A new cryptocurrency platform. A forthcoming memoir authored by his wife. A set of NFT trading cards. Watches with price Up to $100,000.
A few weeks before the November election, former President Donald Trump has started promoting products and businesses that have nothing to do with his presidential campaign.
“You’ll love them,” Trump wrote last week on the Truth Social platform A line of brand new watches ranging from $499 to $100,000. They are offered through a vendor that has a license agreement with it. “It would make a great Christmas present.”
While running for the presidency this cycle, Trump also went ahead brand of sports shoes, boots and even The Bibles — these are all businesses, not campaign initiatives. He has long confused business with politics; Before their years of legal battles, these were potential conflicts of interest the subject of more attention.
But the fact that Trump has again promoted his business interests in the final weeks of the campaign, his Democratic opponents say he is careless, and even some allies say the effort is unwise.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, told NBC News: “I think he’s distracted. “He’s off message and probably focused on what’s going to happen after he loses the presidential race, which is to try to continue these nefarious schemes against people for his own gain.”
Reached for comment, a Trump campaign official said “these are all foreign business ventures,” adding that “there is no revenue coming into the campaign.”
For the former president’s supporters, it’s unlikely that the focus on these other initiatives will change their opinion of Trump, despite some conservative backlash when he first announced the NFT line in 2022.MAIN ANNOUNCEMENT” right after he ran for re-election.
“I’m not too worried about it,” said U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds. “Donald Trump is a businessman first, second and third. But his main focus, goal, focus number one, two, three, four, five is to run for the presidency and make our country great again. This is his focus.”
“Everybody has things that we’re personally involved in,” he said. “You have members of Congress who write books and then promote the books. That is, I want to say that it does not bother me at all.”
But others felt it highlighted a larger problem with the state of Trump’s candidacy, particularly the lack of tough negotiations.
“It’s a lack of discipline around him right now,” said one Trump ally. “There is no one who says ‘no’ to him very clearly.” I don’t think a single Trump voter in America is voting for him because of this? Absolutely not. But still not [really] he told the people [why] Kamala Harris would make a bad president. And that should probably be the messaging priority.”
Over the past week, Trump he tweeted when he announced his new platform, about how he “promises to make America great again, this time with crypto.” World Liberty Financialnow there was “whitelist for eligible individuals“open. Trump on the eve of the release of the new book “Melania” by the former first lady Melania Trump has been brought forward link to his website urging supporters to “Purchase your copy today”.
Trump in February He participated in the shoe congress held in Philadelphia to announce release A new series of Trump branded sports shoes. Meanwhile, his last financial disclosure He showed that he won $300,000 Trump-branded Bibles rose earlier this year. The same financial disclosure also emerged he earned about $7.2 million of the NFTs it promotes.
The Harris campaign sees Trump’s side hustles on the campaign trail as reinforcing a key part of their message about him: that he’s more focused on helping himself than helping voters.
“He’s making the case for our campaign,” a Harris campaign official said. “And he claims who cares about the American people day in and day out. And we’ll let that speak for itself.”
Describing the business ventures as “cowardice,” the official went further, saying of Trump’s latest branded merchandise: “It’s just an objectively ugly watch.”
Long before entering politics, Trump promoted similar product lines Trump Steaks or Trump vodka. Trump He ended up paying $25 million students at Trump University, the former president’s real estate training institution, said they had been duped.
Trump’s new line of vision has helped resurface the views of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. During the 2016 GOP primary debateDuring that time, Rubio said Trump inherited hundreds of millions of dollars and if he hadn’t, “do you know where he would be right now? Watches are sold in Manhattan.”
“He wants to do anything and everything and throw everything at the wall,” said a Trump ally. “Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it helps you. Sometimes we send NFTs or whatever.
“No one is saying, ‘Sir, why don’t we do it now?'” the person added. “And that seems to be the only reasonable explanation for that right now.”