FOLDED UP

Trump Merch Store Closes After Low Sales Amid Iran War

“It all started with the war. It was dead as a door nail the minute that happened,” the MAGA shop’s owner said.

A Trump merch store has shuttered its doors, with its owner saying business dried up in the wake of President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.

The Trump Truth Store in Crystal Lake, a suburb of Chicago, closed just a few months after opening, the Chicago Tribune reports. The MAGA shop was stocked with kitschy $25 T-shirts reading, “GOD GUNS AND TRUMP 2024,” “ICE ICE BABY,” and “DEPARTMENT OF DOGE.”

Owner Lisa Fleischmann blamed poor sales, tracing the slump back to Trump’s Feb. 28 launch of his war with Iran.

“Sales were really slow. It all started with the war. It was dead as a door nail the minute that happened,” Fleischmann told the Tribune.

She believes potential customers are shying away from buying or wearing pro-Trump merchandise because of the conflict, which is widely unpopular and has driven a wedge in the president’s MAGA base.

“I think (customers) are unsure what’s going on. Not everyone. But I think a majority of people are unsure what’s going on… And if you wear it, they feel someone might come up to them and ask them questions,” Fleischmann said.

A majority Americans disapprove of the war with Iran, which has claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members and more than a thousand Iranian civilians.

An AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey conducted March 19-23 found that 59 percent of Americans believe that U.S. military action in Iran has gone too far—including one in four Republicans.

Most Americans also expect the war to hit them personally. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted March 27-29, 56 percent of Americans said it would have a mostly negative impact on their personal financial situation, with only seven percent saying the impact would be positive.

Trump himself is facing some of the lowest job approval ratings of his career, with 59 percent disapproving of his job performance in a Fox News poll conducted March 20-23.

Fleischmann announced on Facebook on March 26 that her MAGA shop “is closed until further notice,” according to the Tribune. She had moved her store to its current location in mid-January.

“I am not even making ½ of my rent,” she wrote. “I never did this for the money but I don’t know how much longer I can last with paying for all the stuff.”

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But Fleischmann believes that things will turn around, confident that Trump will regain favor and sales will bounce back. She noted her store suffered a similar blow after Trump rolled out his widely unpopular “Liberation Day” tariffs last April, before he chickened out amid market turmoil.

She told the Tribune she believes the Trump administration “wants everybody to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America in style.”

“They don’t want people in a hurting economy,” she said of the administration. “They want everyone to celebrate that we’re America and we’ve had 250 years of freedom. So it’s going to start getting better.”

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Erkki ForsterNight News Reporter

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