Most Americans believe that U.S. President Donald Trump is benefiting from his office in unethical or illegal ways and is more focused on increasing his personal wealth than on helping the country’s citizens. This is shown by the results of a new poll by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
According to the poll, about 6 in 10 U.S. adults believe that Trump is either illegally profiting from the presidency or acting unethically without breaking the law. Specifically, 41% of respondents said he is doing something illegal, while another 18% said his actions are unethical but not illegal. Only about 18% are confident that the president is “doing nothing wrong,” and roughly the same share (21%) said they do not have enough information to judge.
At the same time, just over half of Americans (56%) believe that since returning to the White House in 2025, Trump has placed “a lot” of emphasis on his personal business interests. A similar share (54%) says the same about the business interests of his friends and family. In contrast, only about a quarter (23%) think he has prioritized the interests of the country to the same degree, and just 11% say he has focused “a lot” on “people like them.” Half of respondents said Trump does not prioritize such people at all.
Views differ sharply by party affiliation. About 8 in 10 Democrats believe Trump is breaking the law, compared with roughly 3 in 10 independents and about 1 in 10 Republicans. Most Republicans either think nothing wrong is happening or are unwilling to judge. AP-NORC recorded a similar partisan divide in 2023 regarding the business dealings of then-President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
The poll was conducted September 24–28, 2026, among 2,140 U.S. adults (AmeriSpeak NORC sample). The margin of sampling error is ±2.9 percentage points.
