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You Can Make Trump Say Whatever You Want with These Fake 'Signed' Portraits

An online shop sells knock-off presidential portraits with custom messages in Trump's handwriting, and will apparently let you write obscene ones.
Photos by author

As the president continues his international tour of treason or whatever, I discovered something of grave import—there's an online store where you can buy a portrait of Trump that "includes a personalized message of your choice and signature in a font designed to match the President’s handwriting" for one easy payment of $59.95 (and another $9.95 for shipping).

It's unclear who exactly is behind DJT45.shop, but it has no connection with the Trump Organization or the White House. "We are not affiliated with any presidential candidate or party," a person identifying themselves as the "Trump 45 Team" wrote me in an email.

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The site is obviously marketing itself toward Trump fans—it sells gold coins for $60, a "presidential bath robe set" for $100, a coffee mug for $20, and a "signature pen for $60," all of it Trump-themed—but it's apparently willing to consider requests from customers of all ideologies. As a test, I ordered a portrait with the message, "Dear Fuckhead, It's a wig." The disappointing reply came via email: "Eve, We do not allow messages with vulgar language."

This struck me as an odd stance for supporters of a guy who once talked about his dick during a presidential debate. "I'm wondering if I'm allowed to use obscene language that the president has used publicly?" I asked.

"We do allow words that he has used publicly, but Fuckhead is not one of those," the shop replied. "This product is intended to be for supporters, but we’ll print funny or opposite view portraits as well, in order to protect free speech." Noble!

Luckily for me, the president has said plenty of naughty words publicly, like "ass," "bullshit," "pussy," and "shit." So the note I settled on ended up being more crudely colorful than the message I originally conceived of:

"Hey you pussy-ass shithead, it's a wig!"

While DJT45.shop did not respond to my further inquiries about who they are and why they decided to set up this online store, an overpriced, knock-off presidential portrait is a perfectly Trumpian product. Trump himself has never turned down a merchandizing opportunity, so why shouldn't his followers cash in?

There's been lots of justified outrage over Trump using the presidency for his own personal profit, but he's clearly not the only one capitalizing on this uniquely chaotic moment in US history. Congrats to DJT45.shop.

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