Donald Trump made $300,000 for promoting a Bible, filings show

Fortune Ā· (Drew Angererā€”Bloomberg/Getty Images)

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 ā€œGod 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 Trumpā€™s signature that goes for $1,000.

ā€œI 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. ā€œYou 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 Bibleā€™s 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.

ā€œReligion is so important, and itā€™s so missing,ā€ Trump said in the video. ā€œItā€™s going to come back, and itā€™s 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 Trumpā€™s 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 Trumpā€™s legal fees are covered by his Save America PAC, which was reportedly running out of money in June.