Trump Is Selling NFTs of Himself Dressed Up As Superman and Shooting Lasers Out of His Eyes

Donald Trump unveiled a series of digital trading cards of his face, his first foray into NFTs, on Thursday, just in time for the holidays.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a form of digital artwork that exist solely online and come with proof of ownership. You can buy one of Trump’s for the low price of $99.

Trump had teased a “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT” Wednesday, leaving many scratching their heads. He already announced he’s running for president. What could be more major than that?

Turns out, it’s digital collectibles!

The cards feature artistic renditions of scenes from Trump’s “Life & Career,” such as the time he stood outside Trump Tower, ripping off his suit to reveal a superhero suit à la Clark Kent/Superman and shooting lasers out of his eyes.

Or the time he stylishly paired a red, white, and blue space suit with aviator sunglasses (watch out, Joe).

And who can forget the time he fist-pumped while riding a red, white, and blue elephant?

In a video message, Trump also said that there would be prizes given out including dinner or a Zoom call with him, autographed memorabilia, or a golf session at one of his clubs.

Trump announced you can buy the cards “with your credit card or crypto.” It’s an interesting time to decide to get into the cryptocurrency arena, however, considering the industry has been rocked by the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Sam Bankman-Fried, who founded what was supposed to be a stable exchange, has been arrested and charged by the U.S. government with fraud.

Cryptocurrency’s value has dropped sharply across the board in recent months. Democratic Representative Brad Sherman on Tuesday described the sector as a “garden of snakes,” rife with opportunities for fraud and bad actors.

A 48-year-old Washington state man has been arrested and charged after he allegedly made threats against multiple members of Congress.

Mark Leonetti had allegedly threatened several Senate and House members, leaving hundreds of menacing, racist, antisemitic voicemails over the course of two years. He was charged with seven counts of making interstate threats, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

Leonetti’s relentless threats follow a national trend of heightened threats against members of Congress. According to the United States Capitol Police, cases involving “concerning statements and threats” spiked from 3,939 in 2017 to 9,625 in 2021.

“In this instance, Mr. Leonetti refused to stop his conduct despite contact with law enforcement and mental health personnel,” said U.S. Attorney Brown.  “We acted now because it has become clear it is the only way to safeguard the community and those serving it.”

One of Leonetti’s first threatening calls came in March 2021. “Am I here to kill [U.S. Senator 3] because I’m clinical. No, I’m not clinical. If [U.S. Senator 3] is delusional I’m still here to kill him, I’m not clinical,” the legal complaint’s transcription of one of Leonetti’s voicemails read.

The call prompted Capitol Police to investigate and subsequently work with the FBI to probe further. Investigators found that Leonetti had been previously visited by country mental health workers, and that the team stated Leonetti is paranoid schizophrenic.

Investigators made initial contact with Leonetti; there, he allegedly said he would try harming or killing “U.S. Senator 3” “only if justified.” In the rest of 2021 alone, Leonetti allegedly left over 400 voicemails to members of Congress of both parties.

As time went on, the voicemails only grew darker. “We’re going to barbecue your ass. We’re going to peel your ass inside out,” a September 2022 voicemail transcript reads. “I’m gonna murder you. It is justified,” read another from later that month.

Voicemails Leonetti left in October were even more vile, as he described particularly gruesome manners of inflicting violence on these members, and spewed vicious antisemitic threats—all of which will not be repeated here.

Leonetti left calls as recent as December 5, which again involved “murder” and “kill[ing].”

Donald Trump would be the preferred Republican presidential nominee in a multicandidate race, a poll published Thursday by NPR found, a sobering revelation after weeks of predictions that Trump isn’t popular enough to win the next election.

The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found that 45 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents prefer Trump for the party’s nominee. Thirty-three percent favored Ron DeSantis, a mere 8 percent said they liked former Vice President Mike Pence, and 11 percent said they wanted someone else entirely.

But several polls published in the past few weeks reflected a different outcome.

A Wall Street Journal poll published Wednesday found that in a race between the two, DeSantis would win 52 percent of votes to Trump’s 38 percent among Republican primary voters. A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found that Trump’s approval rating among voters had hit its lowest point in seven years.

Only 31 percent of all registered voters viewed him favorably, although 70 percent of Republicans still like him.

Several YouGov surveys conducted in November had DeSantis leading Trump in a hypothetical primary. A poll released on December 1 showed DeSantis had dropped behind Trump, but only by six percentage points.

The results of these polls may seem contradictory, but here’s the thing: Political polls aren’t really good representations of what the entire country is thinking.

Such surveys tend to overrepresent people who are more active politically or in their community, according to the Pew Research Center. Polls also seek to capture how all adults in the country feel, while election results generally reflect only about 40 percent of public opinion for regular elections and 60 percent for presidential ones.

Polls massively missed the mark about the results of the 2016 and 2020 elections. For the recent midterm elections, polls consistently predicted there would be an overwhelming “red wave” that would see Republicans easily sweep control of Congress.

Instead, Democrats kept control of the Senate—even flipping a seat—and Republicans took control of the House of Representatives by just a few seats.

Which is all to say, it ain’t over til it’s over.

The Twitter account tracking Elon Musk’s private jet may have been suspended Wednesday, but that won’t stop the person running it.

Jack Sweeney ran the account called @ElonJet, which tracked the location of the billionaire’s private plane. This information is publicly available on websites such as FlightAware.

But on Wednesday, the account was suspended, a month after Musk had promised not to do so in the name of “free speech.”

A few hours later, Sweeney’s personal account was also suspended, as were the more than 30 other accounts he runs that track the private jets of celebrities, including Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump, and Kim Kardashian.

And now Sweeney is ready for war.

The 20-year-old university student told Insider that he intends to keep tracking Musk’s jet on other platforms.

“I mean, fuck this guy,” Sweeney said, referring to Musk, about the suspensions. “This is ridiculous.”

Before the additional suspensions, Sweeney had already confirmed to press that he is working on a website version of the tracker.

“It’s important to hold people accountable, no matter what side they’re on,” he told BuzzFeed News.

“Now I’m going to keep going forever,” he continued. “I guess I can’t let him win now.”

Sweeney said over the weekend that his account had already been “shadowbanned,” meaning its visibility had been restricted. In a series of tweets that went viral, he claimed that Twitter was suppressing his posts.

This is not the first time that one of Musk’s Twitter beefs has resulted in an account suspension.

Several comedians and actors were suspended for mocking the Tesla founder, while a few prominent liberal accounts were blocked (and ultimately reinstated) for no apparent reason.

Meanwhile, hate speech and abuse have flourished on the platform since Musk took over in late October.

While Democrats navigate a newly insecure 51–49 Senate, with Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s recent switch to independent, it’s worth revisiting how close they were to maintaining a majority in the House.

A new report from Inside Elections details how, in the five closest GOP House wins, the Republicans won by a combined measly 6,652 votes. Republicans’ gain of any seats at all came from just 22,370 votes, the combined margin of their nine closest victories.

The most razor-thin victory was Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert’s closing win over Democrat Adam Frisch. The far-right candidate, expected to win 97 times out of 100 in FiveThirtyEight’s election simulator, had won the district previously by six points. This November, she won by 546 votes—a 0.16 percent margin that triggered an automatic recount. (The Inside Elections report did not take into account Boebert’s even lower margin of victory after the recount, and we’ve updated the numbers in this piece accordingly.)

Elsewhere, in New York, the state Democrats allowed a disastrous string of losses, with two races being lost by less than one percent, including the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Sean Patrick Maloney.

A combination of state party mismanagement, a lack of strong top-of-ticket campaigning from reelected Governor Kathy Hochul, and a disadvantageous redistricting spurred by former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s appointed judges all contributed to New York Democrats’ disastrous results.

In total, New York Democrats lost six races in redistricted sections that voted for Biden in 2020. Next year, the balance of power in the House will be 222–213, with a Republican majority. Six seats the other way, not even counting any other close race Democrats lost, would have made it 216–219, letting Democrats keep their hold of the House.

Of course, Democrats won narrow races too. And these wins came not just from coasting off attacking MAGA candidates as such but actually doing the work of campaigning.

As Slate’s Alex Sammon points out, one of Democrats’ major upsets—Marie Glusenkamp Perez’s House win in rural Washington—benefited from a massive organic ground game. The operation came despite lackluster financial support from the DCCC (losing-candidate Maloney’s committee), which dismissed the race as a “reach.”

The balance is nevertheless tight. Kevin McCarthy still hasn’t corralled together 218 votes to claim the speakership. Maybe Democrats could compensate for their losses and, instead of constantly leveraging the left, pressure McCarthy—or another potential Republican speaker—for some favors in exchange for the gavel.