Donald Trump really took the media’s obsession with him to the limit in his victory speech Tuesday night, droning on endlessly about how the Trump brands that Mitt Romney said had failed are alive and well. It was like a free infomercial for the Trump brand … except that Romney was right. Most of the products Trump was bragging about aren’t real products.
Trump got time on multiple cable networks to rebut Romney’s charge that “Trump Steaks” had gone out of business. “We have Trump steaks. And by the way, you want to take one, we charge you about, what, 50 bucks a steak,” Trump insisted. Yeeaahhhh ...
The only problem was, the steaks weren't actually Trump Steaks. In fact, they said Bush Brothers on them.
Trump Steaks were sold through The Sharper Image, but not since 2007. His campaign apparently just rounded up some nice-looking steaks so he could lie about Trump Steaks still being a thing.
Trump also touted his Trump-branded water, except he wasn’t showing off Trump Ice, which is indeed defunct. He was showing off water bottled by another company with a Trump label slapped on it to be served at Trump hotels and golf clubs. You know, the same as any event you’ve ever been to that had gotten water with personalized labels.
I can’t stress enough that this speech was carried in its entirety, or close to it, by the cable news networks. Yes, Trump is the Republican presidential frontrunner, but at a certain point he’s also a man conducting an infomercial for products that don’t really exist. On a night when actual news is happening, it’s a good idea to cut away and cover that, instead.