Reporter's Hilariously Brutal Description Of The New Trump Mobile Phone Has The Internet Cackling

Back on June 16, 2025, Don Jr. and Eric Trump announced the launch of a new cellular phone service, Trump Mobile, complete with a golden made-in-America cell phone set to be shipped in September 2025 according to their website, while some press materials and statements said phones would ship in August.

The MAGA minions that worship their father, Republican President Donald Trump, rushed to make their $100 deposits—toward the total promotional price of $499—to reserve a gold Trump Mobile T1 phone.

Then a reported 27,000 MAGA minions waited for their golden Trump phones to be delivered. And waited, and waited, and waited.

Finally, in mid-May of 2026, Trump Mobile shared an AI video that claimed phones were set to be shipped. Some phones have allegedly made their way to the buying public while some were definitely delivered to members of the media for product reviews.

CNET managing editor Patrick Holland appeared on CNN’s OutFront with guest anchor Brianna Keilar to give his assessment of the Trump Mobile T1 phone.

Keilar introduced the segment, saying:

"The $500 gold-colored Trump mobile phone is finally landing in some people’s hands nearly a year after it was announced and nine months later than it was originally set to launch."

"But the phone is not living up to its initial promise. The screen is smaller than what was originally advertised. And though initially touted as being made in America, it is now being promoted as, quote, 'Designed with American values in mind.'"

"Here with me now is Patrick Holland, the managing editor of 'CNET.' He’s one of just a few people who’s gotten his hands on the Trump phone."

"Patrick, you’ve looked at a lot of phones in your work and you spent a whole day using this one before giving it to a colleague for further testing."

"What were your immediate impressions of it? Would you recommend it?"

Holland responded:

"Yeah, I think first, it looks nothing like the original image that we saw about a year ago, which kind of looked like an altered iPhone 16 Pro."

"Next, the gold color. In real life, it kind of varies depending on what lighting you’re in. Sometimes it looks like those gold coins that Scrooge McDuck would jump into for 'DuckTales.'"

Giphy

Holland then added:

"Other times, it’s got a mustard vibe to it, and yet other times it kind of looks like a urine sample."

You can see a clip of Holland's review here:

The CNET editor continued:

"But my hesitation is... I would not recommend it. Not because of that, but largely because we just don’t know certain things about it."

"We don’t what the processor is in the phone. We don’t know what the software and security updates will be. For example, companies like Samsung or Google will commit to seven years. So if you buy a phone, you’ll know that you have till 2033 to use that phone."

"And that makes me wonder if the last big worry is if this phone will actually ship. Well, a couple of us in the media do have it."

"I can’t find many cases of actual customers who put their money down to order the phone [who have it]."

Keilar responded:

"That’s really interesting. The phone was initially advertised as being made in the U.S. and then the company said, as I mentioned, that it was 'designed with American values in mind.'"

"That’s a really different thing. And you point out that the phone, the box, the manual, the packaging, it doesn’t say anything about where it was made. Could you find that anywhere?"

Holland answered:

"Well, on the box, the outside of the box, it said assembled in the USA. Now you could interpret that with a regular phone to mean that it was put together in the country that’s listed."

"They could be being a little literal here and it could be that they put the phone in the box and that the box was assembled in USA."

"But we were curious about this phone, so we always run benchmark tests on all the phones we review at 'CNET.'"

"And we discovered that the performance of the processor and the graphics card is very similar to a Taiwanese phone called the HTC U24 Pro 5G, rolls off the tongue there."

"And this phone, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the phone, that’s not a bad phone by any means, but it’s certainly not made in the USA."

People found Holland's take on the phone's color to be amusingly appropriate.

@Callipygian_Sea/X

@FredMas26593657/X

@pearlclutcher61/X

‪@trump-putinsbitch/Bluesky‬

In addition to the detracting factors Holland described, critics noted that on some of the phones' demo units shipped to members of the media, the American flag on the back only has 11 stripes.

The United States flag has 13 stripes to represent the 13 original colonies.

So much for being "designed with American values in mind."