Strike a pose and profit: Trump's mugshot goes viral, with campaign, craft makers cashing in (2024)

Donald Trump's photo from the Fulton County Jail may be the most famous photo ever taken of an American president. It also may be the most lucrative.

Oh, the places a mugshot will go — and the money it can make.

Former President Donald Trump’s mugshot has gone viral, becoming a hot item for merchandise. You can find it on T-shirts, shot glasses, coffee mugs, and even internet memes of questionable taste.

The photo began making the rounds as soon as the sheriff’s office in Fulton County, Georgia, released it on the evening of Aug. 24.

The Trump team immediately took full advantage of it to raise money for the former president’s re-election campaign by creating merch — sweatshirts, drink holders and more — that pairs the mugshot with the phrase “never surrender,” even though he did surrender to authorities in Georgia, as he did in Florida, New York and Washington.

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As of Aug. 26, just two days after the mugshot was released, the Trump campaign said it had raised $7.1 million, according to Politico. In a recent video from Trump himself on his Truth Social social-media site, he claimed that total has risen to $10 million, and Fox News Digital reported that was part of an overall haul topping $20 million in the month of August.

Many fans and opponents of Trump have used the photo for their own profit as well, taking to websites such as Etsy and Ebay to sell nonaffiliated merch that sells for about $25 apiece.

Some people have even mashed the mugshot up with sweatshirts from another signature pop culture moment from the summer of 2023, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The Eras tour sweatshirts showcase multicolored panels, with each one being a photo relating to one of Swift's 10 studio albums, surrounding a full body photo of her. Trump’s version showcases his mugshot with varying photos of the nation’s 45^th president all around.

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The mugshot hasn’t just inspired merchandise. It’s also led to multiple memes of varying and dubious taste. Some have likened Trump to a toddler. Others edit the photo to make Trump look even more menacing, and some make fun of his pose by editing items around him, such as a photo of President Joe Biden. Those are just the tame ones.

Trump has not seemed phased by the publicity of his mugshot; in fact, he has encouraged it. In a video posted Aug. 31 on Truth Social, he holds up a T-shirt adorned with his mugshot and says things like “I’m your favorite president” and the “plan” by Atlanta Democrats to make him look like a criminal “totally backfired, as you’ve probably read.”

While Trump hawks his own merchandise, his team has railed against opponents and merchandise the campaign hasn’t authorized.

Chris LaCivita, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign, posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Trump’s team will take legal action against “scammers” and other people looking to "trick" donors, believing that others making merchandise and selling it takes money away from the actual campaign donations.

There is just one problem with that statement, legal experts say.

Trump's team can't do anything against anyone who uses his mugshot in any way.

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Trump's team has no power to do as it threatens because Trump does not own the rights to the photo — Fulton County authorities do. Officials there did not return a call seeking comment, but they have not talked at all about limiting its use.

"(The county jail) have not, as far as I know, taken the route of using their copyright interest in the photo to impose license terms, such as Getty Images might do or one of those entities," said Hannibal Travis, an intellectual law professor at Florida International University.

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Fulton County, alongside whoever took the photo, gets to decide what people do with the mugshot. Historically, government agencies have rarely imposed copyright restrictions on photos they own.

“They don't really have a monetary interest in the photo in the way a photojournalist would,” Travis said.

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While Trump may not have the power to claim a copyright on the photo, he is a special case when looking at the planning of the mugshot and the spread of it.

In the mugshot Trump is hunched over, giving the camera what some call the "Kubrick stare." It calls to mind Jack Nicholson in the movie “The Shining,” and overall, it just looks angry or "menacing," observers have said.

Why was Trump allowed to look the way he did? Because there are no rules for how one poses in a mugshot, Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said.

"You can smile in your mugshot. There's no rule against that, unless a specific jurisdiction bans it which I'm not aware of, but there are different models for mugshots," said Aronberg. "Donald Trump decided to do a menacing stare, which was clearly pre-planned."

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Aronberg, alongside many others, believes that Trump with his one mugshot, seeing as he never got one for his other indictments, was going to use it to his advantage. His campaign was already using a fake mugshot to raise money beforehand. All it had to do was swap out the fake mugshot with the real one.

It's not a move most other politicians are in position to make, Aronberg said. "Trump's appeal is not transferable. He's a unique cult of personality that will engender undying, unquestioned support and loyalty from his base," he said.

Even now, after four indictments, Trump remains the front-runner for the Republican party in the election.

Money, money, money: Novelty companies cash in on Trump mugshot

It’s hard to emulate Trump’s appeal, but you can copy his merchandise. Many already have.

If you type “Trump’s Mugshot” into either Etsy or Ebay, you’ll be met with hundreds of results showing different designs with the mugshot as the centerpiece.

Era’s tour mashups, Trump’s mugshot lined up next to those of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton’ and matching the mugshot with the phrase GOAT, short for “greatest of all time,” are just a few styles. Recent Halloween designs — “Trumpkin: Make Halloween Great Again” — have also started popping up.

“Listings related to political candidates may be allowed if they do not otherwise violate our seller policies, which prohibit . . . support or glorify hatred, hate against protected identities, attempting to incite violence against individuals or groups and more,” said Etsy’s communications team in a prepared statement about allowing listings involvingthe mugshot.

Etsy, for the time being, has not said anything about removing mugshot related merchandise.

The mugshot hasn’t just inspired merchandise. Many have taken to the internet to share their meme, which are internet jokes, usually involving editing a photo or adding text to give the image a new, funnier meaning. While their creators usually don’t make money off them, they are another way to keep the mugshot viral.

A trained eye can even see a difference in how older and younger audiences are joking about the mugshot.

Older meme makerssimplyadd text to the photo to add commentary or to make the photo seem like a reaction. One example being the photo under the caption “what the chicken nuggets in my microwave see at 3 am.”

Younger internet users get creative, editing the photo to oblivion. Some edit hearts and bows, chains and sunglasses onto Trump. Othershave edited all the mugshots to be different Batman or cartoon villains.

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Trump's is not the only celebrity mugshot to have circulated, either for profit or out of curiosity. The official arrest photos for rock 'n' roll king Elvis and actress and anti-war activist Jane Fonda have made the rounds for decades.

Now that the Trump photo has been out in the public domain for some weeks it’s taken on a life of its own. The next most viral people right now are Beyonce and Taylor Swift, who are possibly the closest people to Trump who could capitalize off their mugshot. It’s highly unlikely either will find themselves in a position to do so.

As for the future of political virality, Washington will not have to worry too much about politicians and their mugshots going viral. As Aronberg said, Trump's virality isn't exactly transferable.

Kevin Wagner, the department chair for political science as Florida Atlantic University, believes this situation shows the relationship Trump has with his voter base.

“The former president is a sort of unique figure in the types of devotion among his supporters that seems to garner and not every politician, and certainly the vast majority of politicians have not been able to reach voters and get this level of commitment from them,” Wagner said.

He said it’s too early to make predictions of what Trump’s mugshot means for Washington, but one he did count on is the increasing monetization through merchandising.

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“The monetization of things like T-shirts … I suspect we will see continuing mostly because voters are increasingly living in their own filter bubbles, where they’re constantly bombarded with support and messages.”

He said, at the end of the day, this is a “reflection of the state of American politics.”

For now, many are anticipating the multiple Trump trials and its results at the polls and beyond. The nextpossible thing to outdo the Trump mugshot would be a Trump conviction.

Oh, the places that will go.

Arianna Otero is a breaking news reporter forThe Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at aotero@gannett.com or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @ari_v_otero. Support local journalism:Subscribe today.