We’re still talking about the Trump phone

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. This week, I wanted to see how Trump Mobile stacks up to its conservative carrier competition.

Trump Mobile isn’t unique. I mean, it is in some pretty specific senses — it’s not every day the president’s family launches a phone company while he’s in office — but it’s far from the first company to offer a mobile carrier targeted at the conservative crowd.

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone’s whereabouts. This time, we tried, and failed, to find it at the world’s biggest mobile trade show.

This week Barcelona was taken over by the tech industry as Mobile World Congress descended on the Spanish city. The world’s biggest mobile show, MWC featured product launches from Xiaomi and Honor, colossal booths from Samsung and Motorola, and appearances from major carriers including T-Mobile and AT&T. You know who was missing? Trump Mobile.

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone’s whereabouts, and have stopped getting a response. This week, thanks to a reader tip, we think we’ve found the original phone the T1 is based on.

A long time ago, back when the Trump phone was but a single, inaccurate render and a contradictory spec sheet, we tried to figure out what other phone it might be based on. Now, eight months, two spec overhauls, and one redesign later, I have a good guess: the HTC U24 Pro.

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. This week, we explain how the presidential phone company connects to an older company that’s really running the show.

We’ve long known that Trump Mobile was linked to Liberty Mobile, a carrier that’s traded for years using freedom-themed branding to sell cheap mobile plans to a conservative crowd. Turns out, the two businesses are even closer to one another than it had initially appeared. And as we wait for the launch of the Trump phone — potentially as soon as next month, having been delayed from August — it’s worth understanding who’s actually behind the device, regardless of the name that will be emblazoned on its back.

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. Last week, we spoke to executives from the company for the first time, and this week we’re back with more details on how it began.

Trump Mobile may bear the US president’s name, but he didn’t come up with the idea, and neither did any Trump. In fact, it was the executives at MVNO Liberty Mobile that approached the Trumps with a pitch for the company, and it wasn’t their first rodeo; five years earlier, Liberty Mobile tested the same playbook with world champion boxer Canelo Álvarez.

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone’s whereabouts. This time, surprisingly, we received a response — and an interview.

The Trump phone is real — maybe, sort of, soon? — and I’ve seen it. Not in the flesh, but during an hourlong video call with two Trump Mobile executives who showed me a phone, and told me more about why it was delayed, when it might actually reach buyers, and why its spec sheet has changed again and again.

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone’s whereabouts. As usual, we’re still waiting for a response. In the meantime, I finally got a reply from a company exec.

After months — months — of emailing various official Trump Mobile accounts and press addresses, last week someone answered back. Don Hendrickson, a member of the company’s executive team, finally replied to one of my emails and offered to talk, but he’s ignored me ever since.

Where’s the Trump Phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump Phone’s whereabouts. As usual, we’re still waiting for a response. In the meantime, it turns out we might have two Trump Phones to worry about.

The Trump Phone may be no more than a whisper in the wind, but Trump Mobile is already planning a second. One of the company’s top executives revealed in an interview that a “T1 Ultra” is also in the works, though we know even less about it than we do about the first phone.

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone’s whereabouts. As usual, we’re still waiting for a response. In the meantime, some impressive alleged sales figures have gone viral — but they might be too good to be true.

This week, I saw something new in my regular scouring of the web for updates on the Trump phone: a repeated claim that Trump Mobile has secured nearly 600,000 preorders for the phone. With a $100 deposit per device, that would make for a tidy $60 million payday for Trump Mobile already.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other Democrat lawmakers have written an open letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking for an investigation into alleged “false advertising and deceptive practices” from Trump Mobile. The company first announced its T1 Phone more than six months ago, but is yet to ship a single phone to buyers.

The letter is signed by 11 Democrats, led by Warren and Rep. Robert Garcia. It references Trump Mobile’s since-deleted “Made in America” branding; the fact that it’s been taking $100 deposits for the phone without anything to show for it; and a social media ad that, as the letter notes, The Verge identified as an edited render of a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone’s whereabouts. As usual, we’re still waiting for a response. In the meantime, it’s nowhere to be found at CES 2026.

CES isn’t a big smartphone show, but there have been more new handsets here than I expected. Samsung gave us our first hands-on look at the Galaxy Z TriFold, Motorola launched its first book-style Razr Fold, and phone keyboard company Clicks revealed its BlackBerry-esque Android phone the Communicator.

Where’s the Trump Phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump Phone’s whereabouts. As usual, we’re still waiting for a response. In the meantime, it’s missed yet another of its promised release dates.

When we started writing about Trump Mobile regularly, it all began with a simple post pointing out that the company’s T1 Phone had missed its original release date. Now, three months later, it’s missed another one.

Where’s the Trump Phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week, except next week, when we take a break until the new year. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump Phone’s whereabouts. As usual, we’re still waiting for a response. In the meantime, we’re wondering who’s actually behind the mobile company.

Yesterday’s announcement that one of the Trump companies is merging with TAE Technologies raised an unexpected prospect: Is the company that gave up on building phones in the US about to try making a nuclear fusion power plant instead?

Where’s the Trump Phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump Phone’s whereabouts. As usual, we’re still waiting for a response. In the meantime, we’re publishing a little reminder of some wireless tech terms. You know, in case you forgot.

6G? 4K? 3D? Whether you’re a layperson or the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world, it can be hard keeping a lot of numbers and letters in your head. Not that I’m pointing a finger; surely anyone can forget what a silly little combination of numbers and letters means! Especially if you have things like nuclear codes taking up space in your brain. So let’s say, hypothetically, you were to confuse wireless standards with imaging sensor resolutions during an important meeting. So embarrassing! But not to worry — I found just the resource to help you brush up on some of those pesky abbreviations: a “blog” published on TrumpMobile.com.

It’s been well established that the Trump Phone doesn’t exist. But that isn’t the only phone Trump Mobile sells. It also offers a range of refurbished Apple and Samsung handsets that you can buy right now. You really shouldn’t though.

I was relieved reading Allison’s coverage over the last two weeks to discover that not everything about Trump Mobile is a scam. It may have taken her a couple weeks to actually get a SIM card, but once it arrived it did work just fine — it’s T-Mobile, after all. It made me realize that you could, if you wanted, get Trump Mobile coverage on a Trump Mobile-sold phone right now, so long as you don’t mind that the hardware won’t have “American hands behind every device.”

Where’s the Trump Phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump Phone’s whereabouts. As usual, we’re still waiting for a response. In the meantime, we’re testing the service on Trump Mobile’s MVNO. Here’s how that went.

As I sat down at the bookstore cafe with a cortado and an oat bar, I panicked just a little bit when I turned on my phone’s hotspot. What if my hotspot network gave me away? Would it say ALLISON’S TRUMP PHONE? Would someone smart sitting next to me, sipping matcha, catch sight of it? What would they think of me?

Where’s the Trump Phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. While we wait, we tried to order a Trump Mobile SIM card so we can test the service on a different device. Here’s how that went.

Signing up for Trump Mobile’s wireless service felt a little like engaging in espionage.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been asking — repeatedly — where the promised Trump phone is, whether it exists, and what happened to all the money people have already paid for deposits. And I’m going to keep doing that every week for the foreseeable future.

Not everyone thinks I should. I’ve been told that covering Trump Mobile is “playing into his hands,” that “this obvious con [doesn’t need] any more publicity,” and that “we don’t need to read about it literally every week.” And those are just the nice messages — you don’t want to see some of the other ones.

Last week I asked where the Trump phone was. The answer? Nowhere. There’s no update, no response, no sign of it. And since it’s still not here, I am — again — asking the same question. And I’m afraid I’m going to keep being here, week in, week out, until I have a T1 Phone in my hands. This is what I do now.

Nothing’s changed since last week. The website sits there, unchanged. There’s still no release date beyond “this year,” I’ve still had no reply from my emails to Trump Mobile, and the company’s social channels are still sitting silent.

Almost exactly a month ago, I wrote an article for theverge.com pointing out that the T1 Phone 8002 (gold version) — a.k.a. the Trump phone — had missed its promised release date. Now here I am again, because the phone still hasn’t come out.

In case you’ve forgotten, the T1 is a very gold mid-range Android phone that was announced in June alongside a $47 Trump Mobile wireless plan. The Trump Organization promised an August launch in its press release, but said September on its website. An unnamed spokesperson later told USA Today that the launch had been delayed to October.

I’ve got bad news if you’ve been impatiently awaiting the release of the Trump Mobile T1: it looks like the gold-tinted, bargain basement smartphone with “American values” is running late. It was initially meant to launch in September, but with only a few hours of the month left, that’s looking increasingly unlikely.

The T1 was announced in June, along with the launch of Trump Mobile’s $47.45 monthly service plan. The release date was always a little unclear — the Trump Organization’s press release promised the phone would arrive in August, while the Trump Mobile website claimed September — but either way, it hasn’t happened. That means any buyers who actually stumped up the $100 deposit for the hardware still have nothing to show for it.