Trail Notes
Trump Org's new smartphone / Trump merch makes millions / GOP's big beautiful bill gets uglier / My Pillow Guy's bad dream / $1.3 billion lost from Trump pardons
The Latest Trump Money-Making Scheme: Smartphones
Maybe someday the Trumps will run out of things to put their name on. So far, they’ve tagged buildings, bibles, watches, sneakers and guitars. Next up: phones!
Trump sons Don Jr. and Eric announced this week that the Trump Organization will soon launch a mobile phone and cellular service, promising that their $499 gold-toned Android smartphone, called the “T1,” will be available in August. They also claimed that it will be manufactured in America, a not so veiled shot at Apple, which the president has berated for making its iPhones in China, India and Vietnam. (The Trump Organization will not design or make the phone. It will simply license the family name.)
But experts say it’s highly unlikely, if not impossible, for the T1 to be produced in the United States in the foreseeable future. To begin with, many of the materials and much of infrastructure necessary to produce smartphones are not available in this country. Moreover, it’s a dubious notion that a smartphone made in America could be sold for as little as $500. It’s been estimated that an iPhone manufactured domestically would have to be priced at nearly $3,000 to be profitable.
Celebrity businessman Mark Cuban, part owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, has his own theory for how the Trumps will make money from this venture. He speculates it will be tied into the family’s latest financial gold mine: cryptocurrency. Specifically, Cuban thinks the T1 will include a crypto wallet that would make it easy to access the Trump’s crypto coins and connect with World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company linked to the Trumps. “Whatever transactions they can create generates fees for them,” Cuban explains, “and there are so many ways to sell things and preload whatever they want.”
The Many Ways the Trumps Cash In
Speaking of Trump bibles, watches, sneakers and guitars, financial disclosure documents released last Friday afternoon by the Office of Government Ethics provided a clearer picture of how much the Trumps are cashing in.
Let us count the ways: The president’s “Save America” coffee table book brought in $3 million. Trump sneakers and fragrances together made $2.5 million, while Trump watches took in $2.8 million. The much hyped $59.99 “God Bless the USA” Bible, printed in China for $3 apiece, earned $1.3 million, and the “45” guitar, $1.05 million.
But the big money came from the business Trump once called a “scam.” His family crypto company, WLF Holdco—a Delaware limited liability company that holds sole membership interest in World Liberty Financial—made $57 million from crypto sales last year. But, not to worry. As the president likes to remind us, he refuses to take a salary.
The GOP’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” Keeps Getting Uglier
The closer you look at the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (also called OBBBA) now before the Senate, the uglier it gets.
For starters, the Congressional Budget Office released a new estimate of how much the budget reconciliation bill would raise the federal deficit. It now projects it will add $2.8 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years.
Next, while Republicans in Congress have been doing what they want us to believe is just cosmetic surgery on the bill, the impact of its cuts to Medicaid could go beyond 7.8 million Americans losing health care coverage and another 4.2 million losing their private coverage because the legislation fails to extend the premium tax credit. Researchers at the University of North Carolina have projected that as many as 338 rural hospitals could be put at risk, with 83 likely to close. The states with the greatest number on the list are Kentucky (35), Louisiana (33), California (28) and Oklahoma (21).
Finally, while the White House can’t tell us often enough that all Americans will benefit from the bill extending tax cuts from Trump’s 2017 tax bill, a Yale Budget Lab analysis tells a different story. Taking into account not only the tax cuts, but also the potential Medicaid and food assistance cuts, plus likely price hikes due to tariffs, the study concludes that households at every income level—with one exception—will actually lose money, with households earning an annual income of $39,000 or less taking the biggest hit. Households at the top end of that low-earning cohort would wind up about $2,600 in the red. By contrast, according to the analysis, households with an income around $500,000 would get a $67,000 tax break.
OBBBA Will Wipe Out Clean Energy Jobs, Too
But wait, there’s more. According to a report by BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental organizations, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could put as many as 2 million jobs at risk. That would be a major consequence of congressional Republicans’ efforts to restrict, or even outright repeal, the Biden administration’s tax credits for the wind, solar and battery sectors, as well as for zero emission vehicles. The report’s estimate of 2 million lost jobs includes nearly 300,000 employees manufacturing clean energy and vehicle products, more than a million people involved in the supply chains that support those products, and almost 650,000 more whose livelihoods rely on the ripple effect those jobs have on local economies.
My Pillow Guy’s Bad Dream
Mike Lindell, better known as the “My Pillow Guy,” had his day in court, but he likely will lose some sleep over it.
This week, a federal jury in Colorado found him guilty of defaming a man named Eric Coomer. During Lindell’s election conspiracy fever dream that Dominion Voting Systems manipulated its machines to favor Joe Biden in 2020, he called Coomer, Dominion’s former security and product strategy director, a “traitor.” The jury didn’t buy it and ordered Lindell to pay $2.3 million in damages. He said he’s going to appeal.
$1.3 Billion Lost from Trump Pardons
Donald Trump didn’t just pardon a lot of miscreants, including the January 6th Capitol rioters, he enabled them to avoid paying restitution to the victims of their crimes or fines to the federal government. Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee released a report Tuesday concluding that, based on nearly 1,600 convictions, Trump’s pardons wiped out $1.3 billion in payments.
Supreme Court to Hear Appeal of Landmark Ruling Against Chevron
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear an appeal to last April’s massive $744 million decision against Chevron for damaging the Louisiana coastline, as reported by Money Trail. Communities across the state have filed 40 other suits like it and are confident of success. “Virtually every federal court has rejected Chevron’s attempt to avoid liability for knowingly and intentionally violating state law,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement. “I’ll fight Chevron in state or federal court—either way, they will not win.”
Randy Rieland is a former columnist at Smithsonian magazine, website director at the Discovery Channel, and senior writer at Washingtonian magazine.
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