President Donald Trump used his merchandise to mock Democratic leaders during a meeting while pretending he was working to avert a government shutdown.
The president shared multiple photographs on Truth Social Wednesday of his meeting the day before with House House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to Truth Social, showing two bright red “Trump 2028” hats sitting on the Resolute Desk.
Speaking to CNN’s Abby Phillip Tuesday night, Jeffries said the president hadn’t tried to hand out his merch, suggesting that they “just randomly appeared in the middle of the meeting.”
“It was the strangest thing ever,” Jeffries said. “And I just looked at the hat, looked at JD Vance who was seated to my left, and said, ‘Don’t you got a problem with this?’ And he said, ‘No comment.’ And that was the end of it.”
It’s possible Trump thought he could win the Democrats over with free hats. In an effort to pass his behemoth budget bill in August, Trump had invited Republican holdouts to meet with him personally in the Oval Office, and they left with signed merchandise, photos with the president, and a new attitude.
But this time, it doesn’t seem that Trump was using his merchandise as part of a charm offensive. More likely, he wanted the meeting to serve as an unwitting photo-op to create visuals highlighting the futility of negotiating with a president and a party intent on being in power for the next five years. The Democrats left with nothing to show for it.
Vance also mocked the Democrats over the hats’ presence, saying Wednesday morning on Fox & Friends he thought the hats “made the … minority leader in both the House and Senate very uncomfortable.”
For his part, Vance has expressed no displeasure with Trump’s threats to defy the 22nd Amendment, curb-stomping his own potential run. The president’s fundraising efforts have kicked five percent of donations to the vice president’s PAC, so maybe Trump’s number two is not too bothered by hat sales.
It would be a mistake to think that Trump ever took the prompt of working with Democrats seriously. The 79-year-old had already shared an AI video falsely depicting Schumer criticizing the Democrats’ “woke trans bullshit” next to a silent Jeffries in a superimposed Mexican sombrero with a curled mustache. Trump posted a similar video again Tuesday.
The post Why the Hell Did Trump Have Merch Out During His Shutdown Meeting? appeared first on New Republic.
