The White House may not have issued a Pride Month proclamation for two years in a row, but that hasn’t stopped President Donald Trump’s campaign from discounting their official “LGBTQ for Trump” T-shirts just in time for June.
Billed as an “exclusive equality tee,” the shirts feature a rainbow design and allow customers to “show your pride and your support for Trump.”
The designs aren’t new ― in fact, they first appeared on the president’s official site as far back as 2016, when he was still on the campaign trail. But they’ve become a hot topic on social media thanks to a Thursday article by NewNowNext reporter Kate Sosin, who pointed out that they’d been recently discounted from $30 to $24.
Sosin’s article was followed by similar pieces in Newsweek, The Advocate and other media outlets, and prompted GLAAD Chief Programs Officer Zeke Stokes to issue a statement on Twitter encouraging LGBTQ customers to shop elsewhere.
Other LGBTQ rights advocates and media personalities felt similarly, blasting the news as hypocritical given Trump’s anti-LGBTQ platform. Earlier this week, his administration has proposed a rule change that would allow homeless shelters to deny transgender people equal access to services.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the shirts from HuffPost.
Prior to Trump’s 2016 election win, however, then-spokesman Boris Epshteyn told CNN that the campaign was selling the shirts because the candidate “has spoken to the LGBT community throughout his lifetime.”
“When the horrible shooting in Orlando happened, he said that ISIS specifically is targeting the gay/LGBT community,” Epshteyn said at the time. “So, this is a candidate who’s very open to all communities, including this one, so we should be celebrating this, because it is revolutionary almost for a Republican to be doing this kind of outreach.”
Our 2024 Coverage Needs You
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.