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Trump hawks $399 branded shoes at ‘Sneaker Con,’ a day after a $355 million ruling against him
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — As he closes in on the Republican presidential nomination, former President Donald Trump made a highly unusual stop Saturday, hawking new Trump-branded sneakers at “Sneaker Con,” a gathering that bills itself as the “The Greatest Sneaker Show on Earth.”
Trump was met with loud boos as well as cheers at the Philadelphia Convention Center as he introduced what he called the first official Trump footwear.
The shoes, gold lame high tops with an American flag detail on the back, are being sold as “Never Surrender High-Tops” for $399 on a new website that also sells Trump-branded “Victory47” cologne and perfume for $99 a bottle. He’d be the 47th president if elected again.
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The website says it has no connection to Trump’s campaign, though Trump campaign officials promoted the appearance in online posts.
On Friday, a judge in New York ordered Trump to pay a whopping $355 million in penalties, finding that the former president lied about his wealth for years, scheming to dupe banks, insurers and others by inflating his wealth on financial statements.
That penalty came after Trump was ordered to pay $83.3 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll for damaging her reputation after she accused him of sexual assault. With interest payments, Trump’s legal debts might now exceed a half-billion dollars — an amount it is unclear he can afford to pay.
Trump’s appearance was met with clashing boos from his detractors and chants of “USA!” from supporters who arrived at the sneaker event decked out in Trump gear. The dueling chants made it difficult, at times, to hear Trump speak. Some held signs that read “SNEAKERHEADS LOVE TRUMP.”
“There’s a lot of emotion in this room,” Trump said of the reaction, after holding up and showing off a pair of gold shoes, then placing one on each side of his podium.
“This is something that I’ve been talking about for 12 years, 13 years,” he said.
As he spoke, the smell of weed occasionally wafted through the room.
Some of those who attended said they were unaware Trump would be there and continued to shop as a crowd gathered around the stage. Many in the audience said they were not from the city and instead hailed from nearby states and Washington.
The attendees skewed younger and more diverse than Trump’s usual rally crowds. Trump’s campaign is hoping he will be able to win over more young and minority voters, particularly young Black men, in a likely rematch against President Joe Biden in November.
This isn’t the first money-making venture Trump has announced since launching his third campaign for the White House in 2022. Trump last year reported making between $100,000 and $1 million for a series of digital trading cards that portrayed him, through photo editing, in a series of cartoon-like images, including an astronaut, a cowboy and a superhero.
Trump’s new sneaker website says it is run by CIC Ventures LLC, a company that Trump reported owning in his 2023 financial disclosure. A similarly named company, CIC Digital LLC, owns his digital trading card NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.
The website states the new venture “is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign.”
A Trump spokesman did not respond to questions about the event, including whether Trump was paid to attend.
The website describes the shoes as a limited-edition, numbered “true collector’s item” that is “Bold, gold, and tough, just like President Trump.”
“The Never Surrender sneakers are your rally cry in shoe form,” the description reads. “Lace-up and step out ready to conquer.”
Among those in the crowd were Jonathen Santiago, 21, and Danea Mitchell, 20, Trump supporters who drove from Monroe County in the northeastern part of the state for the sneaker event. They said they were excited to see the former president and praised how he interacted with the crowd. They also had kind words for the sneakers.
“The red bottoms were a really nice touch,” Mitchell said.
She shrugged when asked about Trump’s legal troubles. “I think it’ll be an interesting four years if he’s found guilty, but I have no doubt he’ll be president,” she said.
Also in attendance was a group of “cheer moms” from New Jersey who said they were in town for a cheerleading event and decided to stop by for a chance to see Trump.
Karla Burke, 48, said she heard some people booing and making noise, but that most people around her had been supporters. “At the front was a different vibe,” she said.
As for Friday’s penalty in Trump’s civil fraud trial, Burke said it doesn’t change her support. “I think it was unfair,” she said. “They’re just going after him so he’s not the Republican candidate.”
Biden-Harris 2024 Communications Director Michael Tyler slammed the appearance, saying: “Donald Trump showing up to hawk bootleg Off-Whites is the closest he’ll get to any Air Force Ones ever again for the rest of his life.”
Trump planned a rally later Saturday in Michigan in the suburbs of Detroit.
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Sen. Bob Menendez “put his power up for sale,” prosecutors say in closing arguments of bribery trial
A prosecutor accused Sen. Bob Menendez in a closing argument at his bribery trial Monday of putting his power up for sale to benefit three New Jersey businessmen who allegedly bribed him with gold and cash.
The presentation by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni, which will continue Tuesday, prompted the New Jersey Democrat to scoff as he left the courthouse, saying: “The government is intoxicated with their own rhetoric.”
Minutes earlier, Monteleoni urged the Manhattan federal court jury to follow a trail of hundreds of emails and text messages between the businessmen, Menendez and his wife to see the alleged link between the businessmen and stacks of cash, gold and a Mercedez-Benz convertible that investigators found in the couple’s home in June 2022.
He said they’ll also be able to match fingerprint evidence linking the businessmen and Menendez to the bribes, including fingerprints on the tape that bound thousands of dollars in cash hidden in coat pockets, boots and boxes inside the Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, home owned by his wife, Nadine Menendez.
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Monteleoni said the senator “put his power up for sale.”
The prosecutor said it wasn’t enough that the senator was one of the most powerful people in Washington as the ranking member and later the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he could block or approve hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to nations such as Egypt.
“He also wanted to use it to pile up riches for himself and his wife,” Monteleoni said.
Monteleoni’s closing as the trial enters its ninth week in Manhattan federal court was about half finished when court concluded for the day.
As he left the courthouse, Menendez mocked the prosecutor’s closing, saying the government had “spent two hours on charts, not witnesses that came before the jury.” He added that Monteleoni had spent “two hours telling jurors about what they believe conversations should be that they never heard.”
Monteleoni said there was a clear pattern of corruption and told jurors to closely review communications between the senator, his wife and the businessmen to see evidence of bribes along with proof that they were trying to cover up their schemes.
Monteleoni said defense claims that gold in the house had mostly been inherited by Nadine Menendez was belied by serial numbers on gold bars which showed they had come from the businessmen who paid bribes.
“All this talk about Nadine having family gold is a distraction,” he said.
In return for bribes, prosecutors say, the senator took actions from 2018 to 2022 to protect or enhance the business interests of the businessmen — including pressuring a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to protect a halal certification monopoly Egypt granted to a New Jersey businessman, Wael Hana, and attempting to influence a federal prosecution of another New Jersey businessman, Fred Daibes.
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Menendez, Hana and Daibes have pleaded not guilty and are on trial together. A third New Jersey businessman, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty in the case and testified against the others during the federal trial, the second the senator has faced in the last decade. None of the defendants testified.
An earlier trial against Menendez in New Jersey ended in 2017 with a deadlocked jury. After the charges were lodged last fall, Menendez was forced to give up his powerful chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Nadine Menendez is also charged in the case, but her trial has been postponed until August while she recovers from breast cancer surgery. She also has pleaded not guilty.
As part of his defense, Menendez’s lawyers have argued that tens of thousands of dollars in cash found in the senator’s boots and jackets resulted from his habit of storing cash at home after hearing from his family how they escaped Cuba in 1951 with only the cash they had hidden in a grandfather clock.
His lawyers have also asserted that Nadine Menendez, who began dating the senator in 2018 and married him two years later, kept him in the dark about her financial troubles and assistance she requested from the businessmen.
Menendez has held public office continuously since 1986, serving as a state legislator before serving 14 years as a U.S. congressman. In 2006, then-Gov. Jon Corzine appointed Menendez to the Senate seat he vacated when he became governor.
Several weeks ago, Menendez filed to run for reelection this year as an independent.
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