Here's Where Trump's 'USA' Phone Is Actually From
Nearly 100 billionaires are backing Susan Collins' reelection bid, cops are using license plate trackers to stalk their exes, and Trump cut ocean monitoring just in time for hurricane season
Good morning. I’m Ryan Rose, filling in for Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
The “Made in the USA” Trump phone turned out to be a two-year-old Taiwanese handset built with Chinese parts. Nearly 100 billionaires have funneled almost $10 million into Susan Collins’ reelection bid. A Florida cop ran his ex-girlfriend’s license plate through the Flock surveillance system at least 69 times. And the Trump administration is yanking a $368 million ocean-monitoring system out of the water just in time for hurricane season.
Corporate media is running cover. The FCC chair is making sure they know what happens if they don’t. And independent outlets are being bought out one by one. This is the news they don’t want you reading. AlterNet America is the people-powered response to the MAGA billionaire takeover of American media. We are reader-funded, editorially independent, and not for sale. We exist because of you. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please upgrade today.
Now, let’s get into it.
Trump’s “Made in the USA” Phone Was Made in Taiwan With Chinese Parts
Remember when Trump Mobile launched its gold-plated T1 smartphone with breathless promises that it was “designed and built in the United States”?
Well, iFixit got its hands on a unit and tore it apart, and the verdict is in: it’s almost identical to the HTC U24 Pro, a 2024 handset from a Taiwanese brand that was seemingly produced in China.
How identical? A phone engineered independently doesn’t accept another manufacturer’s mainboard and boot cleanly. This one did. iFixit literally swapped the HTC’s motherboard into the Trump phone’s body, and it worked perfectly with no modifications needed.
The “differences” amount to a paint job and a few cosmetic tweaks: a slightly larger battery with less powerful charging, a repositioned camera flash, and a different speaker grille pattern. Same Snapdragon chip, same RAM, same storage capacity.
As for that “American values” branding, iFixit’s analyst put it bluntly: either HTC sold the rights to the design of the U24 Pro to Trump Mobile, or (in the more likely scenario) they never owned the rights to the design in the first place, meaning Trump Mobile simply contracted the same Chinese factory that already builds the HTC phone.
Quietly, Trump Mobile has already scrubbed the “made in America” language from its website. Give it a few weeks and the box will just say “Phone.”
Nearly 100 Billionaires Are Funding Susan Collins’ Reelection
“Moderate” is a strange word to describe a senator whose reelection campaign is being propped up by nearly 100 billionaires.
Nearly 100 billionaires and their spouses have contributed to Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ reelection bid, funneling nearly $10 million to her campaign committee and the PACs supporting her. The Maine Monitor’s analysis of the $9.8 million in billionaire money found it represents a third of what groups supporting Collins raised from all donors.
Her largest single haul came from hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who put $2.5 million into a Super PAC backing her. Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, New Balance chair James Davis, and hedge fund manager Paul Singer each gave at least $1 million.
The majority of these donors made their money in hedge funds and private equity. There is a reason for that. In 2017, Collins voted for the legislation that delivered massive tax breaks to corporations and billionaires, and ProPublica reported private equity became her most reliable source of donations after she withdrew an amendment targeting an industry tax break.
Her progressive opponent, Graham Platner, raised $9.6 million from grassroots donors giving $200 or less, at an average of $26 a person.
The corporate press calls Collins a “moderate” without ever following the money behind her votes. We dig into the filings and disclosures that show who these politicians actually answer to, and that takes resources. If you believe in journalism that names the billionaires bankrolling senators, become a paid subscriber to keep us going.
Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People
America’s police departments keep buying tools that work great for catching criminals and even better for becoming one.
Jarmarus Brown, an Orange City, Florida police officer, ran his ex-girlfriend’s license plate through the Flock automated license plate reader system at least 69 times during the summer of 2024, according to court records obtained by 404 Media. He also searched the plate belonging to her mother at least 24 times and her father at least 15 times.
The searches were so frequent another officer noticed. According to a police affidavit, Officer Shadrich King saw a license plate reader image of Brown’s ex on the screen and warned him he could get in trouble. Brown said he knew, and said he was going to stop.
Flock’s readers document every car that passes them, building a national network of people’s movements. Police can then look up any plate and trace where a person has been over time.
Brown’s case is just one of more than a dozen around the country where police are accused of using Flock to obsessively and illegally stalk people, usually their ex-partner. Flock itself admitted it is “aware of 15 incidents of abuse, each surfaced because of the transparency and accountability features deliberately built into our platform.”
The technology works exactly as designed. That’s the problem.
Trump Gutted Ocean Monitoring Just Ahead of Hurricane Season
If ocean temperatures spike and there’s no one around to record it, does it even form a hurricane?
Yes. Obviously.
In Buxton, North Carolina, thirty-two houses have collapsed into the ocean since 2020. The most recent one was last week, devoured in under half an hour during a minor coastal storm. Now, just in time for hurricane season and an intense El Niño, the administration is defunding the Ocean Observatories Initiative.
The $368 million system runs 900 instruments across the Pacific and Atlantic, tracking waves, currents, salinity, carbon dioxide levels, and the soundscape for marine mammals since 2016. Its data feeds hurricane intensity forecasts, coastal erosion predictions, search-and-rescue operations, and oil spill cleanups.
Scientist Mike Muglia noted the Pioneer Array, fifteen miles off Nags Head, collects the deep-ocean temperature readings needed to predict whether a storm will strengthen. That array will soon be gone.
The military uses the same data to track the underwater soundscape off North Carolina, where German U-boats once hid in World War II. And to answer the question that just popped into everyone’s heads: yes, Iran has submarines.
Follow the Money. It Leads Here.
Every story in this newsletter is about people with money buying outcomes they couldn’t win on the merits. The Collins story is the clearest example: nearly $10 million from billionaires, in a race where the outlets covering it are too busy watching the FCC chair, who has made it very clear what happens to a broadcast license he doesn’t like.
That’s the trade. They keep their licenses and their billionaire owners happy. We don’t have either to lose. We have you, and that’s the entire arrangement. If you want this kind of reporting in your inbox every morning, hit the button below and upgrade your subscription today.
Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.
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