Trump Organization Announces Mobile Plan, $499 Smartphone (cnbc.com) 194
The Trump Organization on Monday unveiled a mobile phone plan and a $499 smartphone that is set to launch in September. CNBC: The new service, Trump Mobile, will offer a $47.45-per-month plan that includes "unlimited" talk, text and data, as well as roadside assistance and a "Telehealth and Pharmacy Benefit," according to its website. The company, owned by President Donald Trump, also announced it will sell a "T1" smartphone, which appears to feature a gold-colored metal case etched with an American flag. Further reading: I Tried Pre-Ordering the Trump Phone. The Page Failed and It Charged My Credit Card the Wrong Amount.
What? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this legal?
Does it matter? (Score:5, Informative)
How is that question relevant anymore?
Almost every action this administration takes is illegal. They don't care.
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Informative)
Yep. Trump's big claim to fame is using the due process of the legal system as a delay tactic to allow him/his business to extract value before enforcement actions are applied. He knows that if he'd doing something illegal and someone calls him out, he says, "Sue me," knowing it will be weeks, months, or years before his actions are fully sanctioned.
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Interesting)
Worse than that, he's proven that a crime committed over the full course of a single presidential term is one that happens too fast for the law to catch - see the emoluments case against him during his first term.
Learning the Hard Way (Score:5, Informative)
I guess if the US can't learn that lesson the easy way it will have to learn it the hard way. Good luck, and for all our sakes I hope the lesson is not too painful!
Re:Learning the Hard Way (Score:5, Insightful)
More sadly, waiting to see how they rule when a Democrat is in office ...
Re: (Score:3)
Think of it this way:
They didn't give immunity to trump,
they gave themselves the power to decide who's immune and who's not.
If a Democrat breaks the law (Score:3)
The left wing went nuts over Gaza during the election. Every time I turned around they were talking about genocide Joe.
What those useful idiots didn't realize, apart from the fact that Putin was handing them talking points, is that Joe Biden could not legally stop the weapon shipments to Israel and if he tried he was just going to get impeached for violating the law.
It
Re: Does it matter? (Score:5, Informative)
uh huh. [apnews.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it made in China?
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think we care about tariffs
We care about tariffs because it is a direct example of why a president actively promoting, selling, and managing for-profit business is a conflict of interest (aka corruption). The president seems to believe he can apply tariffs on any product he wants, willy-nilly...so the issue is that he can apply tariffs to competing products (e.g., those from Apple and Samsung) while exempting a product he is promoting / selling.
Faux News and the other Republicans would be screaming if Biden had sold so much as a li
Re: (Score:2)
Let me rephrase that question for you:
Is anyone going to punish him for this?
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
This whole presidency has just been one big grift. Being a US senator has been widely understood to be a very profitable position, but this is really the first time we've seen the oval office get turned into a money-printing machine for the sitting president.
Other presidents have suspended control of their businesses while in office to eliminate even the appearance of conflict of interest. But this one, every decision he make seems to revolve around figuring out how to funnel more money into his family and businesses.
Unfortunately, it doesn't do any good to try to "expose" him on it, he has NO shame and doesn't care what anyone sees since his appointed buddies aren't going to hinder him. He's just going to keep doing it and throw a tantrum anytime he gets blocked. And that isn't happening nearly as much as it should, since in the past even the congress-critters maintain very relaxed laws to give themselves a wide berth to grab some money. But he's just going all-in on those weak laws (and lack of willingness to enforce them) and is going to wring every penny he can out of the country and its taxpayers.
On the bright side, he's made American History class a lot more interesting. And I'm taking bets that we get a whole rack of new laws on limiting presidential abuse as soon as he gets done robbing the bank.
Re: (Score:2)
If it is illegal, it's only for running amuck of a pretty much unenforceable part of the constitution.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that you and many others now see this as normal behavior is definitely worrisome. Presidents used to go to great lengths to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest and hold their business interests at arms length. Now corruption is totally fine. A little insider trading is just fine now too.
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Presidents used to go to great lengths to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest and hold their business interests at arms length. Now corruption is totally fine. A little insider trading is just fine now too.
He supposedly isn't involved in business operations these days, but yet, it looks skeezy no matter what.
As for politicians being involved in insider trading, most congressional people are. They all use technicalities to claim they aren't, but they all seem to become incredibly shrewd investors after they join congress. Unfortunately they kind of police themselves (since no DOJ wants to bother with stopping it...), so nothing changes.
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The really sad part is that the fact that everyone isn't scrambling to close these loopholes proves that everyone, Democrats included, like what they are seeing and want to use it themselves. Unless something extreme happens, this will be the new normal for both parties. All of these protections turned out to be just best practice guidelines, but none of it had any teeth and that made it ripe for someone like Trump to come in and actually push it to the limits. This needs to stop and stop immediately, but n
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Bothsides!
What a bunch of horseshit.
Please explain how the minority party in Congress can start any kind of action to close a loophole on their own without majority support to move it through committees and get it to the floor for a vote in either chamber.
Stop trying to blame Democrats that have absolutely no power to change anything for the Republicans who actively block any change in order to maintain the shitty status quo that allows for all the corruption.
Re: (Score:3)
We are a long god damn way from Jimmy Carter and his peanut farm.
Re: What? (Score:2)
They avoided the appearance, bit not the reality. Pretty sure most presidentsâ(TM) net worth climbs pretty high while they are in office.
Trump is different because his corruption is more gaudy and low brow and also in the open and now, maybe he could be said to be democratizing corruption.
Re: (Score:2)
Crime is legal now. High crime is OK too, as long you are willing and able to make large political donations.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Times change, but laws, policies, precedent, and enforcement ensure that certain harmful behaviors that were disallowed 50 years ago continue to be disallowed today. There's a process to changing the prohibition and, in this case, that process was not used.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. The USA has yet to learn the lesson of being ruled by a self enriching despot. Prohibitions against political parties doing business is something for countries who have experienced what it is like to be turned into a shithole.
My guess is that there never will be either.
I know education is poor in the USA but I genuinely still think your country has a capacity to learn.
Re: (Score:3)
"Is that something you're striving to be?"
America is well down that path in many respects and declining even more rapidly.
It hasn't been #1 in anything except most powerful military in several decades
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
So all the selling off, or putting into trust, businesses done by prior Presidents is for show? (Even Trump did it for his first time in office.)
No, Trump is doing it because he's untouchable. As long as he lets the Republicans do the Project 2025 shit they'll never impeach him. No matter what. No. Matter. What.
This is so fucked up.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
So all the selling off, or putting into trust, businesses done by prior Presidents is for show?
It is just a tradition. A gesture to show good faith and help maintain their decorum as an independent leader.
One of Trump's weaknesses, or strengths, depending on how you look at it; is he obviously tends to ignore traditions, and perhaps does not care what his opponents think of him anymore. I assume he's not planning to try campaigning for an election again, And have a need to make money now because of
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And Trump has zero good faith. Everyone knows that he is the most corrupt president the USA has ever had, but Republicans refuse to do what is right and hold him to the same standards they would hold a Democrat to.
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That's how you know this is a fucking cult of personality.
Republicans weren't shy about sacrificing Nixon in the name of stability (relativity speaking).
I wouldn't say that (Score:2, Insightful)
I never once saw Trump or any of his surrogates give a coherent policy. Not once today say they were going to even bring back jobs. They just vaguely hinted at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris causing higher prices. I literally saw signs that just read TRUMP LOW PRICES KAMALA HIGH PRICES.
Any
Re: What? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
A gross disrespect for norms and going purely by "the law" for politicians is an overall degradation of what has traditionally made our system operate, a level of respect for the institution and the office that doing what most people consider the "right thing" where we didn't have to have to explicitly codify it.
But like was said, times change so let's soo which sides of the political aisle actually support a law in this case: S.65 - A bill to address financial conflicts of interest of the President and Vice President [congress.gov]
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Probably not. This requires a constitutional amendment. Without such amendment the president has the same rights as any American citizen does to engage in business, and the 14th Amendment guarantees that even the president has equal rights under the law.
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even the president has equal rights under the law.
If only.
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Many of Trumps ventures have been such obvious bad deals that one must conclude that the only purpose is to provide a way for people and entities to funnel money to Trump in the guise of purchasing a product or service. This is therefore an attempt at an end run around the Emoluments Clause. For example, a foreign country could buy a bunch of these phones, with no plan to use them. This is also money laundering, but I guess the SCOTUS would say POTUS is immune from such laws, and the only remedy for violati
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no prohibition against POTUS "doing business" while in office. There never has been. My guess is that there never will be either.
Before Trump, indeed before Trump's second term, everyone understood that this would create nasty conflicts of interest which would undermine the integrity of the office. Because all previous presidents acted responsibly, trying to avoid not only actual corruption but even the appearance of corruption, it was never an issue that had to be legislated. Now we have a blatantly corrupt president who openly sells access to the White House, not for campaign contributions but for cold cash directly into his pocket. He's almost certainly selling pardons and other political favors, too. It's a very, very sad day.
Assuming we don't continue our descent into corruption and autocracy, and assuming we can get SCOTUS to eliminate the near-total immunity they've granted to presidents, I expect we will have legislation to specifically ban presidents from "doing business" while in office, requiring them to put all of their assets into a blind trust, over which they can have no control, and can't even know what investments it holds.
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
He's almost certainly selling pardons
He's absolutely selling pardons:
Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner [seattletimes.com]
Trump Pardons Criminal Whose Mom Attended Mar-a-Lago Fundraiser [rollingstone.com]
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. The USA used to be held up as an example of democratic values and a stable government showing low levels of fraud and outside influence. Now it is no longer. It's amazing how quickly a reputation can get destroyed. No it isn't illegal. No it shouldn't need to be illegal. Americans as well as much of the rest of the world actually once thought the USA was above this kind of behaviour.
Times change.
Re: (Score:2)
The United Kingdom has already been there, done that. Boris Johnson and his bunch of merry men (and women).
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I can agree this looks bad but I believe it would be difficult to take this to court as some kind of conflict of interest by DJT and win.
Where do you think this phone is made? Most likely it is made in China which is under tariffs. But for $499, I suspect tariffs were waived for his company specifically. Do you see the conflict of interest now?
Re: (Score:3)
Citation needed.
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Citation needed.
I said: "I suspect tariffs were waived for his company specifically."
Re:Just remove the Trump name (Re:What?) (Score:5, Interesting)
If Trump acts to waive tariffs on the phones his company makes then I expect an impeachment and potential removal from office
Bahahahahaah. You're new here, aren't you? To the GOP and his base, nothing Trump does is considered impeachable. Trump has already been convicted of crimes yet was re-elected.
Re: What? (Score:2)
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Same reasons that required Jimmy Carter to sell his peanut farm.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, and day one purchase for me.
Why?
Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
The Trump Mobile site boasts that its plan offers the âoesame coverage as the 3 nationwide phone service carriersâ and that it supports a U.S.-based customer service call center.
A representative who answered the Trump Mobile customer service line Monday morning declined to tell CNBC where the call center was based, citing security reasons.
Security reasons?
Re: (Score:2)
Knowing what kind of attention Tesla showrooms have attracted for a while now, that response seems pretty unsurprising. I'm sure word will get out sooner rather than later, though.
Re:Heh (Score:4, Interesting)
Or they're simply lying about it, like they are about it being American-made.
Sure. (Score:2)
(C'mon, it is a logical affiliate opportunity for him.)
Re: (Score:2)
Back in the day, I remember the local Bell main switching center being a very non-descript, completely unmarked mysterious building.
I imagine that also was for security reasons.
Yeah, the enemy would never guess that a large office building completely devoid of windows might possibly be a telephone switch.
Re: Heh (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You mean this 550 foot tall building in Manhattan with no windows? [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
But somehow *you* cracked the secret, so the security was actually next to zero.
Re: Heh (Score:2)
Bad deal (Score:2)
I get unlimited everything from US Mobile for only $25/month.
Seems like a better deal.
Re: (Score:2)
Heck I'm paying like $32/mo which includes tethering and a line for my Apple Watch with Visible. It wasn't even a sale or promotion. I guess MAAAYBE if they included the phone it'd be roughly equivalent? But I'm not interested in reading the article again to find out if that's the case. Frankly it's bad enough that they're making claims of it being American manufactured when there aren't manufacturers in the USA that make some of the components that phone is using.
Re: (Score:2)
The deal is not for you anyway, cheeto benito will simply demand all government agencies to buy this as a work phone for the employees.
Re: (Score:2)
MAGA morons are a lot larger market than government phones, although it's probably for both.
Re: Bad deal (Score:2)
Re: Bad deal (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I get unlimited everything from US Mobile for only $25/month.
Seems like a better deal.
I get unlimited talk/text for $10/month with 5G data at $5/GB using the Ting Mobile [tingmobile.com] Flex plan.
I've never used more than ~ 100 MB data/month, so my bill is $17.24/month.
My service is over T-Mobile, but Ting supports Verizon too...
Anything with this guy is probably going to cost more than elsewhere -- there has to be something to skim off. Grifters gonna grift...
Re: (Score:2)
But that doesn't put money in Trump's pocket, so it's clearly not a better deal.
Oh, you're looking for a better deal for *you*. Sorry, that's not allowed any more.
Is there a stock i could short ? (Score:3, Insightful)
A friend of mine made a killing shorting Trump social and gave the money to Ukraine.
If i could short the company that own that service i could do something useful. Taking money from MAGA idiots and help a good cause.
A choice was made (Score:5, Interesting)
He could have made the plan cost 45.47 per month but didn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Duh, $47.45 is more money.
Re:A choice was made (Score:4, Funny)
He could have made the plan cost 45.47 per month but didn't.
No he couldn't. He abolished the penny so no one could make up those 2c. ;-)
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40EUR/month gives you phone + home internet.
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Like everything else in the USA that's fucked up, 40$/mo is about average for basic cell service.
No including taxes etc, of course.
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Normally what happens in the US is you sign up for a reasonable amount like $39, and then after 3 months the price goes up to $200 and you shit your pants.
I think my internet, which is some sort of async DSL over copper is $150/m and my phone which is google fi is around $100/m. I can't find out what I'm paying for my useless phone that I don't use because none of the links on the google fi site work in google's own browser. Which is great.
rarely in the last 20 years have I paid less than that other than th
Re: (Score:2)
He could have made the plan cost 45.47 per month but didn't.
From TFA:
Both the name of the wireless service — "The 47 Plan" — and its monthly price [$47.45/month] are references to Trump, who was the 45th U.S. president during his first term in office and is now serving as the 47th.
Yuk.
Re:A choice was made (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair I don't think America made that choice. The signs of voter suppression are overwhelming. At a minimum we have 3.5 million people we can verify Got denied the right to vote before we even start counting people who are unable to vote due to multi-hour wait times.
It's a pretty simple strategy. You use absolute propaganda to keep elections within about a 3 to 5% margin and then you use voter suppression at the county level. The Democrat party can win elections at the state level but they aren't willing to wield that power so the billionaire is move in with all their money and take all the county level election commissioner positions.
The Democrats absolutely do not have enough money and resources to win those and unless the governor and Secretary of State are willing to come down on those guys like a ton of bricks it's easy for them to fuck with the elections by sending broken voting machines to Blue districts
The only reason Joe Biden was president in 2020 is because covid made things such a mess those common voter suppression tactics couldn't be effectively used. The Republican party couldn't figure out how to use them without risking them backfiring. If you look at Arizona they had a governor race where they tried to use them and ended up accidentally sending broken voting machines to the wrong place. By 2024 that was fixed.
Speaking of Arizona the county commissioner in their largest county is currently fighting to seize control of elections from the Secretary of state. You can imagine what party that guy belongs to and what will happen if he wins...
For all the Republicans out there who know this is happening and are happy to see it because power is power all I've got to say is, remember the old George Carlin quote. It's a big club and you ain't in it. When you are no longer useful and they don't need your vote anymore they will abandon you and take your stuff just like the Russians and the Chinese did to their people once they were in power...
I'm not saying that because I expect you to change your behavior I just want to plant the idea in your head so that when the shit hits the fan there's that little moment of doubt before you blame Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton.
Democracy doesn't die in exciting protests like we had over the weekend. Democracy dies with little ladies at the county level doing nasty little things and challenging thousands and thousands and millions and millions of voter registrations and ballot signatures.
When people talk about the banality of evil that's what they mean.
Re: (Score:3)
You can also look to what happened in North Carolina as a GOP recipe across the US. The governor is a Democrat which reflects the fact that the majority of voters in the state lean a bit that way, but despite this, the GOP gerrymandered all the districts guaranteeing themselves control of the state legislature in perpetuity. They also at the same time took many of the governor's powers away (so much for the Unitary Executive Theory that the GOP claims to espouse), and turned the state supreme court into a
Missouri. (Score:3)
What needs to happen is that the left wing of the Democrat party needs to pressure the centrist wing into using their raw political power to crush voter suppression at the county level. The Democrats usually control the governor's and Secretary of State and even the AG and those three have more than enough power to do it.
Re: (Score:2)
And leave $1.98/mo behind per subscriber?
That would be just silly.
Re: A choice was made (Score:2)
Taking bets (Score:2)
How fast do you think this will fail? Given his track record of business failures, this will be another one added to the list.
Re: (Score:2)
It's just a licensing agreement. My guess is that nobody from the Trump Organization invested so much as a penny. So if it fails, it's no skin off any other noses.
Re: Taking bets (Score:2)
Emoluments clause? (Score:2)
Doesn't this violate the emoluments clause?
Re:Emoluments clause? (Score:4, Informative)
No. If you read the text, it is only on receiving items from foreign heads of state:
Article I
Section 9 Powers Denied Congress
Clause 8 Titles of Nobility and Foreign Emoluments
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
It's just that all past presidents did their best to not enrich themselves while in office. Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust to avoid a conflict of interest while he was in office.
Re: (Score:2)
For more information [fas.org].
Re:Emoluments clause? (Score:4, Interesting)
Article II, Section 1, Clause 7
The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.
The strict reading suggests that the president shouldn't receive payments from the federal or state governments outside of his/her paycheck (see CREW v Trump and the self-dealing of Trump properties) and there is no strict prohibition of making money in business while serving as president. It just so happens that prior presidents have chosen (often under pressure) to relinquish control of their enterprises while president to avoid the accusation of partiality.
His actions go against long-standing historical norms and Congress can cite the actions as an undefined "high crime and misdemeanor", but there's no explicit prohibition against what he's doing. No one in the past realistically conceived the likely scenario where a president would do this and thus no law made it through Congress to create an enforceable crime.
Wait for it... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder what country the phone is manufactured in (Score:5, Funny)
I bet it's NOT made in the US.
Re: (Score:2)
- have main board built in China
- have case built in China
- put those two parts together in some sweatshop in Alabama
- bingo - made in America!!! Yay USA!!!
Checks date (Score:4, Interesting)
Nope, its not April 1st
I wonder where he's getting them from - Maybe Bibi had some of those Hezbollah specials left over...
It will have great reviews I'm sure (Score:2)
After the first few reviewers find themselves in El Salvador.
Does it run at 1.544 Mbps??? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
world wide data at that speed.
Telehealth? (Score:2)
Which gov service numbers will become only ... (Score:2)
accessible via this network?
Security (Score:2)
So - will Trump be able to carry/use this phone, or will the CIA/Secret Service/etc. find it too insecure?
TDMA. (Score:2)
Re: TDMA. (Score:2)
Finally, a replacement for Obamacare! (Score:2)
Telehealth and Pharmacy Benefit? FINALLY! That concept of a plan comes to fruition!
Re: Finally, a replacement for Obamacare! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
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Another vanity knock-off (Score:2)
Sounds like a more shit version of the Escobar phone. An accomplishment in and of itself.