For a con man like Donald Trump, every moment of every day is a marketing opportunity of some kind. Whether it’s promoting some Trump fan’s book because he knows it says nice things about him, or “suggesting” that Mike Pence stay at his Doonbeg golf resort hundreds of miles outside of the city where he was supposed to be working last weekend, every opportunity is a money-making opportunity for this President.
There are those who would call that “grift” and say it’s unbecoming of the President of the United States to constantly be looking for ways to profit from the presidency, whether it’s actual money or simply in positive name recognition. Those people would be correct.
And through the “emoluments” lawsuits that Trump has been subjected to, the American public has actually seen the beginnings of some measure of accountability for Trump behaving this way. But that always seems a long way off since the stakes and the money involved are so obviously big.
The most insidious way that he carries it on, however, is almost enough to make him more money than he could ever hope to collect from bigwigs and foreign dignitaries staying at his hotels, and it’s happening right under America’s nose. It’s the Donald J. Trump official campaign store, and nearly every public appearance that he makes ends up being an advertisement for it. Not just speeches and golf outings, either — the most recent example of it has President Trump using the natural disaster currently battering the east coast with tornadoes, flooding, wind, and rain as an excuse to model the newest hat for sale on DonaldJTrump.com.
President @realDonaldTrump, @SenRickScott, and senior White House staff received a @fema briefing on Hurricane #Dorian this afternoon at Camp David.
If you are in the path of the storm, please continue to listen to state and local officials. pic.twitter.com/nKCO4Qok6H
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 31, 2019
The hat he’s wearing in the photo on the right look familiar to you? It’s the one from the link in the paragraph above that tweet. And it wasn’t on his website or available for sale until after he’d “modeled” it during the hurricane briefing.
That’s right, Trump used a hurricane briefing as a product launch for his newest campaign merchandise. If that seems like a stretch, just go to the campaign site — it bills itself as “the only place online to purchase the Official USA rope hat worn by 45th President-Elect Donald J. Trump, himself.” You know, the hat he hasn’t worn anywhere else besides that hurricane briefing.
But wait, you say — if the money goes to his campaign, he has to spend it on running for re-election, right? It’s not like he gets to just use campaign money for KFC and black market Adderall. Technically that’s correct. But the two campaign teams responsible for his re-election have already spent a bunch of that money at Trump properties.
One way or the other, Donald Trump plans to get paid.
Featured image via screen capture
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