A week ago, Senator Chris Murphy said the Trump White House was “on its way to being the most corrupt in the history of the country.” That statement is wrong. The White House is not on its way; it has already arrived.

Today’s car show at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is additional evidence. White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino livestreamed the event on Elon Musk’s social media app X. The Tesla share price increased more than 7% today, so the stunt added $55 billion to the company’s market capitalization. Members of the Trump crime family who knew about the car show had an unusual profit opportunity.

Atlantic Associate Editor Lora Kelley concluded:

In promoting Elon Musk’s Teslas, Donald Trump violated the ethical norms of his office.

The magazine’s Charlie Warzel wrote:

For years, Donald Trump’s critics have accused him of behaving like a crooked used-car salesman. Yesterday afternoon, he did it for real on the White House South Lawn.

…This was a stilted, corrupt attempt to juice a friend’s stock, and certainly beneath the office of the presidency. …The subtext of the event—during which Trump also declared that the White House would label any acts of violence against Tesla dealerships as domestic terrorism—was the ongoing countrywide protests against Tesla, due to Musk’s role in the Trump administration….

Yesterday’s White House stunt had all the hallmarks of Trump corruption, but there was something else, too—an air of desperation...

Senator Murphy used social media to remind people that “Just because the corruption plays out in public doesn’t mean it’s not corruption.”

Canadian responses to Trump’s actions have been creative. Here’s an example from a soup brand owned in Quebec: