Former President Donald Trump is an actual property mogul, one-time recreation present host, and not too long ago Bible salesman.
Trump made $300,000 selling Bibles this 12 months, in keeping with monetary disclosure kinds launched Thursday. The Bible, launched in March, value $59.99 and was dubbed the Lee Greenwood Bible, referencing the singer of the music “God Bless the U.S.A.” (The music is a staple at Trump rallies with the previous president usually strolling out on stage to it). There may be additionally a restricted version model of the Bible that includes Trump’s signature that goes for $1,000.
“I want to have a lot of people have it,” Trump mentioned in a promotional video for the Bible on his social media platform Fact Social. “You have to have it for your heart, for your soul.”
Trump is extraordinarily standard with evangelical Christians. A Pew ballot launched in March only a few weeks previous to the Bible’s launch discovered that 67% of White Protestant evangelicals had a good view of Trump, the very best approval ranking of any non secular group within the U.S., adopted by White Catholics and non-evangelical White Protestants.
“Religion is so important, and it’s so missing,” Trump mentioned within the video. “It’s going to come back and it’s going to come back strong, like our country is going to come back strong.”
The Trump marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Across the time Trump was hawking the Bible, he had begun endorsing a collection of different merchandise, together with gold high-top sneakers, NFTs, and perfumes. Just like the Bible, the sneakers and perfumes licensed Trump’s title however weren’t manufactured or distributed by him or any firms related to him.
Final 12 months, Trump reported earnings someplace between $100,000 to $1 million for the NFT assortment, in accordance to a separate submitting from April 2023. The sneakers Trump promoted bought for $399, and their launch got here the day after a choose compelled his firm, the Trump Group, to pay a $355 million penalty in a civil fraud case.
Trump has confronted mounting authorized payments on account of his myriad courtroom circumstances. Two months earlier than Trump began selling the Bible, a choose ordered him to pay the author E. Jean Carroll $83 million for defamation after he denied sexually assaulting her regardless of being discovered civilly liable for having finished so in a earlier listening to. The funds made to Carroll had been additionally referenced within the disclosure kinds below the liabilities part.
A New York Occasions investigation from March estimated Trump was spending $90,000 a day on his authorized defenses throughout a fancy net of economic entities. A portion of Trump’s authorized charges are lined by his Save America PAC, which was reportedly operating out of cash in June.
Nonetheless, direct gross sales of the Greenwood Bible don’t go towards Trump’s reelection marketing campaign, in keeping with the product’s web site.
Whereas its $60 price ticket is excessive for a Bible, the Greenwood model additionally features a handwritten copy of the refrain of Greenwood’s music, the Invoice of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Structure.
“The Constitution which I’m fighting for very hard,” Trump mentioned in one in all his signature asides.
4 months earlier, in a put up on his social media firm Fact Social, Trump advocated for the “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
