They already tried that with the 'Freedom phone' and it was a massive scam, so this is quite on brand for him.

I guess it's OK as long as it's not a peanut farm brand.

See, here's the thing when you're the President. You can just have your FCC chair shut them down. You can actively quash literally any boundaries to being a monopoly, and nobody can do anything about it (from a legal or regulatory standpoint).

It turns out that maybe having a gentlemen's agreement for how things should work was a bad idea.

Don’t forget the great Dish Wireless Network!

If he actually launches a Trump phone service, it’s going to be a MVNO that just piggy backs off the main operators’ infrastructure. It’s not like he or his idiot sons are going to buy spectrum and build towers.

He wouldn’t really be competing with T-Mobile, Verizon, or AT&T. He’d be competing with Boost Mobile and companies like that.

more illegal shit

With American-made phones and American call centres, right? Right?

Sounds like a great way to surveil everyone.

I wonder if he'll use Starlink...

We've had former presidents sell their family peanut farms to avoid conflicts of interest

The carters felt that relinquishing the business to someone else’s care would separate them from these affairs and avoid the possibility of their financial holdings resembling any conflict of interest while President Carter was in office.

Lol, yeah this doesn't scream android phone full of spyware at all! It's definitely not going to just be a rebranded Chinese made phone that we assemble in like Louisiana and can say is "American made"

All parts will be manufactured and assembled in the US? Right?

“Good morning and thanks for calling MAGA Mobile. Please listen to the options and make your selection for the best possible service. For Spanish, press 423 and wait for a knock on the door. For English, god bless Trump…”

I just imagine he has a giant carnival wheel that's marked with all sorts of reprehensible things to do and he just spins it whenever he's bored and proceeds to executive order whatever he lands on

Could compete how? He gonna buy infrastructure? He gonna be an MVNO? (None of whom are really competitive with the big players because a lot of them are either regional, have to buy batches of data and minutes from the big three, or have pretty bad service). And who's going to buy it? His supporters? I doubt that. This is just another grift.

If by "everyone" you mean the people stupid enough to buy a made-in-China Trump phone.

I would bet A LOT of money that all of your messages would be viewable by him

Maybe they are planning to take back that spectrum they gave to Boost/Dish on a pinky-promise that they'd actually become a competitive network, during the Sprint and T-Mobile antitrust case.

Which would fit with the FCC's increasingly mob-like behaviour under Trump.

Why do Americans feel the need to name state run shit with their own name?