As I sat down in the bookstore cafe with a cortado and an oat bar, I panicked a little when I turned on the hotspot on my phone. What if my hotspot network betrayed me? Will it say “ALLISON TRUMP PHONE”? Would anyone smart sitting next to me sipping matcha notice this? What will they think of me?
Of course, that's not what happened. The default network name was “Allison's S25”, which reflected the Samsung Galaxy phone I was using rather than the network. But the experience sums up the strange feeling I can only describe as “uncomfortable” as I texted, talked, and scrolled through my day using my Trump Wireless data plan.
Frankly, I was surprised that the service even called itself Trump and not Liberty Mobile, the MVNO that runs the Trump Organization's MVNO service. But there they are, these five letters staring at me in the SIM card settings as soon as I installed the card. They were at the top of the status bar every time I swiped down to check a notification.
While testing Trump Mobile, I didn't go out of my way to do a few things that seemed contrary to the overall spirit of Trump – that's pretty much how it worked. I used this service to check the waiting list at my public library. I used it on public transport. I used it while shopping at the local grocery store. I used it to find my way to an independent bookstore. It worked just fine. It was still frustrating to do all of this with the Trump network indicator in the corner of the screen.
I have a number of complaints about the values that the Trump Organization and the Trump name represent. But wireless? Okay, I guess. My Galaxy S25 proudly displays the 5G icon most of the time. Trump Mobile is powered by T-Mobile, and T-Mobile's coverage here in Seattle, where it is headquartered, is pretty good. In fact, I got better download speeds on the S25 using Trump Mobile than I did using Verizon's own plan on the S25 Plus. I'm crying way for my Verizon service, that's more than the $51.99 Trump service costs. Note: The plan's official price is $47.45, which is a nice nod to the Trump presidency, although out of order to presumably charge a couple extra dollars. But if you add tax, you'll end up with $51.99.
There are little red flags here and there that suggest Trump Mobile may not have it all.
As is usually the case, the Trump Organization lent its name to an already well-established product—in this case, T-Mobile's wireless service. To be fair, this is exactly how an MVNO works, so it's no surprise that the network portion of the product works quite well. However, everything else was a bit hit and miss. There was the case of my missing SIM cardwhich wasn't great. But the problem was resolved by some kind people at customer service, and once I had the card in hand, I was able to start the service myself by inserting the card into my phone, logging into my account, and punching in a few numbers in the right place.
But there are little red flags here and there that suggest Trump Mobile may not have it all together. The customer service line hours listed on the SIM kit I received are different from the hours listed on the website, as well as the actual hours given when I called. The instructions on the SIM card box tell you to go to TrumpMobile.com/activate, but that page gives you a 404 error. Training video it tells you how to install a SIM card, something suspiciously AI-generated (and I swear to god the voiceover sounds like Dieter). It all seems mixed and contradictory. Really disgusting.
