At his May 27, 2026 Cabinet meeting, President Trump turned a portion of the official gathering into a product pitch, handing each Cabinet member a $55 hat marking America's 250th anniversary along with a presidential challenge coin he had signed.
The caps are embroidered with Mount Rushmore, a bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty, and the Liberty Bell, and they are sold on the Trump Store, the president's for-profit retail site that also markets MAGA hats, branded shot glasses, and an anti-aging kit. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington had warned in an April report of “an unprecedented level of monetization of the presidency, even by the standards of Trump's own first term,” noting that the Trump Store has launched more than 600 products since he returned to office.
Ethics specialists said using a Cabinet meeting to promote merchandise tied to the president's private business blurs the line between official duties and personal profit. It was the same Cabinet meeting where Trump appeared to fall asleep during a briefing (see Trump Appears to Doze at His May 27 Cabinet Meeting, the Day After His Walter Reed Checkup) and where a New York Times analysis found one in six sentences was praise of Trump or attacks on Joe Biden (see NYT Analysis of 12 Hours of Cabinet Footage Finds One in Six Sentences Is Trump Flattery, Credit-to-Trump, or an Attack on Biden).