Donald Trump’s 19-Year-Old Granddaughter Did What Grandpa Could Not

Fame Kai Trump lowered prices on something. By Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Heather Schwedel? Aug 27, 20265:50 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photos via kaitrump.shop. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. When we last checked in on Kai Trump, it was because the then-18-year-old budding influencer and eldest grandchild of President Donald Trump had Marie Antoinette’d her way through an Erewhon and posted an inane YouTube vlog about it. Did Kai learn anything from the resulting class rage and mockery? It’s unclear. What is clear is that this month she is starting college, where she is poised to get rich off endorsement deals, and she has a new line of merch on top of that. She has also not been deterred from vlogging about her shopping trips. Kai Trump’s college era has arrived, and it’s going to be a doozy. Kai is attending the University of Miami, where she will play on the women’s golf team. (If you want to feel positively ancient, I will point you toward her Instagram profile, on which she identifies herself as part of the class of ’30.) Insight into how she’s feeling at such a big moment of transition can be found, sort of, in her most recent YouTube video, titled “Shopping for My First College Apartment!” What’s on her mind is … that new line of merch she has! It’s called the Kai Signature Collection. It’s a bit of a bait and switch that her shopping video starts with essentially a commercial, behind-the-scenes footage of a photo shoot for the line (featuring Kai’s friends and some drone shots of them on a beach), but having followed Kai’s prior endeavors with merch—namely, the $130 sweatshirt with an unattractive KT logo she started selling last fall—I was curious to see what she was offering this time. It’s still fairly plain items with her initials slapped on them, but now, in addition to sweatshirts, she’s got T-shirts, hats, and tote bags, and you can get them in a wider variety of colors. However, they’re less exorbitantly priced, and the logo has been improved by being enclosed in a circle (and some items feature a different, scriptier KT logo instead), so I guess these are a little less offensive than the previous batch. None of which changes, though, the fact that on a very basic level, I don’t understand who could possibly want this. But that mythic consumer is real, apparently. “I’ve been SO blown away by all of the support for this merch drop!” Kai wrote on Instagram earlier this week. “Because of the amazing response,” she added, the store will be “extending” the merch drop for a few extra days. She urged her followers to “shop the collection before we officially close it on Wednesday.” I’m not sure why the collection has to “close,” seeing as it’s an online retailer—not that I would ever accuse a member of the Trump family of having a flexible relationship with the truth. As fun as it must be to “design” T-shirts, for the moment, at least, Kai is likely making the bulk of her money in endorsements. After a rule change five years ago, student athletes are now permitted by the NCAA to profit off their names and likenesses, and Kai is well positioned to cash in, having already scored at least three major endorsement deals. A recent Women’s Wear Daily article on her earning potential threw a bit of shade, pointing out that Kai’s name recognition comes primarily from her famous family rather than her athletic abilities. The piece also quoted at least one industry expert who expected Kai not to be particularly choosy about whom she’ll take money from. “She will try to maximize it without being overly discerning or even put her personal brand first,” the college athletics source said. It sounds as if Kai Trump may adopt a Sydney Sweeney–like approach to these sorts of deals, which is to say, she’ll take as many as she can get. It’s safe to assume that Kai Trump will be a far cry from your typical broke college freshman. This was underscored by the rest of her shopping vlog, which started in earnest after the obligatory merch peddling. Between dropping bons mots like saying “If you know, you know” while picking up some Midol, then saying it again a few minutes later about a bag of protein chips, Kai shared that she will not be staying in a dorm on campus but instead plans to live in an apartment while she attends school. Accordingly, she needs not just the typical dorm-room stuff like extra-long twin bedsheets and a shower caddy but everything it takes to stock a kitchen and bathroom, which she shops for with her mother, Vanessa, and some of her siblings. Vanessa Trump, a former model who may or may not have dated Leonardo DiCaprio but is definitely now dating Tiger Woods, comes across as surprisingly practical, reminding Kai that she’ll have to do her own cooking and cleaning when she’s on her own. “Dish soap!” she calls out at one point. “Kai will need to wash her own dishes.” Will she, though? Donald Trump Fashion Social Media Donald Trump Jr.