As I sat down at the bookstore cafe with a cortado and an oat bar, I panicked just a little bit when I turned on my phone’s hotspot. What if my hotspot network gave me away? Would it say ALLISON’S TRUMP PHONE? Would someone smart sitting next to me, sipping matcha, catch sight of it? What would they think of me?

That’s not what happened, of course. The default network name was “Allison’s S25,” reflecting the Samsung Galaxy phone I was using, not the network. But the experience sums up a weird feeling I can only describe as “icky” as I texted, talked, and scrolled through my day using my Trump Wireless plan.

Honestly, I was surprised the service even identified itself as Trump and not Liberty Mobile, the MVNO that the Trump Organization’s MVNO service rides on. But there they were, those five letters staring back at me under my SIM settings once I installed the card. They were at the top of the status bar every time I swiped down to check a notification, too.

I didn’t really go out of my way to do a bunch of things while testing Trump Mobile that seem antithetical to the whole Trump ethos — that’s just kinda how it worked out. I used the service to check on a hold at my public library. I used it on public transportation. I used it while shopping at a local grocery oo-op. I used it to find my way to an indie bookstore. It worked just fine. It still felt icky doing this all with that Trump network indicator in the corner of the screen.

I have a number of complaints about the values that the Trump Organization and the Trump name represent. But the wireless service? Fine, I guess. My Galaxy S25 proudly displays a 5G badge most of the time. Trump Mobile runs on T-Mobile, and T-Mobile coverage is quite good here in Seattle, where it happens to be headquartered. In fact, I got better download speeds on the S25 using Trump Mobile than I did using my own Verizon plan on an S25 Plus. I pay way more for my Verizon service than the $51.99 that the Trump service costs. Side note: the plan’s official price is $47.45, which is a cute nod to Trump’s presidencies, albeit out of order presumably to charge a couple extra bucks. But when you add tax, you end up at $51.99.

As it is wont to, the Trump Organization has slapped its name on a product that was already well established — in this case, T-Mobile wireless service. To be fair, that’s basically how an MVNO works, so it’s not surprising that the network part of the product works quite well. Everything else, though, has been a little hit-and-miss. There was the case of my missing SIM card, which was not great. But the problem was resolved by some kind customer service folks, and once I had the card in hand, I was able to get service started on my own, by putting the card in my phone, logging into my account, and typing in some numbers in the right place.

But there are little red flags here and there suggesting that maybe Trump Mobile doesn’t have it all together. The hours given for the customer service line listed on the SIM kit I got differ from what’s on the website, which is different from the actual hours given when you call. The instructions on the SIM packaging tell you to go to TrumpMobile.com/activate, but that page throws a 404 error. The instructional video that tells you how to install a SIM card looks suspiciously AI-generated (and I swear to god that voice-over sounds like Dieter). It all feels slapped together and inconsistent. Icky, indeed.