(Dobbs) It's Not Grift. It's Graft.

“The Trump family is going to make you very, very proud.”

If you know about the online game called Wordle, Sunday’s winning word will tell you what this story is about: GRIFT.

Except that’s not the half of it. The definition of “grift” is “petty or small-scale swindling.” This story is about much more than mere grift, so one letter needs to change: replace the “I” with an “A” and you’ve got it: GRAFT. The definition of “graft” is “the acquisition of gain (such as money) in dishonest or questionable ways.” You might say, graft is grift on an eye-popping, pocket-packing, and in the case of this story, ethics-stretching scale.

Which brings us, it won’t surprise you, to the family, and the presidency, of Donald J. Trump.

Probably you’ve read stories about the sales of his crypto currency, his so-called $TRUMP coins (and, not to be forgotten, Melania’s so-called $MELANIA crypto), culminating with the rush this month by investors to put money in the president’s pocket in exchange for an exclusive dinner and a private White House tour and, perish the thought, influence with the occupant of the Oval Office.

The Trumps made millions— some calculate hundreds of millions— off the venture.

You also probably read both before and during the president’s first official overseas trip to three oil-and-gas-rich countries in the Gulf earlier this month about the resorts and residential towers that The Trump Organization is building there, sometimes in partnership or association with Gulf governments. Early this month for example, presidential progeny Eric Trump set down in Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates, and inked a deal for a billion-dollar “Trump International Hotel and Tower.” Then afterward, all but confessing to corruption without even realizing it, the second son of the president of the United States marveled, “They always arrive at the word ‘yes,’ which is a beautiful thing. They do it quickly.”

Maybe this will explain why. When they “do it quickly,” sometimes bypassing years-long permitting processes that apply to mere mortals, they inarguably are at least trying to buy influence with the president.

In this case, it didn’t take long. Just days after young Trump flew off, Air Force One flew in and delivered old Trump to the same tarmac. The White House then trumpeted, “President Donald J. Trump announced over $200 billion in commercial deals between the United States and the United Arab Emirates—bringing the total of investment agreements in the Gulf region to over $2 trillion.” (For the record, economists who have studied the deals done on that trip are skeptical about those figures. Brazen exaggeration is in Trump’s DNA.)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt boiled over when reporters asked about the synergy between the president’s public plans and his private profits. “It's absurd,” she argued, “for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.” Late night TV comedian Jimmy Kimmel put Leavitt’s words in plain English: “Listen, he’s only corrupt in his free time, guys. When he’s in the Oval Office, he’s by the book.”

Except he’s not. His mandatory financial disclosure reports (which we already know, from the past, he fudges) show that he still makes money from Trump Organization transactions, some of which just wouldn’t be happening if he weren’t back in the Oval Office. So let’s not “insinuate” that the president is profiting off the presidency. Let’s just declare it and call it what it is: graft. Donald Trump prides himself on being a “transactional” president. He doesn’t lift a finger without a quid pro quo. For one side, an inside track for foreign allies to sway American policy? For the other, a rich windfall for The Trump Organization? Billions more in the president’s pocket? It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out.

Which brings us to the latest development— and that’s a pun— in Vietnam. With almost a third of its export products destined for the United States, Vietnam wants to figure out how to get out from under Trump’s tariffs, which at one point were put at 46%. Only a week ago, the president’s trade negotiator met with Vietnam’s.

And what do you know! The next day, the very next day, there was Eric Trump again, this time in Vietnam, breaking ground for the dedication of a $1.5 billion golf resort plus theme park outside Hanoi. The Trump Organization also announced a Trump Tower in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon. In the gold-plated tent where the ceremony took place, Eric told Vietnam’s prime minister and other high officials, “The Trump family is going to make you very, very proud.”

For those who don’t see the connection, the Trump family begins and ends with Donald J. Trump.

True to form, the White House denied any connection between official business and private business, proclaiming, “All of the president’s trade discussions are totally unrelated to the Trump Organization.”

Nobody told the leaders of Vietnam. The New York Times ran a story Sunday laying out the special speed at which they are moving to put the Trump properties on the map. They “have allowed the Trump project to break ground,” The Times reports, “without completing at least a half-dozen legally required steps, from securing all the land and financing to conducting environmental reviews.” It’s a process that normally, according to The Times, takes two years at least, sometimes as many as four.

It’s no surprise that with a vindictive man like Donald Trump, other nations’ leaders will prostrate themselves to curry favor. And it’s no surprise that with an unprincipled man like Donald Trump, if they do, they will get what they want.

The clincher is this letter The Times acquired.

It “explicitly states that the project required special support from the top ranks of the Vietnamese government because it was ‘receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally.’”

Any questions?

If there are, think about the “Riviera of the Middle East” that Trump announced back in February to revive the Gaza Strip. But there are dollar signs in front of every plan this president pursues. When Trump put out his preposterous proposal, he posted a bizarre 30+second AI-created video about his vision for Gaza. And at the center of that vision? A real estate developer by the name of Donald J. Trump.

Like most if not all his transactions, he is always trying to capitalize personally on his presidency. His “Riviera of the Middle East” wasn’t about helping Gaza. It was about helping Trump.

The bibles and branded sneakers Trump peddled during his time out of office seem almost quaint. Now he’s going big time. And he’s not just selling us out for new 747s. He’s selling us out for personal profits. That’s why it’s more than grift. It’s graft.

Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 38-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.

You can learn more at GregDobbs.net