Your Next Instant Pot Might Be Made by Donald Trump

Gizmodo

6 hours ago

America has become a parody of itself.
Donald Trump sells everything from Trump-branded Bibles to MAGA sneakers, as the billionaire hustler profits from the presidency in a way that no other U.S. leader has ever attempted. And it looks like we can add a few more products to the list today, including a MAGA Instant Pot, if you can believe it.
The new Instant Pot is being dubbed the 45/47 Collaboration, according to a new report from Semafor, a reference to Trump being both the 45th and 47th president of the United States. It's not clear yet what the MAGA Instant Pot will look like exactly, but it's likely to include the tagline 'Make America Great Again,' and will be publicly available starting July 4.
What does Trump get out of it? According to Semafor, this 'collaboration with representatives of the Trump administration' will see 'a portion of the profits' go to the Trump Presidential Library. That's highly unusual, to say the least, since presidential library foundations are non-profit entities that typically fundraise after a president has already left office.
You can think of each presidential library as essentially being two parts: One part of the library holds the president's documents from his time in office and is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. The other part is the private, non-profit entity that fundraises to build and run the museum and physical space where visitors can come and walk through a kind of shrine to the president's life.
The Semafor report doesn't make a distinction between which half of the Trump Library is getting the donation of the Instant Pot proceeds, but it feels like a safe bet to say it's the private part controlled by Trump's people. Instant Pot brands didn't respond to questions emailed Monday morning. The Trump Organization also didn't respond.
Instant Pot merged with Corelle Brands in 2019, which is owned by private equity firm Cornell Capital. But Instant Pot filed for bankruptcy in 2023 and became a new company called Instant Brands. The company was sued in 2024 after lenders accused the private equity firm of loading up Instant Pot with $450 million of debt before declaring bankruptcy, a story that's extremely common in the world of private equity. The firm allegedly took out a loan for $450 million in 2021 and paid $345 million of that as a dividend to Cornell Capital, according to Fortune.
The Instant Pot isn't the only new collaboration Trump is trying on with a home goods company. Lenox Corporation is also planning to make 'fine porcelain dinnerware' that features images like the White House logo. Gold-plated utensils along with MAGA glasses are also in the works, according to the news outlet. Bedding companies like Live Comfortably and Simply Interior Homes have also been looking at producing MAGA products.
A representative for the brands working on Trump products told Semafor: 'All of these companies […] are extremely supportive of President Trump and the MAGA Agenda, standing with the president with their efforts to onshore and show public support.'
To top it all off, Trump Media also announced a new Trump-brand mobile phone on Monday. The news release is patently ridiculous, and it's not clear yet when it'll come out. But the fact that they're trying to do it at all is pretty mind-boggling.
Trump has turned the presidency into a profit-making machine, according to financial disclosure forms filed last week. The president made $57.3 million from World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency platform launched last year with his help. He made $3 million from a 'Save America' coffee table book, $2.5 million from his sneakers and fragrances, $2.8 million from his watches, $1.3 million from his bible, $1.1 million from his NFT licensing, and $1 million from his guitar.
And none of that includes Trump's cryptocurrency $TRUMP, which wasn't released until shortly before he took office in January, meaning that it wasn't required on the president's latest financial disclosure forms. CBS News reports that Trump's cryptocurrency ventures have contributed billions to his family's net worth.
All of this is supposed to be illegal, according to the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Presidents aren't supposed to be making money from their office. Several lawsuits were brought during Trump's first term, but none of them went anywhere. And that seems to have given Trump a green light to accelerate his businesses while in office for his second go-around. Laws are fake until they're enforced. And Trump knows that as the most powerful person in the world, nobody can actually enforce laws meant to keep the powerful in check.