Former President Donald Trump is a real estate mogul, a onetime game show host, and recently, a Bible salesman.
Trump made $300,000 promoting Bibles this year, according to financial disclosure forms released Thursday. The Bible, released in March, cost $59.99 and was dubbed the Lee Greenwood Bible, referencing the singer of āGod Bless the U.S.A.ā (The song is a staple at Trump rallies with the former president often walking out onstage to it). There is also a limited edition version of the Bible featuring Trumpās signature that goes for $1,000.
āI want to have a lot of people have it,ā Trump said in a promotional video for the Bible on his social media platform, Truth Social. āYou have to have it for your heart, for your soul.ā
Trump is extremely popular with evangelical Christians. A Pew poll released in March just a few weeks prior to the Bibleās release found that 67% of white Protestant evangelicals had a favorable view of Trump, the highest approval rating of any religious group in the U.S., followed by white Catholics and non-evangelical white Protestants.
āReligion is so important, and itās so missing,ā Trump said in the video. āItās going to come back, and itās going to come back strong, like our country is going to come back strong.ā
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Around the time Trump was hawking the Bible, he had begun endorsing a series of other products, including gold high-top sneakers, NFTs, and perfume. Like the Bible, the sneakers and perfume licensed Trumpās name but were not manufactured or distributed by him or any companies associated with him.
Last year, Trump reported earnings somewhere between $100,000 to $1 million for the NFT collection, according to a separate filing from April 2023. The sneakers Trump promoted sold for $399, and their launch came the day after a judge forced his company, the Trump Organization, to pay a $355 million penalty in a civil fraud case.
Trump has faced mounting legal bills as a result of his myriad court cases. Two months before Trump started promoting the Bible, a judge ordered him to pay the writer E. Jean Carroll $83 million for defamation after he denied sexually assaulting her despite being found civilly liable for sexual abuse in a previous hearing. The payments made to Carroll were also referenced in the disclosure forms under the liabilities section.
A New York Times investigation from March estimated Trump was spending $90,000 a day on his legal defense across a complex web of financial entities. A portion of Trumpās legal fees are covered by his Save America PAC, which was reportedly running out of money in June.