7 Big Things About Donald Trump’s Stupid NFT Announcement

Illustration: CollectTrumpCards.com

In a video posted on Truth Social yesterday, Donald Trump revealed that he would be making a “BIG ANNOUNCEMENT” soon. This news was accompanied by an animation depicting him as Superman with lasers shooting out of his eyes. You know, regular former president stuff.

Trump made good on his promise Thursday morning, and his announcement is dumber than anyone could have imagined: He’s launching an NFT collection.

This is obviously totally hilarious. But at the risk of developing a reputation for being a Trump apologist, I’d like to share my case for why it’s also totally awesome.

After Trump’s announcement of his impending announcement on Thursday, the best guesses on social media were that he would return to Twitter, run for Speaker of the House or form a third party despite Mitch McConnell.

All of these possibilities would be extremely annoying and/or harmful to our political system. My wise colleagues at Intelligencer suggested that we should pay more attention to the superhero pictures. “That’s definitely a Dean Cain endorsement, isn’t it?” so one. “Taking Trump literally and seriously: He’s going to be a costumed crime-fighting vigilante,” suggested another staffer, who flagged this about the development a few hours later:

Selling digital photos of himself for $99 a pop might hurt the wallets of the MAGA faithful, but thankfully Trump’s big reveal won’t have any impact on the American political system or the DC Extended Universe.

The former first lady posts only sporadically on her husband’s new social media network Truth Social, and many of her “truths” are advertisements for “The American Christmas Ornament and NFT Collection.” This is a collection of six Christmas ornaments with matching NFTs bearing Melania’s signature on the back. Five have generic holiday designs, but one tells anyone looking at your tree that you strive to “BE THE BEST” (and had $35 to burn). Maybe she can trade it for one of her husband’s NFTs, which he says are “just like baseball cards.”

When it comes to Trump’s money-making schemes, the bar is so low it’s at the floor (or more specifically on a gold-lettered “Official Trump Card” that doesn’t even give you loyalty points when you shop at Mar-a-Lago) . So it’s somewhat surprising to see that Trump is offering his followers something for their $99 besides a non-fungible token that you can show off to others interested in NFTs.

CollectTrumpCards.com says that every NFT purchase automatically enters you into a contest for a chance to win “1,000s of incredible prizes.” These include a dinner in Miami with Trump, a Mar-a-Lago group cocktail hour and autographed memorabilia. The fine print reveals that there are only “1,000s” of prizes because most winners will receive “one (1) ticket to a 2,000-person 20-minute Zoom call with President Trump.” But hey, it’s better than a fake credit card that says “TRUMP.”

In his Truth Social post, Trump said, “These limited edition cards feature amazing ART of my Life & Career!” CollectTrumpCards.com highlights eight trading card designs (with more visible if you provide your credit card information). They show Trump playing golf (sure), holding a football (it’s happened), giving his signature double thumbs up with gold bars flying at the screen (okay), standing in front of a boxing ring with electrified “45” gloves (taking some artistic license, but okay), and wearing a full auto racing suit in front of a blurry track (made up, but still somewhat plausible).

All of these cards actually depict things that happened in Trump’s life, but I missed when he participated Top Gunflew into space and worked as an old-fashioned western gunslinger.

Press play and find yourself transported to a time when you were home sick from school and watched ads below Days of our lives. This video feels like it could end with Trump and Ed McMahon surprising someone with a check and promising that “miracles can happen” to you too — but only if you step in now.

Trump has made no secret of his presidential inferiority complex, but it’s still funny that he felt compelled to take a swipe at Lincoln and Washington in a video featuring NFTs. It begins: “Hey everyone, this is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president of all time. Better than Lincoln, better than Washington.”

Still, after 43 seconds, Trump says, “Each card comes with an automatic chance to win amazing prizes, like dinner with me — I don’t know if it’s an amazing prize, but that’s what we have.” Not only is he everyone’s favorite president of all time, he’s also the most humble.

When it comes to playing a fabulously wealthy guy to trick people into buying useless junk, Donald Trump is the GOAT. If only he had stuck to schemes like this instead of running for president.