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Being paid near $1M for a 20 minute speech, or getting $10M for a book deal that sold 100,000 copies, well, something ain’t right there.

Reagan made $1 million for a speech in Japan in 1989. Presidents clean up after they leave office, through speaking tours and book deals and the like. Obama did it. Clinton and Bush made millions the same way. It's a bipartisan deal for former presidents and there is no reason to believe that Trump can't, or won't, cash in once he leaves office as well. I'd imagine his royalties would be in the same range.

The difference will most likely be that Donald Trump doesn't feel the need to get paid to talk, because he seems to like to do that for free.

If he does get paid for any speaking engagements after he leaves office, I would expect to see him contribute the proceeds to some charity. And the various charities will most likely set the liberals off. I wonder if Chik-Fil-A has a charitable foundation.....

Reagan made $1 million for a speech in Japan in 1989. Presidents clean up after they leave office, through speaking tours and book deals and the like. Obama did it.

Yes...after they leave office. The difference is that Obama made millions on book sales while he was still in office. He did donate the profits from the children's book to charity, but not the profits made from Dreams From My Father or The Audacity of Hope. He kept all that as personal income.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/01/20/how-barack-obama-has-made-20-million-since-arriving-in-washington/#355ce3a75bf0

Some of that included purchases by the U.S. State Department (again, while Obama was still President), to give as gifts in other countries. Just imagine that -- the State Department putting taxpayer-funded royalties into the President's pocket!

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/25/state-department-buys-70000-worth-obama-memoir/

And that included multiple runs in China, where the Chinese -- or more likely the Chinese government -- gobbled up multiple runs of his books after the 2008 election and put even more money directly into his pocket.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/obamavisitchina/2009-11/14/content_8971888.htm Emoluments, scmoluments.

The difference is that Trump doesn't need the money.

One of the reasons he had a hard time attracting top people to serve in his cabinet is that he insisted on having them sign agreements not to work as lobbyists for five years after they left his administration. That's why so many of the people in his cabinet were older and/or independently wealthy, and many of them had no interest in hanging around D.C. after they left anyway.