Washington: Former US President Donald Trump's iconic mug shot, which a Georgia courthouse posted on Thursday night, is being made into bobblehead dolls, posters, shot glasses, T-shirts, and even shot glasses.
The photo of Republican front-runner for president Donald Trump, who was wearing a red tie and had shiny hair and an icy scowl, was taken as he was being detained on more than a dozen felony charges as part of a criminal investigation into his attempts to rig the 2020 election.
As they rally behind Trump's assertions that the charges against him are politically motivated, supporters and campaign managers have embraced the image of his arrest.
Critics interpret the image as proof that his protracted legal troubles have at last caught up with him.
The "NEVER SURRENDER!" mug shot t-shirts, beverage holders, and coffee mugs are available for purchase from Trump's Save America fundraising committee for $34, $25, and $15, respectively. His son Don Jr. is selling posters and t-shirts with "FREE TRUMP" mug shots for $29.99 and $19.99, respectively.
On the other side of the aisle, the Lincoln Project, a well-known anti-Trump organisation founded by Republicans, is offering shot glasses with the mugshot and "FAFO," an acronym for "Fuck Around and Find Out," a catchphrase among Trump detractors, for $55.00 for six. Numerous products that make fun of others are available on the crafts website Etsy, including a parody Taylor Swift concert t-shirt ($26.00).
On Friday afternoon, a t-shirt shop in Los Angeles that was unrelated to any campaign began selling tops with the image on them.
Shopper CJ Butler from Atlanta, Georgia, said, "I think it's very classic consumerism for this country." Hello, this is Trump. Why not have a T-shirt since he sells everything?"
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Some political strategists believe that the image could serve as a significant source of funding for the Republican candidate.
"His superfans are going to see this and it will be a fist-pumping exercise for them to send in that $25 and get that shirt or that mug," predicted David Kochel, a seasoned Republican presidential campaign operative in Iowa. At the end of the day, it's kind of depressing that the campaign will celebrate the 13 criminal charges against him. However, that is the state of our politics.
After receiving his first indictment in New York, Trump has been attempting for months to use the criminal investigations launched against him to bolster his support among his supporters. Since 2015, his fundraising organisations, including his previous and current presidential campaigns, report spending more than $98 million on merchandise operations, purchasing items like bumper stickers, hoodies, and coffee mugs to sell.
After the Republican debate on Wednesday, co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita told Reuters that his team had been concentrating on finding ways to use the four indictments to their advantage, "making sure that we were making lemonade at every opportunity, which I think we did."
Veterans of other political campaigns claim that campaigns can profit by 50% or more from their merchandise sales, and LaCivita on Thursday issued a warning to anyone attempting to profit from the campaign's image without its consent.
But it's unclear what legal authority, if any, Trump's campaign may have over the reproduction of the mug shot. The Fulton County court provided the picture to the media, including Reuters.
Generally speaking, mug shots taken by US federal courts are available to the public, though Georgia's state policy might differ.
There are "right of publicity" laws in many US states that forbid using someone's likeness without that person's consent. False advertising and endorsements are prohibited by federal trademark law as well, and Trump would probably be able to sue under other state laws.
Though lawyers claim that whether Trump would actually sue is more of a strategic than a legal question, the US Constitution may provide some protection from intellectual property claims for political parody goods.
Given how divisive Trump has been and everything that is already out there in the market surrounding his likeness, it is highly unlikely that it would be a legal priority, according to trademark lawyer Josh Gerben.
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The way that Trump is glaring into the camera with his face cocked down is reminiscent of his iconic pose from the reality television series "The Apprentice," which he starred in for a number of years.
In an interview with Fox News Digital on Thursday night, the former president claimed that he only took the mug shot because Georgia officials insisted on it. It's not a good feeling, he said, especially when you haven't done anything wrong.
In a Friday post on X, Rick Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project selling products featuring mug shots online, dared the Trump campaign to sue him. The image is "certainly seen as a powerful one by Trump's supporters, and it is also seen as a powerful one by his detractors," he added.
