U.S. President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk sit in a Tesla Model S in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 11, 2025.
America’s president hawks merch from the White House and wonders why he gets no respect.
A quick peak at Trump’s online store not only lowers the prestige of the presidency, it raises the blood pressure. Trump uses presidential imagery to hawk everything, from tacky jewelry, candles, and clothing to food. Along with the “Lara Trump Collection” of workout clothes, the 45/47 Collection encourages buyers to “commemorate the two non-consecutive presidencies of Donal Trump... Adorn your home and your wardrobe with styles that boast your pride for America and for our president.” Even if the laughter isn’t raucous, it’s there, waiting just below the bile rising in your throat.
Trump sells his merchandise, along with his Bibles and Bitcoin scheme, to anyone with a credit card. At GetTrumpWatches.com, you’ll be regaled with the gaudiest jewelry you’ve ever seen outside a WWE wrestling championship. Trump’s “Inauguration Blue Meteor” watch is gold-plated and features a shiny blue background. Trump’s Sharpie marker signature takes up half the bottom, and red and blue stones circling the face of the watch. One waits for the pinky ring version.
Trump says this Trump watch collector set is a must-have:
For the Ultimate Trump supporter: “With the Ultra MEGA Collector Set, you get the rarest pieces, including the ultra-rare American Eagle caseback GUARANTEED. This set includes all 6 different caseback designs ($5394 value), the exclusive Victory Ultimate Jewel Watch($1199 value), and a commemorative wood display case ($179 Value)—together, guaranteed to be a show-stopper for any collection. This is it. You must be part of the 147 MEGA Collector Set Owners Club!
Nothing says regressive tax like milking the poor of their rent checks with several different mock-America options: There’s the American Eagle, the American Flag, the Trump Victory Dance and the Trump Mugshot. Soon, he will embed threads from the suit he was wearing during his first “assassination attempt” into the casebacks; he’ll call it the Watch of God’s Chosen.
The grift and risks are obvious
Nothing prevents a Saudi prince or a Russian dictator from buying a thousand gold-plated watches for a cool $100,000 per, for the “Crypto President Tourbillon” that overtly solicits bribes markets the watch to the creepy crypto set:
“Alright, crypto kings—it’s time to flex your status. The Crypto President Tourbillon isn’t just a watch; it’s a total power move. Designed for the Crypto pioneers, this limited-edition masterpiece celebrates Bitcoin, President Trump, and your unstoppable climb to the moon… The Bitcoin Orange T print and a flying tourbillon make sure everyone knows who’s leading the Crypto Revolution.18K Gold Flex: This bad boy is crafted from 200 grams of solid 18K gold—because why stop at stacking Bitcoin when you can stack gold too?”
Whether Menendez taught Trump about stashing bars of gold, or it worked in reverse, selling greed as a virtue never sounded less presidential. His “Crypto President” line sells watches while simultaneously peddling his fetid crypto scheme. Wait for Trump to sign an Executive Order devaluing the dollar to a penny and commanding the US adoption of crypto currency. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Trump’s family held talks to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of crypto exchange Binance, which would put Trump in business with a firm that pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering requirements. No doubt Trump will throw in a pardon to sweeten the deal.
Trump and his sons are attracted to crypto, the black market currency, because it is completely decentralized and unregulated, has no backing from any bank or the US government, and is an untraceable get-rich-quick scheme. Trump, yet again, flexes mob boss to the world and wonders why no one admires him.
Funny, yes, but also dangerous
Selling private, for-profit presidential merchandise to foreign actors seeking influence violates the long-standing Emoluments Clause. The clause prohibits the president, along with any person holding a government office, from accepting any present, emolument, office, or title from any "King, Prince, or foreign State," without congressional consent. Intended to prevent external influence and corruption of American officers by foreign States, unlimited online sales of White House prestige seems almost quaint considering that Trump also sells access to himself through $1 million Mar-a-Lago club membership fees, which he pockets.
In 2023, House Democrats on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability released a report detailing the extent of President Donald Trump’s corruption during his first term. “White House for Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump” documented more than $7.8 million in payments to Trump from the leaders of foreign states, including some of the world’s most brutal regimes.
The report, online access to which is now “forbidden by administrative rules,” only reflected what the committee was able to find; we will never know what they didn’t find, and the grift tally did not include millions of dollars that lined the pockets of his daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
And now, an American president sells Teslas from the White House
Enter Elon Musk. Trump gave the world’s richest man the power to regulate his own regulators. Musk rose to the task with alacrity, to sometimes humorous results. Musk’s efforts will convert his $280 million to get Trump elected into billions, and anti-Musk protests are spreading as a result. To boost his booster, Trump held a White House car sales event where the comedic spoof wrote itself.
Lavishing Musk with praise after lining up five Teslas in the White House driveway, Trump called Musk a “patriot” to encourage MAGA to buy Teslas. He then took to Truth Social to demonize Musk protestors, posting that “Radical Left Lunatics” were attempting to “illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s baby.” The happy takeaway is that boycotts are an effective means of checking Trump/Musk’s theft, and Trump can’t stop them.
On a serious note, at the time of Musk’s DOGE takeover, at least 11 federal agencies had begun more than 32 major investigations into Musk’s regulatory violations, ranging from environmental destruction to car crash safety to labor irregularities. Even the USAID office Musk shuttered was investigating Starlink’s practices in Ukraine. In all, Musk’s companies hold over 100 contracts with 17 different federal agencies, and Musk is kneecapping most of them with Trump’s blessing.
The why of it all
Trump and Musk are hawking their wares at the same time they are executing their strategic attack on the government. It seems odd to both benefit from the US while working so hard to attack her.
Trump and Musk want Americans to believe that government is both corrupt and inept, that it is fundamentally incapable of functioning, so that private industry can step in. It’s a bad PR heist, built on Trump’s false claim that he inherited a “terrible” economy from Biden, when in fact it was the strongest post-covid economy in the world.
The government has always been a threat to oligarchs. The heir set, crypto billionaires, and venture capitalists resent answering to anyone, and government regulators expect answers. Regulations that restrict pollution, protect labor, or require transparency in financial transactions pinch their profits, to say nothing of taxes they all seek to avoid.
The oligarchic revolution is here, marketed to the lowest common denominator where Trump always does best. When a golden calf wearing a red tie is erected as the latest Washington monument, maybe Canada will take pity on us and let us in.
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Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense.Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story,Salon,Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.