The amount of "tasteless" merchandise being pushed out by Donald Trump is igniting questions about financial transparency ahead of the incoming president taking office.
MSNBC opinion writer Zeeshan Aleem wrote Monday that Trump's expensive gold shoes and AI trading cards might seem funny, but behind them the reality is that many Americans are falling for money-making schemes.
"The products are absurd, and he repeatedly demonstrates that even as a billionaire, he isn’t above desperately raking in a little more cash, and in the corniest ways possible," Aleem wrote. "What makes it not so funny is that there are a lot of people in America who don’t see through it.
"Trump is socializing huge parts of the electorate to think that it’s normal for a politician to monetize their public office and signal that government policy is potentially for sale to the highest bidder."
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When Trump first came into office in 2017, he championed the idea of "draining the swamp" of a corrupt establishment he claimed ran Washington. Aleem noticed that the language disappeared from Trump's 2024 campaign and certainly isn't appearing now that he is raking in millions for his transition effort.
During the 2016 campaign, there were also vows from Trump that he would divest from his company — and he put his sons in charge.
“They’re going to be running it in a very professional manner,” Trump said six days after his inauguration. “They’re not going to discuss it with me.”
"Trump’s expanding roster of merchandise through nebulous business partnerships only adds to the access points for influencing Trump; pay-to-play opportunities abound through investment in or mass purchases of Trump products — or pitching him on a new line of tacky products he can slap his name on," wrote Aleem in the column.
Aleem noted that Trump has convinced his flock that the government is filled with corrupt politicians, but his response isn't a fix. Instead, he said, he's adding to the problem.
He won't "abide by a code of principles which immunize the government's vulnerability to the interests of the rich," he wrote. And he's made the notion of "'selling out' become obsolete.'"
