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When the Trump phone was first announced last June, it was proudly promised to be made in America. Trump Mobile quickly walked back that claim<\/a>, and now promises only that the T1 is \u201cassembled\u201d in the US. Except\u2026 it didn\u2019t walk it back everywhere<\/em>, with one website page still promising that the phone is \u201cAmerican-made,\u201d in likely violation of Federal Trade Commission rules.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On the Trump Mobile website\u2019s \u201cPhones\u201d page<\/a> you can still find the erroneous claim that the T1 is a \u201cPremium American-Made Smartphone for Performance & Privacy,\u201d which I was tipped off to by SEO consultant Sam Penny. It\u2019s not actually visible on the page itself, but appears in its meta title \u2014 which in turn populates both the browser tab and search engine results. I\u2019ve asked Trump Mobile for comment; as you might have guessed by now, I haven\u2019t heard back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAmerican-made\u201d is specifically mentioned by the FTC<\/a> as a regulated phrase under its Made in USA rules. In order to use it in marketing, a product must be \u201call or virtually all\u201d made in the US, right down to its components. We still don\u2019t know exactly where the T1 Phone is manufactured, but even Trump Mobile has admitted<\/a> that its components largely aren\u2019t US-sourced.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Otherwise, it\u2019s been a quiet week in the world of Trump Mobile. CNET<\/em> has been publishing its review of the phone in installments<\/a>, so check that out if you want some early insight into its practical performance, including a few camera samples and battery life notes. We\u2019re still waiting for our phones.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Meanwhile The Guardian<\/em> dug a little deeper<\/a> into last week\u2019s customer data breach<\/a> with the help of Jonathan Soma, a programmer and professor at Columbia University. Soma noted that the leaked data included a total of 27,224 preorder entries, but that the website generated a new entry every time someone reached the last step before payment, regardless of whether they paid the $100 deposit for the phone or not. As The Guardian<\/em> notes, that means \u201cthe true number of preorders was likely to be even lower.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Finally, I might<\/em> have found the third T1 Phone in the wild. A video showing the phone booting up was posted to TikTok<\/a> and Instagram<\/a> by Tres Wittum, a Republican who\u2019s run for both Congress and the Senate in Tennessee, losing the Republican primary each time. I haven\u2019t been able to confirm that Wittum genuinely bought his own T1 Phone, but it does seem possible \u2014 if true, it would be the first sign<\/a> that Trump Mobile has actually shipped a phone to a regular buyer. I\u2019ve asked Wittum how he got the phone, but haven\u2019t heard back yet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Got inside information on Trump Mobile or the Trump phone? Reach out securely from a personal device to tips@theverge.com<\/a>, or see our How to Tip Us<\/a> page.<\/em>
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