The MAGA Merch Guide to Celebrating Dad

MAGA Merch Tells Us Who Dad Is

There are few lists more confounding than a Father’s Day gift guide. This is largely by design. The not-so-subtle commentary embedded into the formula of these lists is that dads are inscrutable and that Father’s Day is a bit of a gag holiday. To scroll through a Father’s Day gift guide is less about finding that perfect thank you gift for years of driving you to soccer practice and more an opportunity to marvel at consumer culture so untethered from any sense of necessity it produces items like this. As a dad myself about to celebrate my seventh father’s day, I can appreciate the sendup of a holiday that manages to acknowledge the important role dads play while also suggesting that they are maladjusted enough to require a pocket hacksaw or that they have an emotional vacancy that might be filled by a rocks glass that doubles as a cigar holder. Of course, there are many different types of dads with many varied interests, but judging by the sheer number of Father’s Day gift guides pumped out each year by some of our premier publications (by my count the New York Times has published at least five, New York Magazine a whopping 35! – ecommerce must still have some juice) even the experts paid to know what dad wants are clueless. If you go poking around the Father’s Day merch collections sold by MAGA media, however, the story is a little different. 

No president has ever come close to merch-ifying the presidency like Donald Trump. According to a report published in April by CREW, the Trump Store (a for-profit part of the Trump organization that directly benefits the Trump family) has released at least 622 new products in Trump’s second term alone. This doesn’t include the many Trump licensing deals to push everything from Trump-branded sneakers, to watches, to phones, and even guitars. Taken together with the various beachfront peddlers, strip mall grifters, and carnival entrepreneurs hawking unofficial Trump gear and memorabilia, it’s estimated that the global market for MAGA merch is worth nearly a billion dollars. 

While there are signs that Trump’s declining popularity is hurting sales, MAGA merch remains big enough business that plenty of players in Trump’s orbit still want a piece of it – either to curry favor or turn a profit. But as the manufacturer of an Instant Pot embarrassingly discovered, it’s not as simple as just slapping “Make America Great Again” on the front of your product. Trump is famously litigious, and while he seems content to give low-level grifters a pass (like recognize like, I guess) the Trump Organization sued big retailers Amazon, WalMart and eBay last June for selling “inferior imitations” of Trump merchandise. This means that if you’re a legitimate operator looking for a slice of the MAGA merch pie, you’re going to have to get creative. You’ll have to get beyond the tribal signage of the red hats to tap into the core ethos of the movement. And what better way to explore what this core ethos might be than by a careful study of what MAGA media has curated for the dads.

It’s not just out of fear of legal repercussions that MAGA media avoids selling knockoff Trump merch. Beyond the red hats, and the watches, the guitars, the sneakers and the disturbing little Trump bobbleheads smeared with blood, MAGA media knows what MAGA dads really want – and it isn’t just to pay tribute. MAGA dads want to be “in” on it. 

To help illustrate what this means and the varied forms it may take, let’s look at a few examples.

The Dad Who Is All the Way In

Glenn Beck’s Blaze media rides a little under the radar. Its Father’s Day merch selection does not. Of the 36 items featured in the collection, nearly half of them are a reference to Trump’s rebranding of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The general vibe is “fuck your feelings”, but the matching set of Gulf of America Hawaiian shirt and swim trunks combines aggression with whimsy in manner that seems hard to pull off. I don’t know who this dad is, but that’s because I’m on the outside. Any dad who would want the merch on display here is all in on Trump, sure, but the guy who pulls on a Gulf of America Gun Show Tank is a level of  “in” I can’t really fathom. 

The Dad Who Loves Trump Tweets, but Says He Wishes Trump Would Tweet Less

Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire has struggled recently with a declining audience. Judging by the merch, this may be because he is asking too much of them. The Fathers’ Day collection is full of references to facts and truth, with a few nativist tchotchkes like a Mayflower tie and a Fauxcahontas statue thrown in to spice things up. Shapiro was against Trump before he was for him and it shows. With the exception of a Trump book of poems, curated from Trump tweets, the nods to MAGA are more attitudinal than anything else. Here, being “in” on it means having “the facts” on your side and being able to drop a truth bomb on those who don’t. If you know a dad who professes this power, you can help him prove it by buying him a literal truth bomb for $175. 

The Dad Who Voted For Trump, but Claims to be a Freethinker

Tucker Carlson says he is out on Trump; paradoxically, this might be the ultimate MAGA dad move. What is more MAGA than being a self-professed freethinker? The problem is that the Tucker Carlson Network merch might be a little too good to support this theory. In fact, TCN merch might be bigger than MAGA. Reading between the lines in articles recently published in Slate and the NY Times, TCN merch is so good it might be able to bridge populist movements on the left and right. Imagine this hat being the glue that holds the next political movement together. Now imagine wearing it on your head at your kids soccer practice while other dads puzzle over whether you mean it or are just being ironic. What’s more “in” than that?

Anyway, good luck with your shopping. And happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, whoever you are.

Only the Best People

A Definitive Ranking of Trump’s Most Qualified Ambassador Picks

U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas Herschel Walker has a warning for the traveling public: beware of jet skis. Walker’s office cautioned that local “jet ski rentals pose a serious risk of injury, death, and sexual assault” while sharing a PSA-style video on social media this week. 

The unfortunately worded tweet made the rounds online, drawing novel attention to the fact that Walker had been named as ambassador to the Bahamas in the first place. The former football star last made headlines in 2022 when his U.S. Senate campaign went up in flames amid allegations that the staunchly anti-abortion candidate paid for the abortions of multiple former partners. 

So it seems like a good moment to check in on some of Trump’s other picks for top diplomatic posts. While acknowledging that many presidents have used ambassadorships as patronage chips for donors and associates, the second Trump administration has gifted us with some real doozies. Here’s a very scientific ranking of some of the best. 

7. Tom Barrack in Turkey

Private equity real estate baron and longtime Trump buddy Tom Barrack is taking a break from repping the administration on cable news to oversee some pretty crucial posts in the Middle East. Since May 2025, Barrack has served as the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, U.S. Special Envoy for Syria, and U.S. Special Envoy for Iraq.

The results have been mixed, to say the least. At the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in April, Barrack reportedly praised local strongmen leaders and critiqued grassroots movements. “If you look at the region … the only thing that has worked are these powerful leadership regimes, either benevolent monarchies or a kind of monarchial republic. Everything else in the Arab Spring has just faded away, evaporated,” he said. Conservative critics including the Wall Street Journal editorial board and The Middle East Forum Observer denounced Barack’s remarks and his defense of the increasingly authoritarian Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s administration.

6. Doug Mastriano in Slovakia

So what if Doug Mastriano lost Pennsylvania’s 2022 governor’s race by an impressively large 800,000 votes? He also served in the U.S. Army for 30 years, spending time in Europe during the Cold War. So he’s a natural fit to become Trump’s ambassador to Slovakia. 

While the State Department’s certificate of competency for Mastriano emphasizes his “strategic leadership” and devotion to a life of service, the hard-right Pennsylvanian is perhaps better known for protesting COVID lockdowns; boosting the Big Lie and hanging around outside the Capitol on Jan. 6; and losing badly to Josh Shapiro in the general election despite securing Trump’s endorsement for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Mastriano has not yet been confirmed by the Senate for his new post. 

5. Charles Kushner in France/Monaco

Charles Kushner may have no political or diplomatic experience, but he sure is Jared Kushner’s dad. So he was dispatched to France to serve as the ambassador to the United States’ oldest ally. (The appointment was only made possible after Trump pardoned Kushner for a 2005 conviction for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions, and witness tampering.) 

In February, the real estate developer caused a diplomatic incident of his own. After the State Department blamed “violent radical leftism” for the killing of a far-right French activist, the French government summoned Kushner to answer for the Trump administration’s inflammatory comments. Kushner was a no-show, and was temporarily barred from meeting with any top French officials as a result.

4. Kari Lake in Jamaica

Fresh off a stint attempting to torch America’s foreign broadcasting agencies, Kari Lake was nominated to become U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica. The State Department didn’t even try to make this one make sense, just noting that Lake “has traveled to Jamaica on various occasions.” 

Lake spent 22 years working for the local Fox affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona, then spent most of the early 2020s running for and losing campaigns to serve as the state’s governor and U.S. senator. She was rewarded for her election denialism and staunch defense of President Trump with an appointment to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, where she tried to dismantle Voice of America and terminate hundreds of employees. (A federal judge voided Lake’s actions on VOA in March, determining that she was illegally appointed to oversee the agency.) From the State Department’s perspective, this amounts to having “demonstrated communication skills on complex issues of institutional reform and public trust.” (Lake’s Senate confirmation is still pending.) 

3. L. Brent Bozell III in South Africa 

In South Africa, the ambassador’s own rhetoric and views have landed him in hot water. As TPM has reported, L. Brent Bozell III actively opposed the fight to end apartheid, expressing concern that Black activists were overly aggressive in their push to put an end to anti-Black violence and legal segregation. As recently as March, Bozell criticized South Africa for affirmative action laws designed to rectify some of the systemic inequities of the apartheid era. 

The far-right activist was summoned by the foreign minister in March to explain his comments. The rift between the two countries has deepened since Trump retook office and accused the Black-led government of committing “white genocide” against Afrikaners, who the administration has encouraged to move to the U.S. as refugees. Per the AP, “ties have plunged to their lowest point since the end of apartheid, or white minority rule, in 1994.”

2. Mike Huckabee in Israel

One thing you might want to avoid as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel is suggesting that Israel has a God-given right to take over most of the Middle East. But Mike Huckabee did just that in a February interview with Tucker Carlson. More than a dozen Arab and Muslim nations condemned Huckabee’s “dangerous and inflammatory remarks,” which the former Arkansas governor insisted were taken out of context.

Huckabee is a former Southern Baptist minister and outspoken Christian Zionist. As NBC notes, “Prior to his appointment as envoy, he was outspoken about his support for the idea that Israel should annex the occupied West Bank and incorporate its Palestinian population, a position that would represent a reversal of decades of U.S. policy.” Just the kind of uncontroversial, savvy, cautious appointee the region needs at this time. 

1. Kimberly Guilfoyle in Greece

According to the New York Times, some Greek officials questioned whether the Trump administration was insulting them by appointing Kimberly Guilfoyle as the U.S. ambassador to their country. A fair question, since the former Fox News host, like so many of Trump’s diplomatic appointees, has no relevant experience. She did, however, take some classes on ancient history at UC Davis that she liked. 

Crucially, Guilfoyle also got dumped by Donald Trump, Jr. Hours after The Daily Mail published photos of Trump Jr. holding hands with Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson in December 2024, then-president-elect Trump announced Guilfoyle would get the ambassadorship. 

Since arriving in Athens, Guilfoyle has promoted oil and gas projects in the region, facilitated the development of a new U.S.-backed port, and gone to a lot of parties. Her 1:30 a.m. appearance at a nightclub for her friend’s concert, she told the Times, exemplified the “tremendous stamina” and loyalty that helped her win the president’s admiration. “That’s one of the things the president loves about me,” Guilfoyle said. 

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Trust Us on This One

“It’s a very strong deal. Nobody knows what it is, but it’s very strong.” – President Trump on the Iran Deal

How Much of This Week’s News Do You Remember?

1) Which two behemoth media companies did the DOJ decide to allow to merge this week despite antitrust concerns?

2) What constitutional right did the Trump administration reportedly consider suspending as part of its crusade against undocumented immigrants? 

3) What’s the latest estimated cost for Trump’s vanity ballroom project: $350 million, $400 million, $600 million or $776 million?

Answers below

It’s Called 4-Dimensional Chess!

Trump this week sabotaged his own new pick for Director of National Intelligence and made life hell for GOP congressmen in yet another elaborate ploy to try to pass voter suppression legislation that Republicans do not have the votes to pass. Here’s a mini-timeline to catch you up.

Step 1: Trump nominates the wildly controversial and unqualified Bill Pulte to become DNI.

Step 2: Republicans caution that Pulte will have a hard time getting confirmed, and Senate Democrats block FISA reauthorization in protest of his nomination. 

Step 3: Trump pivots to nominating Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, a safer choice. 

Step 4: Republicans scramble to rush Clayton’s confirmation hearing and get FISA renewed.

Step 5: Trump blows everything up in a dawn Truth Social post, saying he won’t move forward with Clayton’s nomination or approve FISA until the GOP passes the SAVE America Act.

Step 6: Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton (R-AK) tries to move ahead with the confirmation hearing anyway but gets egg on his face after Trump instructs Clayton not to attend.

Step 7: ???

The Democratic Party’s Literal Family Feud

Trivia answers: 1) Warner Brothers and Discovery 2) Habeas corpus 3) $600 million