It’s now 2026, and I still don’t have my Trump phone

Happy New Year! I hope you got into 2026 safely, and I sincerely hope this is your best year ever. While I can make a lot of predictions about this year — Samsung will launch a Galaxy S26, Apple will launch a foldable iPhone, and the AI bubble will probably burst — one thing I can’t predict is when I’ll actually get the Trump phone I pre-ordered back in June. It’s been nearly seven months since I put down my deposit, and I’ve got literally nothing to show for it.

Three months after I placed the pre-order, I wrote an article summarizing what had happened since I hit “Checkout” at the Trump Mobile website. I highly encourage you to read that to get up to speed.

Since publishing that article, not much has changed. However, I do have a brief update from Trump Mobile on why it’s been so quiet about its first phone.

As with last time I checked in on the $100 deposit I put down on the T1 Phone, I called up 1-888-TRUMP45 to see if there were any updates. Not much has changed with the customer service aspect of Trump Mobile: I still had to select English as my language (why is Trump Mobile even offering a Spanish option? This is America!), and I was quickly connected with a rep who ostensibly lives in Missouri.

I asked the rep when I could expect my T1 Phone to ship. They told me the government shutdown delayed the phone shipments. This was an interesting excuse for a few reasons. First, Trump Mobile is a private, US-based company run by Trump’s two eldest sons, neither of whom is part of the United States government. Why did the shutdown affect the phone’s release?

It’s possible the phone still needed FCC approval, which wouldn’t have been possible during the shutdown (we saw this very thing happen with the OnePlus 15). However, that timeline wouldn’t align either, because the previous rep I spoke with in September said the phone would ship at the end of October. Unless that rep was misinformed, the FCC approval process should have been either concluded or well on its way to concluding by then.

Interestingly, the most recent customer service rep also seemed confused about the whole situation. They told me they don’t know why Trump Mobile hasn’t sent emails to update customers about the delay. They also didn’t know why phone shipments didn’t begin as soon as the shutdown ended. All they could tell me was that I should expect the phone by the end of January, which is the new timeline they’ve been told to give to inquiring customers.

Wait a minute — the last time I called was in September, and the rep told me the phone would ship at the end of the following month. Now I’ve called in December, and the rep has told me the phone will ship at the end of the following month. Is that all we’re doing? Just saying it will launch in a month every time someone calls?

When I placed my pre-order for the Trump phone in June, I knew what I was signing up for. I knew that, at best, I would get a shoddy, terrible device delivered to me. At worst, I would be scammed out of my $100 deposit. So far, it’s looking like I’m going to see the latter more than the former.

So what happens now? I’m going to keep waiting. I put $100 down on a Trump T1 Phone, and I will continue to write these articles until I am either allowed to buy the phone at its full $499 price or get a refund. Honestly, I hope the phone actually lands. I would love to review it. Hell, I would love to just see it, considering the phone started out as a Chinese iPhone clone, became an actual iPhone, and then morphed into a Galaxy S25 Ultra for some reason. What does the phone look like? What comes in the box? Is the box gold? How many Android upgrades will it get? How’s the camera? I can’t wait to dive in.

But hey, I’m also a realist, and I fully expect to a) never get a phone, and b) never see my $100 deposit again. I’ll see you all in three months with another update!