WASHINGTON—President Trump walked out of the White House on Thursday afternoon and delivered a warning to his political allies.

“I want my people to be honest, and if they’re not going to be honest, they have to be prosecuted,” he said. “If people are not honest, they’re stealing from me as president.”Trump’s rebuke came in response to a question about his longtime adviser, Corey Lewandowski, who The Wall Street Journal earlier reported was facing a Justice Department inquiry into allegations that he profited off his top position at the Department of Homeland Security. It was the latest in a series of damaging stories that have contributed to growing voter concerns about alleged government corruption less than two weeks before the midterm elections.

Trump and White House aides have privately expressed frustration about the negative headlines that have been plastered across newspaper front pages and on cable news in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. The stories have prompted hand-wringing from Republican campaign operatives, who worry that the alleged self-dealing could make an already challenging midterm election even more difficult for GOP candidates.

Among the headlines: Trump’s ambassador to Greece resigned after being accused of soliciting $100,000 from a donor; the family of a billionaire Venezuelan banker who was angling for a pardon offered the president’s former personal lawyer a deal worth $50 million; a Russian businessman funded a lavish wedding afterparty for one of Trump’s sons; and two of the president’s top political advisers flew abroad to consult for a Russia-aligned government.

Democrats have put Trump at the center of their allegations of corruption, pointing to the extraordinary growth of his wealth since he took office, including earning $1.4 billion last year from crypto ventures. They have promised to launch investigations into his efforts to get large companies to cut checks for projects such as his White House ballroom, his decision to accept a gifted luxury jet from Qatar, and his pardon of Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the crypto exchange Binance.

Government corruption has climbed the list of voter concerns in recent weeks. While the economy has long been the top issue for most Americans, a Fox News poll published last week found a remarkable shift: voters ranked government corruption as their top concern—above inflation and gasoline prices.

Democrats are seeking to contrast the high costs everyday Americans are experiencing with allegations of grifting by the president, his family and his allies. Democrats have spent $182 million this year highlighting corruption as an issue in House and Senate races, more than the previous four election cycles combined, according to data from the firm AdImpact.

The topic has also come up in voter focus groups and on political podcasts, where mentions of corruption ticked up 12% on right-leaning podcasts and 21% on left-leaning podcasts since September, according to a Journal analysis.

Government corruption “has started to creep up toward the top of the most-important-problem list in recent weeks,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres said, adding that voter concerns about the issue haven’t ranked this highly in recent memory. Democrats are most concerned about the corruption, but independents and some Republican voters are also raising red flags about the issue, according to Ayres.

Trump isn’t on the ballot in November, but political strategists say Republican candidates’ prospects are closely tied to the way voters view the president.

White House aides were especially stunned by the alleged actions of Trump’s ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and quickly concluded that she had to be ousted from her role, some of the people said. Guilfoyle has denied wrongdoing. The president’s team has also spent days trying to get to the bottom of a headline-grabbing feud between Alina Mildon, the president’s former personal lawyer, and longtime Trump adviser Richard Grenell.

The New York Times recently reported that Mildon had negotiated a deal guaranteeing her more than $50 million over four years with the family of a Venezuelan billionaire, who received a presidential pardon weeks later. Mildon has denied playing any role in securing the pardon. But the story outraged top Republican donors, according to a GOP strategist.

The president has also privately complained to aides that his son Donald Trump Jr. exhibited bad judgment for allowing Russian businessman Umar Kremlev to pay for his post-wedding party in the Bahamas. Trump has said his son paid back Kremlev.

This week, two of the president’s top political advisers, James Blair and Chris LaCivita, said that they would donate their consulting fees to Trump’s presidential library, after they faced criticism for their recent trip to Republika Srpska—a self-governing entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The donation was made in part to alleviate the president’s anger about the trip, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Inside the White House, top aides have expressed concern both about the political fallout of allegations of self-dealing and the slate of Democrat-led investigations they expect if Republicans lose their congressional majority in the midterms, administration officials and Trump advisers said.

The president’s top aides and some Republicans in Congress have gently urged the president to stop talking about the ballroom, worrying that his intense focus on the project makes him look out of touch with voters.

“President Trump has launched an all-out war on fraud across the entire federal government, holding criminals accountable and saving taxpayers billions of dollars,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said. “The Democrats in Congress have refused to do anything to stop waste, fraud, and abuse in our government.”Trump has accused Democrats of corruption, vowing on social media to defeat “corrupt anti-American Lunatics once and for all!”This week, the Justice Department announced charges against Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a longtime Democratic lawmaker, for allegedly running a criminal enterprise that illegally bought and sold large amounts of marijuana and laundered the proceeds. Lucas called the criminal case an effort to intimidate and silence her.

Longtime Trump pollster John McLaughlin said corruption allegations against Republicans are gaining traction with voters who are already anti-Trump. “I don’t think it’s resonating out there with the voters who may be undecided, who are going to decide their race for Congress and Senate, because they’re voting on their pocketbooks,” McLaughlin said.

Many Democratic midterm ads have targeted the president. “President Trump made $2.2 billion last year. He debuted a new Air Force One jet gifted to him by the government of Qatar. He made more than $600 million alone from the crypto meme coin. That’s not governing, it’s grifting. The corruption needs to stop,” a re-election ad for Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) says.

The Fox News poll, which was conducted earlier this month, found that 88% of voters are concerned about corruption in government, with 60% of voters identifying as “extremely concerned.”But the issue was more prominent for Democrats, with 72% saying they were “extremely concerned” compared with 47% of Republicans.

Government corruption is a particular concern for young voters, who Trump made gains with in 2024. A national poll released Thursday by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University found that young voters list corruption in government as near the top of their midterm priorities, with 88% saying it is important to their vote.

Voters in focus groups have expressed frustration that Trump’s wealth is increasing, while they are dipping into their savings, according to a former Trump administration official. They have also increasingly brought up corruption when asked open-ended questions about their top issue this midterm cycle, the official said.

“There’s a large number of voters who wanted Trump to be the outsider who would come to Washington, fire everybody and drain the swamp,” said Marc Short, who was chief of staff to Mike Pence, the vice president in Trump’s first term. “Now it looks like they’re feeding on the swamp.”