President-elect Donald Trump is promoting his new perfume using a photo of himself and First Lady Jill Biden – and some of her defenders believe it’s crossed the line.
In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump shared an image of him speaking with Biden while sitting next to each other the prior day at the Notre-Dame cathedral reopening. The first lady looks at him intently as he appears mid-sentence.
Trump captioned the image, which had his perfume products edited in: ‘A fragrance your enemies can’t resist!’
‘Here are my new Trump Perfumes & Colognes! I call them Fight, Fight, Fight, because they represent us WINNING,’ wrote Trump.
‘Great Christmas gifts for the family… Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!’
Trump’s Fight Fight Fight fragrance collection is named after the words he uttered as he was grazed in the ear in an assassination attempt at his outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The bottles feature an image of him with his fist raised and his signature.
‘For Patriots Who Never Back Down, Like President Trump,’ states the description on the website for the fragrance.
‘This Scent Is Your Rallying Cry In A Bottle.’
Each bottle of ‘Cologne: Trump For Men’ and ‘Perfume: Trump For Women’ is priced at $199.
Some experts have argued that Biden has grounds to sue Trump for using her image.
‘Donald Trump didn’t simply use a photo that resembles Dr Jill Biden. Trump engaged in the most open, obvious, and egregious violation of Dr Biden’s publicity rights by using an actual photo of her and adding text to mockingly suggest she endorses the product,’ wrote USC Law School professor Ben Meiselas on MeidasTouch, a progressive media company that he co-founded.
Meiselas, who specializes in name, image, and likeness law, opined that ‘it’s an open-and-shut slam-dunk case’ if Biden decided to file a lawsuit against Trump.
‘Further, she would almost certainly be entitled to punitive damages, as it’s obvious Trump acted intentionally, wantonly, and maliciously toward Dr Jill Biden with his misappropriation,’ he wrote on Sunday.
Meiselas estimated that Biden could win more than $100million in compensatory and punitive damages if Trump’s fragrance line brought in $5million to $20milion in revenue to him.
But the US Constitution and its First Amendment right to free speech takes precedence over state ‘right of publicity’ laws that bar a person’s image, name or likeness from being used for commercial purposes without prior consent.
‘Even though Trump used Biden’s name and likeness in a social media post about perfumes, which Trump may be selling for a commercial purpose, the content of that post mixes humor and politics in a way that almost certainly implicates free speech rights,’ Rutgers University law professor Reid Kress Weisbord told USA Today.
‘Trump would (likely) claim that he infused his post with politics and humor in a way that transformed the use of her name and likeness.’
The White House and Trump’s team have not responded to requests for comment from Metro.
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