TRUMP’S FEBRUARY LEGAL BURN RATE: $230,000 A DAY
Trump Scammers Scamming With AI, Fake Merchandise and Call Centers
The recent deluge of solicitations, purportedly in support of Donald Trump’s cause, has morphed into a playground for scammers armed with AI-generated personas and counterfeit merchandise. From deepfaked endorsements featuring recognizable figures to the shameless peddling of knockoff MAGA paraphernalia, the Trump brand has become a magnet for fraudulent schemes, preying particularly on the unwavering support of his base.
An avalanche of emails, texts, robocalls and TV ads begging for “Five bucks, ten bucks, even a buck,” from Donald Trump has hit MAGAland. But many of these are simply scams.
Recent Trump merchandise has the former reality star hawking a sticky-page, one-star rated bible, which outraged Christians, and his garish, gold Jordan knockoffs sparked predictable mockery in the media and late-night comedy shows. As cringe-inducing as these items are, the Trump push for money has been a gold mine for scammers.
On March 15th, Forbes ran a headline: Deepfaked Celebrities Hawked A Massive Trump Scam On Facebook And YouTube. The article reported scammers using AI-created “celebrity” endorsements, with AI images featuring Trump, Tucker Carlson, and even Martin Luther King on Facebook and YouTube.
Scams around Trump are proliferating on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and other platforms, and new call centers are springing up with AI-generated sound-alike voices of Trump and other celebrities. These scams make anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars as they roll through, before or if they get shut down, with the majority of purchasers misled into thinking they are supporting Trump’s campaign, with AI-generated images of Trump and right-wing figures lending authenticity.
Many of these scams originate outside of the US, and find their way into funding terrorist groups, making some Trump donors unwitting supporters of terror groups.
AI-generated advertisements selling Trump merchandise have been around for years, and the majority of them are not illegal. These copycat items of MAGA hats, T-shirts, tote bags, Confederate and American flags, cups, keychains, and other cheap trinkets feature Trump, without actually claiming the profits are going to the Trump campaign, using advertising structured to mislead buyers.
Last June, “Trump Bucks” websites were finally taken down after victims of a Trump con believed they could trade in “Trump Bucks” for real cash. The Colorado-based company swindled at least a dozen “investors” for thousands of dollars. The company strongly suggested the items were legal tender, worth much more than the face value printed on the “Trump bucks,” featuring Trump’s face printed in the center, saying they would soar in value, making the “investors” rich. Victims bringing these Trump Bucks to banks, thinking they were legal tender, were shocked to discover they had spent hundreds or thousands for novelty items that were worthless.
In 2019, a scam group used robocalls to impersonate Trump campaign workers, scamming victims for over $100,000 before they were shut down.
To use a phrase that Trump used in his testimony about the sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll, “Unfortunately or fortunately” the media frenzy around Trump has made Trump supporters, especially older Trump supporters, easy prey for scammers and misleading advertising for MAGA merchandise.
Making America Great Again, in China
In 2020 the Utah-based apparel company Lions Not Sheep was first cited by the FTC in May for replacing “Made in China” tags on their clothing with bogus “Made in USA” labels.
The company and its owner, Sean Whalen, were ordered to pay $212,335 in fines and stop producing apparel with the fake tags, according to a statement from the FTC.
AfroTurf: In a BBC investigation published just March 3rd, AI deepfakes showing Black and Latino “Trump supporters” were discovered by BBC Panorama. The investigation showed odd lighting and extra fingers, but the myth of a “grassroots movement” of Black and Latino Trump supporters lingers. The creators of these fakes, which got over a million views, were simply products designed for their creators to gain an audience of followers.
The fraught atmosphere Trump generates as he continues smashing norms, laws and violating court orders, framing himself as a victim, and ginning up crowds with increasingly violent rhetoric has been a gold mine for scammers, but also for Trump himself. The constant complaints that he is a victim has prompted a shrinking but loyal base of mom-and-pop donors to dig into their household budgets to donate. Whether it is to the actual campaign, or to scammers or fake merchandise, they are handing over money from savings, social security, or from their hard-earned wages.
The fake donor asks and off-book merchandise, along with the pressure by Trump himself in a full-scale money scramble has MAGA supporters caught between unrelenting donation demands and scam artists.
Donors to Trump’s Save America PAC paid legal fees at an astounding rate of $230,000 a day in February, according to campaign reports: All together, Mr. Trump’s legal fees through Save America reached nearly $7m in February, or the equivalent of roughly $230,000 a day.
Some might consider that the biggest scam of all.
