Sales of T-Shirts with images of the shot ex-President started online in short order
After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the online sale of T-Shirts featuring images of the bloodied ex-President with prices ranging from nine to forty dollars, had gone through the roof within a short period. On these T-Shirts were slogans like "Bulletproof", "Legends never die", and "Shooting makes me stronger".
The 25-year-old Li Jinwei, who sells products on the Chinese platform Taobao from Alibaba, quickly designed T-Shirts after hearing about the incident. "We had over 2000 orders from China and the US within three hours", said the businesswoman to the media in Hong Kong.
The 28-year-old Zhong Jiachi, who deals with clothing on the Chinese TikTok-like platform Douyin, was surprised by the success of his T-Shirt sales. "I didn't expect Trump to have so many fans", he said. He had sold 40 T-Shirts featuring the image of the Republican within 24 hours. Like the two businesspeople, many companies and smaller dealers jumped on the bandwagon after Trump's supporters and campaign managers had already taken advantage of the power of the images shortly after the assassination attempt. Already in 2023, T-Shirts, shot glasses, and coffee mugs with Trump's historical police photo in connection with the charge in the Georgia state against election fraud had become a bestseller.
- Following the online sale's surge, pictures of the bloodied Trump T-Shirts started trending on social media platforms.
- Despite the controversy, Former Presidents' associations expressed concerns over the sale of these assassination-themed T-Shirts featuring Donald Trump.
- In response to the massive online sale, several fashion designers launched their own line of T-Shirts with empowering messages for Trump supporters.
- Time magazine featured an article discussing the impact of the assassination attempt and the subsequent sale of Trump's T-Shirts with the assassination theme.
