How power, corruption & lies influence voters' choices

Summary

NPR Politics Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: How Power, Corruption & Lies Influence Voters’ Choices
Date: July 29, 2026
Host/Panel: Myles Parks (Voting Reporter), Eric McDaniel (Congress Reporter), Mara Liasson (Senior National Political Correspondent)

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Overview

This episode unpacks how themes of power, corruption, and political self-interest are shaping voter attitudes and campaign strategies ahead of the 2026 midterms. Hosts discuss striking polling data on the public’s view of corruption, spotlight how both parties—especially Democrats—are leveraging corruption narratives, and debate whether ethical outrage can break through the public’s pervasive cynicism. The conversation analyzes the political calculus, electoral strategies, and real-world policy responses connected to the issue.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Widespread Perception of Corruption

• Polling Consensus:
  • Over 90% of voters across party lines (Republicans, Democrats, Independents) view corruption as a major issue. (01:14, Eric McDaniel)
  • Two-thirds see it as a systemic problem, not just individual bad actors.

    “So it’s not that folks without ethics are going into politics hoping they can make a buck, but rather that the system incentivizes... lawmakers to prioritize their own self interests and those of big corporations over the interests of regular voters.” (01:40, Eric McDaniel)

Defining Corruption for Voters

• Mara’s Explanation:
  • Corruption is seen as politicians personally profiting from their offices—citing Trump’s investments and self-promotional financial actions.

    “They don’t like the idea that they’re paying higher prices... while the President or members of Congress and their billionaire friends are making a lot of money.” (02:07, Mara Liasson)

Voter Focus Groups’ Reactions

• Three typical responses to Trump’s wealth and allegations:
  1. Resignation—“Everyone does it.”
  2. Rationalization—Trump is just a “great businessman.”
  3. Moral condemnation—It’s a betrayal of public trust. (03:16, Mara Liasson)

Corruption as Campaign Messaging

• Democratic Strategy:
  • Candidates try to tie Trump to broader systemic issues, as with Michigan’s Abdul Al-Sayed’s “Trump is the worst symptom of a broader disease.” (04:11, Myles Parks)
  • Senator Jon Ossoff regularly connects everyday struggles to political self-dealing:

    “Corruption in America runs a lot deeper than Donald Trump. American politics is coin-operated. Money goes in, favors come out.” (04:37, Ossoff, quoted by McDaniel)

Trump and Republican Responses

• Trump’s Defense:
  • Claims personal gains reflect a booming economy:

    “Well, you know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market’s going up. Everybody’s profiting...Thank you, President Trump.” (05:27, Trump)

  • At other times, denies knowledge of investments or claims nobody cares.
• JD Vance’s Minimization:

  “If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. Like, the idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.” (06:23, JD Vance, Nixon Library speech, quoted by Mara Liasson)

Competing Reform Proposals

• Democratic Reforms:
  • Push for comprehensive bans on officeholder stock trading and curbs on lobbying, campaign finance.
  • Focus on “systemic” fixes, e.g., constitutional amendments, closing revolving door.

    “She has this eight-point plan, and it echoes a lot of the legislative proposals that have been floating around Democratic circles...” (12:04, Eric McDaniel on Scranton mayoral candidate Paige Cognetti)

• Republican Reforms:
  • Some movement on congressional stock trades, but measures are narrower and targeted.
  • GOP focus shifts more often to fraud in social benefit programs.

Will Corruption Move Voters?

• Issue Salience:
  • Corruption isn’t usually voters’ top priority, but Democrats are working to link it to economic hardships—making a case that greed at the top causes kitchen-table struggles.

    “Democrats are trying to link it to voters’ number one issue, which is affordability. They’re trying to make the argument that the reason you’re paying more...is because elected politicians...are only interested in fattening their own bottom lines.” (08:41, Mara Liasson)

Cynicism and Trust in Reform

• Voter Resignation:
  • Hosts debate how widespread cynicism (“everyone does it”) blunts the effectiveness of anti-corruption appeals.

    “If voter cynicism gets to a certain level, it really does undermine democracy. If you don’t believe that your elected officials are honorable in any way, then you lose faith in the entire system.” (14:35, Mara Liasson)

• The Historical Perspective:
  • After big scandals (Gilded Age abuses, Watergate), America has seen real reforms.

    “It’s now a half-century later. The corruption is growing...and it’s time for another reform moment.” (13:44, Michael Waldman, Brennan Center)

Republican Counterattacks

• Highlighting Democratic Scandals:
  • GOP operatives point to recent cases—Senator Menendez, Rep. Cuellar, and Rep. McCormick—to claim Democrats lack credibility on the corruption issue. (16:01, Eric McDaniel)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Eric McDaniel: “It's not that folks without ethics are going into politics... but rather that the system incentivizes lawmakers to prioritize their own self interests and those of big corporations over the interests of regular voters.” (01:44)

• Jon Ossoff (as quoted): “Corruption in America runs a lot deeper than Donald Trump. American politics is coin-operated. Money goes in, favors come out.” (04:37)

• JD Vance (as quoted): “If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. Like, the idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.” (06:23)

• Mara Liasson: “If voter cynicism gets to a certain level, it really does undermine democracy. If you don't believe...that your elected officials are honorable in any way, then you lose faith in the entire system.” (14:35)

• Michael Waldman: “After Watergate came a wave of protections and reforms in the 1970s. It's now a half century later. The corruption is growing, the abuse is growing, and it's time for another reform moment.” (13:44)

• Paige Cognetti (paraphrased): “If we can’t address corruption, voters don’t think we’ll be able to address anything else.” (15:12)

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Important Timestamps

• Polling on Corruption as Systemic: 01:14 – 01:44
• Voter Focus Groups—Three Reactions: 03:16
• Democratic Messaging Examples: 04:04 – 04:37
• Trump’s Defenses: 05:27
• JD Vance on Watergate: 06:23
• Reform Proposal Discussion: 12:04 – 13:44
• Historical Reform Context (Brennan Center): 13:44
• Impact of Cynicism: 14:35
• GOP Counterattacks: 16:01

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Conclusion

The episode spotlights a rare moment of public consensus—corruption is seen as rampant and systemic in American politics. But translating this frustration into votes, real reform, or even coherent messaging is complicated by partisan defenses, pervasive cynicism, and the realities of legislative gridlock. Democrats are attempting to tie corruption to economic grievances, while Republicans deflect with counter-accusations and narrower reform efforts. Ultimately, both the stakes and barriers for addressing corruption remain high as the country heads into another contentious election cycle.

Transcript

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[Myles Parks]

messaging themes emerging for Democrats this year is is corruption. But in an age where scandal does not seem to matter anymore, will that work? Let's dig into it. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Myles Parks. I cover voting.

[Eric McDaniel]

I'm Eric McDaniel, I cover Congress.

[Mara Liasson]

And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.

[Myles Parks]

And Eric, I want to start with you. To start big picture, how are voters thinking or are they thinking about corruption right now?

[Eric McDaniel]

They definitely are. I mean, I recently saw some polling

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

from the Brennan center for justice, which is a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for

[Eric McDaniel]

various kinds of small d Democratic reform, good governance stuff. And they polled, they asked voters of this. And what shocked me was how many voters think about corruption as a huge

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

problem in American politics.

[Eric McDaniel]

We saw 90% of Republicans say it's a problem, 93% of Democrats and 93% of self identified independence. So basically all voters.

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

Right.

[Eric McDaniel]

And two thirds of them of voters think of corruption as a systemic problem in governance, something that is part of the way American government is almost designed

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

and functions rather than an ethical problem with politicians. Right.

[Eric McDaniel]

So it's not that folks without ethics

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

are going into politics hoping they can

[Eric McDaniel]

make a buck, but rather that the system incentivizes voters think lawmakers to prioritize their own self interests and those of big corporations over the interests of regular voters.

[Myles Parks]

Oh, I do feel like the alarms start going off when I hear poll numbers where wide majority of Democrats and Republicans feel a certain way. Yeah, but the word corruption does feel a little squishy, Mara. I mean, when voters say something like that, what are they actually talking about?

[Mara Liasson]

Well, I think the simplest way to think about corruption is when people who are elected officials make money based on their office. In other words, when Donald Trump makes $2 billion in a year by by investing in companies that have business before the government, where he's going to make decisions or his Justice Department is going to make decisions about a merger between two companies and he invests in them. Or as in the case in Palantir, he invested in Palantir. Then he praised Palantir as a company and posted a social media post that included Palantir's stock ticker. So that's what people don't like. They don't like the idea that they're paying higher prices when. While the President or members of Congress and their billionaire friends are making a lot of money.

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

Yeah.

[Eric McDaniel]

And what's interesting, Mara, that I think about is when you and our colleague

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

Ashley Lopez watched those swing voter focus groups in Pennsylvania and corruption came up,

[Eric McDaniel]

those voters, I mean, responded to Trump specifically when asked about it and they were kind of split over whether Trump himself was a specific problem or whether

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

the whole system was kind of rigged. And that's why they weren't surprised by it.

[Eric McDaniel]

Right, right.

[Mara Liasson]

But you know, that could be all of the above. In other words, you just, you just about some pretty eye popping numbers of percentages of people who think corruption is a problem. In our focus groups we basically had samples of 3, 3 reactions. One is a shrug. Everyone does it. I don't think it's right but eh, all politicians do it. The second one were among Trump supporters who said, well he's a great businessman. No wonder he's making so much money. And then the third reaction was this is morally wrong. It's an abuse of power. He's making money not as Donald Trump the businessman, but as Donald Trump the President of the United States. He should be representing us, not adding to his own bottom line.

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

Yeah.

[Eric McDaniel]

And Miles, I feel like I've seen

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

Democrats on the campaign trail in the midterms trying to thread a needle between all of those different kinds of attitudes.

[Myles Parks]

Yeah, I mean that's what I was gonna say is like voters are feeling this way. But it does seem like Democrats are also seeing these same polling numbers.

[NPR Fundraising Announcer]

Right.

[Myles Parks]

In terms of. I've seen, we were just talking about the Michigan race yesterday. I was thinking about Abdul Al said and how he talks about specifically that, that basically I think he says that Trump is the worst symptom of a broader disease, basically. But he's not the only Democrat out there talking about this.

[Eric McDaniel]

No, that's right. I mean Senator Jon Ossoff, he is the relatively young senator, Democratic senator from the state of Georgia and he's been

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

on the campaign trail talking about this pretty regularly.

[J.D. Vance]

Corruption in America runs a lot deeper than Donald Trump. American politics is coin operated. Money goes in, favors come out.

[Eric McDaniel]

He also talks about because of this, Georgians being stuck on a treadmill, running and running and not getting ahead.

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

Because when politicians are focused on themselves, they're not focused on kitchen table issues like the Cost of living.

[Myles Parks]

I mean, the concept of corruption is a pretty heavy accusation to be throwing around. So much of this does center on Trump. Mara, how does he respond to the fact that this is how Democrats are talking, specifically about the money that he's made in the last year and a half or so?

[Mara Liasson]

Yeah, well, he's had a couple of different responses. One, he was asked about this while he was about to board Air Force One. He was on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews. And here's, here's how he excused his own big windfall.

[Unnamed Interviewee/Caller]

Well, you know why I'm profiting? Because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting. If you have a, you have a 401k, how's your 401k done? It's about up 85%. Thank you, President Trump.

[Mara Liasson]

And at other times, Trump has said that he doesn't know what his investments are. He has professionals do it for him. He said that he told his kids not to do trades that affected his office, but he got no credit for that. He's also said that nobody cares. But J.D. vance, the vice president, has gone even further. He and not only excused Watergate, which is the big scandal that brought down Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon's reelection committee broke into Democratic Party headquarters and then President Nixon tried to cover it up. He eventually was forced from office. J.D. vance gave a speech at the Nixon Library and here's what he said.

[J.D. Vance]

If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12 hour news story. Like, the idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.

[Mara Liasson]

So in other words, he's saying that Watergate should not have been a big deal. I guess he's excusing breaking into the opposing party's headquarters, but he even went further and he said that Donald Trump is being persecuted for making money off his office. So of course, JD Vance does have an audience of one. He's going further than any other Republican. Has to excuse Trump's what his critics would say is avaricious behavior. But that's how confident some Republicans are that voters just don't care about this.

[Myles Parks]

That's what I don't understand here. This seems like a real misreading of how people feel about the situation to sort of minimize this idea that corruption is a problem in American politics. When you say that, there's kind of poll numbers that show that almost everybody feels the opposite. I don't know what's going. What do you guys make of that?

[Eric McDaniel]

I think that's right. And there are a couple things here which is like in some ways, voters belief that politicians across the board are corrupt helps give air cover to the president who is, you know, who made $2 billion in his first year of his second term. And in part, when Republicans talk about the issue, they actually focus on other things. So Democrats have a lot of specific reforms. One of them is banning lawmakers, including the president and vice president, from trading

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

stocks while in office and their direct family members from doing the same.

[Eric McDaniel]

Republicans advanced in the House a week or two ago a similar measure, although much more narrow. It would prohibit lawmakers from buying new

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

stocks while in office and focus just on Congress that hasn't passed the Senate. It's much more narrow.

[Eric McDaniel]

But they, they do talk and think about corruption, but usually in the context

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

of things like people abusing social safety net programs, committing fraud, receiving benefits while, say, not working or something like that. And they have looked into that House Republicans this term. But it's certainly Democrats who are focused on corruption as a specific message.

[Eric McDaniel]

I'd say I do want to play

[Myles Parks]

a little devil's advocate to the idea that this is going to matter in the midterms as a messaging strategy, considering over and over again what we hear from voters is that affordability and economic issues are their top priorities. Mara, I mean, I guess how important is this message going to be this midterm year?

[Mara Liasson]

I think if you ask people if corruption alone as an issue was a top priority for them in the midterms, I don't think it would rank that high. But what Democrats are trying to do is, is link it to voters number one issue, which is affordability. They're trying to make the argument that the reason you're paying more at the pump at the grocery store for health care is because elected politicians, including Donald Trump, are only interested in fattening their own bottom lines. And Trump is making more money. His billionaire friends are making more money. Meanwhile, you're broke.

[Eric McDaniel]

And Miles, I'd say you know this as well as anyone. Politics is both about persuasion, trying to convince voters that your solution to something matter, but it's also about turnout. Right? And Democratic voters have long been excited and motivated when Democrats run on the

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

idea of Trump's alleged corruption.

[Myles Parks]

All right, let's take a quick break and more on all this in just a moment.

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[Myles Parks]

And we're back. So, Eric, I want to focus in on something that we kind of brought up a second ago, which is this idea that Democrats are focusing on Trump when they kind of allege this idea of corruption. But they do seem to be broadening it out to a more systemic criticism, which I feel like ties into something we've talked about for years, which is that the party seems to realize that they can't run only on Trump. Is that a fair assessment?

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

I think that's totally right.

[Eric McDaniel]

And what I'd note is that it

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

often starts with Trump.

[Eric McDaniel]

You heard Ossoff say it goes deeper than Donald Trump, but Trump is definitely a big focus.

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

Top judiciary Democrat Jamie Raskin of Maryland in the House. I spoke with him back in May,

[Eric McDaniel]

and he brought up Watergate, too.

[State of the World Host]

Watergate was like a Cub Scout prank compared to what we're living through. I mean, we've seen the entire government

[Michael Waldman]

just saturated with corruption.

[Eric McDaniel]

But, you know, there are candidates who take it more broad than that. I talked to a woman named Paige

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

Cognetti in northeastern Pennsylvania. She is running as a Democrat. She's the current mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to replace Republican Rob Bresnahan. It's a competitive seat. It'll be a tight race in November.

[Eric McDaniel]

Her campaign motto is Page against the Machine.

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

And she replaced a mayor who'd been indicted on corruption charges there in Scranton.

[Eric McDaniel]

And she has this eight point plan, and it echoes a lot of the legislative proposals that have been floating around Democratic circles for.

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

So that starts with things like a lawmaker stock trading ban, like we talked about in the first half.

[Eric McDaniel]

It also includes a constitutional amendment to

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

tighten Restrictions on campaign finance that the Supreme Court continues to loosen. It includes things like locking the lobbying revolving door.

[Eric McDaniel]

So Democrats do have proposals to kind of address voter systemic concerns about the way lawmaking works. You know, but we'll see ultimately if

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

voters trust them to actually implement those things.

[Myles Parks]

Right. Obviously, those things aren't really going anywhere, the current makeup of Congress. But, Mara, do you think it's possible that that could change if Democrats do retake the House and potentially do retake the Senate? I guess. What is the future for some of these proposals?

[Mara Liasson]

Realistically, I don't think that as long as Trump is president, these proposals will pass. First of all, Democrats would have to take both houses of Congress with a veto proof majority if they were going to get these things through. But first things first. And Democrats say first they need to make a real movement for reform. And I talked to Michael Waldman, who is head of the Brennan Center. He's followed this and he says that historically, after big scandals, there has been a period of reform. That's how we got the reforms after Watergate. Most of them have been chipped away now. But he says that he thinks this moment is very similar to other periods in American history where there have been reforms made. In other words, things that people thought were norms were kind of voluntary. Guidelines had to be codified into law.

[Michael Waldman]

Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive era reforms came after the corruption of the Gilded Age. After Watergate came a wave of protections and reforms in the 1970s. It's now a half century later. The corruption is growing, the abuse is growing, and it's time for another reform moment.

[Mara Liasson]

So the question is, how long will it take before a reform movement turns into actual legislation? It might be quite a while, I guess.

[Myles Parks]

The other thing I'm a little bit confused about is how to square some of this energy around the idea of corruption with just this broader cynicism about the political system and this sort of resignation. We also hear from voters that everyone's corrupt or also this idea that kind of scandals don't seem to matter in the same way right now as maybe they did a few years ago. How do you guys square those two things?

[Mara Liasson]

Well, people are cynical. I mean, that's where you get voters saying everyone does it, there's nothing we can do. And that's what Donald Trump actually has been pushing for quite a while. In other words, you know, the game is rigged. You know, just stick with your own tribe or party. But I think that there are members of Congress, there are elected officials locally who understand that if voter cynicism gets to a certain level, it really does undermine democracy. If you don't believe that, that your elected officials are honorable in any way, then you lose faith in the entire system.

[Unnamed Interviewee/Caller]

Yeah.

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

That's one of the things that Cognetti, the Pennsylvania candidate I was talking about earlier, brought up with me when we spoke on the phone. She was essentially like, if we can't address corruption, voters don't think we'll be able to address anything else. Right. If we don't focus on the influence of lobbyists or how campaign spending happens or congressional stock trading as lawmakers, then how are we going to bridge the gap to address the things that voters actually need us to address? Right. We have to address these systemic problems before we can address the kitchen table stuff or at least try and walk and chew gum at the same time.

[Unnamed Interviewee/Caller]

Yeah.

[Mara Liasson]

And Democrats, as we said, are trying to link those two issues, kitchen table issues and corruption, they would argue, because Donald Trump is funneling money to himself and to his wealthy billionaire friends, you end up holding the bag, paying higher prices at the gas pump and the grocery store.

[Eric McDaniel]

And I should say, you know, the

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

Republican campaign campaign operatives I talked to say voters shouldn't trust Democrats as messengers on this. They point to things like multiple congressional Democrats facing federal fraud charges in the last few years that started with Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who is currently serving federal prison time. Henry Cuellar, a sitting representative for Democrats from South Texas who Trump pardoned on federal corruption charges. Cuellar denies wrongdoing. And then a Florida congresswoman, Sheila Scherfilius McCormick, who is facing federal charges right now and resigned earlier this term over allegedly embezzling Covid funds or misappropriating Covid funds and spending it on her campaign. She also denies wrongdoing.

[Unnamed Interviewee/Caller]

All right.

[Myles Parks]

Well, that seems like a good place to leave it. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.

[Unnamed NPR Reporter/Contributor]

I'm Eric McDaniel, I cover Congress.

[Mara Liasson]

And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.

[Myles Parks]

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.

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