nation does not belong” to politicians who want to fill their pockets at the expense of “hardworking patriots.”

This echoed his comments at an election rally in Washington (per Mediaite), where he vowed to “cast out the corrupt political class, we are going to restore our Republic, and we are going to DRAIN THE SWAMP — and we’re going to do it once and for all.”

So, we’re two years on from that: how’s the swamp-draining process going? Well, Trump’s personal fortune has increased by roughly $2-3 billion since returning to office (per Forbes), mainly courtesy of his TRUMP memecoin. The current administration is also notable for the number of “ultra-rich” people in it, per AP News.

“Corruption within all branches of government”

Now, in the wake of a crushing midterms defeat, even Republicans are beginning to call out the Trump administration for not only failing to drain the swamp, but making it even deeper and murkier. Wisconsin Republican senator Ron Johnson put his head above the parapet in a recent appearance on Fox News and didn’t pull any punches.

He brought up “the corruption, the bipartisan corruption within all branches of government. The problem is government. Government is power, power corrupts. I’m part of the Tea Party movement, I stand more with Republicans than I do with Democrats. But if Republicans are going to win in 2028 we need to embrace the enduring principles of our founders.”

Senator Johnson continued, specifically calling out corruption “within government. Within, I’m sad to say, within the Trump administration.” Per Reuters, Johnson then added that voters “were expecting us to drain the swamp, but it seems like the swamp won.”

These comments and those like them appear to have struck a nerve. After the interview, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis claimed (per JS Online), “President Trump has launched an all-out war on fraud across the entire federal government, holding criminals accountable and saving taxpayers billions of dollars.”

Those words were echoed by Trump himself, who has previously told reporters (per NY Post) that he takes any allegations of corruption against his administration personally: “If somebody is dishonest, I consider them not only against the country, I consider that dishonest against me.”