CNN
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Donald Trump’s allies are distancing themselves from his latest business venture, hours after the former president debuted a line of digital trading cards that baffled and angered his own campaign aides and was mocked by some of his most ardent supporters.
The out-of-the-blue announcement comes on the heels of several high-profile blunders since Trump launched his 2024 presidential bid last month, leaving those around him worried he is unprepared for another campaign.
Multiple sources familiar with the matter said Trump was pitched to launch a digital trading card collection by entrepreneur Bill Zanker, with whom he has done business in the past, including co-authoring a 2008 self-help book about Trump’s business dealings. Sources said the discussions between Zanker and Trump preceded his entry into the 2024 GOP presidential primary, leaving many of Trump’s aides and advisers in the dark.
Those who were notified of the project several weeks ago were nevertheless caught off guard by the ridicule it drew among Trump loyalists on Thursday.
Among those baffled by the move was former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who suggested during an episode of his “War Room” podcast this week that whoever convinced Trump to get into the digital token business “should get fired”. While Bannon declined to directly ridicule Trump, he appeared mystified by the former president’s decision.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Bannon said, responding to a video released by Trump on Thursday that featured images of some of the digital collectibles, which depict Trump as a cowboy, an astronaut and a superhero.
Several current and former advisers to Trump said the seemingly random business venture was a mistake and beneath the 45th president.
As Trump took the stage Friday morning to deliver remarks to an Orthodox Jewish group at his golf course in Miami, his political aides were still fielding questions and calls from donors about his confusing new venture, sources familiar with the matter said.
An outside adviser told CNN that a senior Trump aide expressed confusion and irritation at the venture during a call when the adviser asked why the former president became involved in digital collectibles — or non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — at the start of the 2024 presidential campaign. The adviser talked about the conversation on condition of anonymity.
Trump’s teasing of a “big announcement” in a post on his Truth Social page on Wednesday, which was later revealed to be the launch of his digital trading card collection, was “boy-who-cried-wolf status,” this person added.
According to a website where the $99 trading cards are available for purchase, they are neither a project of his 2024 bid nor an offer of promotional merchandise. Instead, the NFTs appear to be another expansion of Trump’s business portfolio.
Another person close to Trump suggested the former president may be trying to “defend his brand” as he faces growing questions about the strength of his third presidential campaign.
Trump’s slow campaign launch, combined with two recent scandals involving a Mar-a-Lago dinner with white supremacist Nick Fuentes and his proposal to end the US Constitution so he can be reinstated as president, appear to have weakened his position as the presumptive front. —is running even before potential GOP rivals join him in the primary field next year. A flurry of polls this week underscored a growing appetite among Republican voters for an alternative presidential candidate in 2024, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gaining notable support as he considers a possible campaign.
But instead of adding juice to his flagging campaign, Trump’s NFT announcement appears to have cast more doubt on his overall strategy.
“I know this will piss some people off in Trump world, but come on! Can we all just admit that this is not good for Donald Trump’s first major announcement since he announced he’s running again?” tweeted Michael Biundoa New Hampshire-based GOP strategist and former senior adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign.
“I kind of feel like we’re getting punked,” Biundo added.
Trump’s announcement came the same day his campaign released the first of a series of political videos focusing on “free speech” and aimed to refocus Trump’s lagging campaign. In the video, a serious Trump appealed to conservative voters by promising to address Big Tech if he wins the 2024 election. But the attempt to recalibrate Trump was overshadowed by the NFT video release, which portrayed the former president as a cartoon. superman shoots lasers out of his eyes.
A source who spoke to Trump after the launch said Trump was shown the online criticism of his allies and supporters and understood their reaction. Another source close to Trump indicated that the former president was glad he did.
“This was a decision he made with his business hat on, not his political hat,” the source said. “And in that sense – it was successful.”
Some allies alerted to the NFT project before it went public tried to convince Trump to wait, believing the move would distract from his 2024 campaign. But the former president ultimately went ahead with the announcement, launching it just hours before his campaign made its first policy-related announcement in which Trump, in a video recording, outlined “free speech” reforms he would pursue if elected to a second non-consecutive term.
Sources said the former president considers the venture a success so far, already raking in seven figures in the first 24 hours of his debut NFT launch. However, none of this will go to his political campaign, according to the website where Trump’s digital trading cards are marketed.
Trump has not responded to criticism of the launch of the NFT, and his campaign has been silent on the issue.
