Can You Hear the Grift Now?

rump Mobile launches with gold trim, a MAGA network plan, and more ethical red flags than signal bars.

Trump Mobile, or as it might as well be called, Grift Unlimited™, is the latest proof that the White House is now officially degraded to a Mall of America kiosk.

Unveiled with all the subtlety of a reality TV revival, Trump Mobile (technically “T1 Mobile,” because nothing screams innovation like recycling Palm Pilot-era naming conventions) is a Trump-branded cell service announced at Trump Tower by none other than Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. The tagline? Phones for “hard-working Americans” that “reflect their values”, provided those values include gold plating, autocratic branding, and possibly routing your metadata directly to Mar-a-Lago.

The $499 “T1 Phone,” which they won’t design, manufacture, or service themselves, will allegedly be made in the U.S. by an unnamed partner. The service plan, The 47 Plan (wink), offers unlimited calls, texts, data, roadside assistance, and telehealth because when you’re stuck in a ditch and need ivermectin, who else are you gonna call?

The Trump Organization says it will ride the airwaves of the three biggest U.S. networks, presumably Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. No word yet on how T-Mobile feels about being partially cloned for MAGA cosplay.

But the real signal here isn’t 5G, it’s pay-to-play governance. Trump has used the FCC to target media companies he dislikes, and now his family’s name is on a mobile network piggybacking on federal regulatory pipelines. This is a conflict of interest baked into the public infrastructure.

And this isn’t happening in a vacuum. It comes as Trump rakes in millions from branded sneakers, cologne, watches, and coffee table books, while also hawking a crypto empire that includes memecoins and a new ETF. All of it layered atop a real estate boomlet in Qatar and Vietnam, right as his foreign policy conveniently shifts to “what benefits Trump Inc. the most?”

All of this might sound like a parody from Veep or a rejected season of Succession, but it’s real, and dangerously normalized. The president of the United States is openly monetizing the office with product tie-ins and private deals, effectively governing as a lifestyle brand. The merger of Trump’s political persona and his business empire is complete. Less than a president, he is a product.