The Trump Phone Is Still (Checks Notes) a Deflating Vortex of BS

Well, friends. Here we are again. In the seemingly never-ending ladder of the Trump phone saga, there’s another suspiciously designed ladder on the way – and it’s got a number attached to it! Cheering for the numbers; They too deserve degradation.

The above numbers in question relate to pre-orders for Trump Mobile’s alleged gold-colored phone, the T1, which has not yet shipped despite being eligible for the $100 deposit since June. As The Verge notes, the alleged phone now has an even bigger alleged preorder figure that suggests nearly 600,000 people have reportedly spent money on this questionable-at-best device.

That would be a frightening piece of data, but as you might have guessed from the amount of dramatic “allegations” I made in the previous sentence, there’s really no way to confirm the veracity of that number or where it came from. It appears that the official phone of the “fake news” acolytes may actually be the subject of fake statistics. Who would have thought this?

As The Verge dives into the picture in its own rabbit hole, the best guess at its origins is… a social media post – specifically a Facebook post from December. That post, as is often posted, has since been amplified multiple times by X’s Grok AI and even the press office of California Governor Gavin Newsom. A story as old as time—or at least as old as social media.

The fact is, we still have no real, reliable data on how many, if any, people have actually spent money on the T1, just as we have no real, solid evidence of the phone’s existence. However, the timing of this unproven figure is definitely something. This week, Democratic lawmakers urged the FTC to look into Trump Mobile’s “bait-and-switch tactics”, particularly around its now reneged promise to make T1 phones in the US. In case you missed it, an American-made phone with the T1’s specifications is actually, like… not even possible.

So, here we are, swimming in even more potential messes around a device that equally stinks of the stuff. As if the focus on selling refurbished iPhones and Samsung Galaxy wasn’t enough, now we have to wade through potentially made-up preorder figures. Please, I want off this trip.

As far as the FTC investigation of the Trump phone is concerned, I’m pretty sure we can be sure it won’t go anywhere. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the standards of this Carney-driven rollercoaster of a decade, it’s that I really shouldn’t expect anything.