In the months leading up to Election Day, Fox News’ regular viewers no doubt saw plenty of campaign-season commercials featuring Donald Trump. Those who assumed they were done with the Republican’s ads after he won, however, quickly learned otherwise.
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump explained in an analysis published last week:
Viewers tuning into Fox News on Thursday afternoon were treated to an ad that was unquestionably well-targeted: former president Donald Trump, the man who will be president again in one month, encouraging them to spend $60 on the “God Bless the USA” Bible. The ad, shared by journalist Aaron Rupar on social media, can most concisely be summarized as “schlocky.” It centers on Trump speaking directly to the camera, using his sedate, reading-from-the-teleprompter voice to encourage Fox News viewers to buy what was once presented as the “ultimate American Bible.”
In other words, the president-elect/Bible salesman didn’t run ads asking for voters’ support for his candidacy, he ran ads asking customers to buy one of his products.
Or more to the point, one of his many products. In a separate analysis, the Post’s Bump tallied up the number of items Trump’s operation is selling, and I lost count as the total approached 50.
My personal favorite is the line of Trump-branded guitars — which the president-elect continued to hawk as recently as a few days ago, despite the recent cease-and-desist letter from legendary guitar manufacturer Gibson.
Some might see all of this and assume that the president-elect has campaign debts, political action committees, and Republican candidates who’ll need financial support in upcoming election cycles. But this assumption is rooted in a faulty premise — because none of Trump’s merchandising opportunities has anything to do with his political operation. Rather, the profits go to his controversial business operation.
It is a model without precedent in the American tradition.
As we’ve discussed, this was bizarre ahead of Election Day, when the then-GOP candidate pitched everything from Trump-branded watches to silver Trump commemorative coins, batches of digital trading cards to a weird cryptocurrency project, gold sneakers to Trump-endorsed Bibles. But at the time, it seemed plausible to think that he was trying to cash in while he had the chance: There was a possibility that Trump, already cash strapped, might lose the election, limiting his money-making opportunities.
But as Inauguration Day approaches, the incoming president still appears as focused on cashing in on his political position, profiting from the office he’ll soon return to, as he does on preparing to govern.
Danielle Caputo, a legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, asked this week, “Is the president more interested in using the office to make himself more wealthy? Or is he acting as president and using that office to do what’s best for the people who put him in office?”
These need not be rhetorical questions.
What’s more, they’re not the only questions worth exploring. As my MSNBC colleague Zeeshan Aleem explained, “What’s striking is not just the unabated torrent of post-election products like perfumes and watches, but also the opaque business arrangements behind them. As The New York Times recently reported, ‘unlike some of Mr. Trump’s earlier efforts, the identities of his current merchandise business partners are shielded through the creation of limited liability companies, which are structured to allow those partners to remain anonymous.’
“According to the Times, reporters who have tried to track down the Wyoming address of a couple of these LLC’s have found ‘rural strip malls or buildings populated by unrelated businesses.’”
I realize memories can run short in the political world, but aren’t these the exact kinds of private-sector arrangements that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer took quite seriously when they were utilized by members of the Biden family?
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
