We've had former presidents sell their family peanut farms to avoid conflicts of interest
The carters felt that relinquishing the business to someone else’s care would separate them from these affairs and avoid the possibility of their financial holdings resembling any conflict of interest while President Carter was in office.
But Carter had honor.
Who could forget the op-ed Carter wrote for The Onion.
First term Trump divested of most of his businesses, so this is even a departure for him
Bullshit. He had his kids "run" them. Total farce.
still more than he's doing now
Unless you run the country through executive orders.
I guess it's OK as long as it's not a peanut farm brand.
With American-made phones and American call centres, right? Right?
“Good morning and thanks for calling MAGA Mobile. Please listen to the options and make your selection for the best possible service. For Spanish, press 423 and wait for a knock on the door. For English, god bless Trump…”
Why did I read this in an Indian accent?
Because you have a fetish for that very very hot Indian accent? (Indian accent)
... "For English, say 'God bless Trump' …”
Fixed that for you /s (... I really want off this apocalyptic ride)
It turns out that maybe having a gentlemen's agreement for how things should work was a bad idea.
At this point anyone who buys Trump-branded shit get what's coming to them. Dude is the most notorious grifter in history.
are you saying all my Trumpcoins, Trump NFTs, degrees from Trump university and deep frozen Trump steaks are worthless
Just drink some Popov grade Trump Vodka at one of his many totally not bankrupt casinos to take your mind off of it.
They already tried that with the 'Freedom phone' and it was a massive scam, so this is quite on brand for him.
It's going to be a cheap low-priority MVNO with deceptive wording to make it sound like its own independent network. Absolutely zero chance it'll be competitive in any way.
Won’t stop the red hats from buying it out of loyalty to the Emperor.
True. Then it'll get absorbed by one of the bigger MVNOs, or one of the main networks' prepaid services, and become a cheap subsidiary or just get dissolved completely. But by that point they'll already be onto the next grift.
Came to say this - either its going to use existing infrastructure owned by those companies, or it's going to completely suck. In neither case that's competition
Oh it's 100% gonna be an MVNO, it's expensive as fuck to roll out new infrastructure, and something like that certainly wouldn't go unnoticed anyway.
It's just gonna be the worst shit-tier kind of MVNO. Like Cricket back in the 2000s. Service = maybe.
I'm sure it will 'compete' in the same way as all his other failed businesses.
See, here's the thing when you're the President. You can just have your FCC chair shut them down. You can actively quash literally any boundaries to being a monopoly, and nobody can do anything about it (from a legal or regulatory standpoint).
If he actually launches a Trump phone service, it’s going to be a MVNO that just piggy backs off the main operators’ infrastructure. It’s not like he or his idiot sons are going to buy spectrum and build towers.
He wouldn’t really be competing with T-Mobile, Verizon, or AT&T. He’d be competing with Boost Mobile and companies like that.
Maybe they are planning to take back that spectrum they gave to Boost/Dish on a pinky-promise that they'd actually become a competitive network, during the Sprint and T-Mobile antitrust case.
Which would fit with the FCC's increasingly mob-like behaviour under Trump.
You're missing the point. The admin has full control over spectrum licensing. This means Trump could easily have the FCC just revoke all other spectrum licenses for cellphone comms, and just forcibly seize those towers. Don't look at it like it's going to operate like a corporation, because I promise you it won't.
Wasn't Starlink experimenting with phone calls? Could be a deal with Elon.
Yeah, but I doubt they're close to having the capacity to offer full 5G service like a traditional carrier. I have T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom‘s US subsidiary) and they have a deal with Starlink but it’s (a) in beta and (b) limited in what you can do. Unless things have changed, even when it launches, it’ll be just LTE text and voice and you need a pretty modern phone.
So, it’s not like a drop in replacement for a land-based plan where you get internet and stuff. Plus, Trump and his kids aren’t going to do any of the hard work. Even before his presidency, “Trump” was just a licensing brand and now it’s a pretty shitty brand. It’s not like the family was running Trump Steaks and packing boxes for shipment or whatever.
Makes sense.
A president is allowed to found companies?
Either way, he sure has time on his hands.
It's crazy how taxing that job must be.
Competitors severely penalized in 3...2...
The great wireless firewall of America.
All parts will be manufactured and assembled in the US? Right?
Thank God the swamp is gone.
The word “could” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence
No matter what your stance on Trump is, you must agree that it isn't completely outside the realm of possibilities.
He took the KISS method of advertising/marketing. Slap the brand name on everything you can to squeeze out as much money from the "fan base"as possible
Damn he’s milking every penny. Did he just discover late stage capitalism?
He already sold beans in the oval office, golden shoes and shitcoins. I think he's way past discovering it.
It's gonna be labeled as some private cell service but it actually logs everything you do in their servers and use it for some nefarious purpose.
Lol, yeah this doesn't scream android phone full of spyware at all! It's definitely not going to just be a rebranded Chinese made phone that we assemble in like Louisiana and can say is "American made"
Nah. He'll just have the sticker that says "American made" made in America.
Worse he's promising that they'll eventually be made in America. Just like he promised a new health care plan
And by american made it means designed by a guy in america usin A.I, droppshipping it from china.
The picture I saw of it looks 100% like the standard practice of rebranding a terrible iPhone-like android device that could only be manufactured in China. Just take a look at “luxury” phones of the early 2020s. Absolutely 100% a scam by idiots for idiots.
Mkbhd: Escobar Phone https://youtu.be/O8FJSjy3bXA
Another article tracked down the phone and it's just a Tmobile REVVL in a different case. They pointed out that you can buy one for $169 while Trump is selling his for $500-$600.
Compete with them will using their networks, sure.
Could compete how? He gonna buy infrastructure? He gonna be an MVNO? (None of whom are really competitive with the big players because a lot of them are either regional, have to buy batches of data and minutes from the big three, or have pretty bad service). And who's going to buy it? His supporters? I doubt that. This is just another grift.
I would bet A LOT of money that all of your messages would be viewable by him
I just imagine he has a giant carnival wheel that's marked with all sorts of reprehensible things to do and he just spins it whenever he's bored and proceeds to executive order whatever he lands on
Don’t forget the great Dish Wireless Network!
Sounds like a great way to surveil everyone.
If by "everyone" you mean the people stupid enough to buy a made-in-China Trump phone.
Oh no a made in china phone. What a horrible thought.
The point is not that there's anything inherently wrong with a Chinese phone, but that they're lying by saying it's designed and manufactured in the USA. It is neither.
I've got bad news about your phone.
Get cha them Chyna phones MAGA folks.
It's literally a political franchise.
Despite the stupidity of looks, to be honest - this looks from outside very US-American. Not like cowboy movies, not even like 30s, but like something written by Baum.
I wonder if he'll use Starlink...
The only reason it will compete with those brands is cause if some kind of agreement.
This is just todays stupid idea, just to take peoples attention away from yesterdays shitty "perade"(sic).
Lol please let every Trump supporter buy his service. Suddenly, Trump ass kissers will have less reliable access to the internet and phone service?! Sounds like a good idea to me.
Register his own root Certificate Authority as well and this man is well on his way towards global surveillance.
Hello??
Why do Americans feel the need to name state run shit with their own name?
It's not even state run he's just filling his pockets god damn