Can Trump Mobile identify the number of stripes on the American flag?

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep the conversation going every week. As usual, we’ve reached out to inquire about the whereabouts of the Trump phone. This week, despite our hopes, we still don’t have our device — but we do have some new questions about the company’s patriotic image.

It’s been a significant few days for Trump Mobile, which has boldly claimed that its phones will start shipping to customers this week. However, there’s no evidence that this has actually happened. What I really want to dive into today is the American flag.

As someone who isn’t American, I didn’t immediately notice that something about the T1 Phone’s design is… off. I’m not talking about the gold finish, the uneven camera lens alignment, or the fact that it resembles a two-year-old HTC model. I’m referring to the US flag prominently displayed on the back. At first glance, it seems fine, but a closer look reveals a curious detail: it only has 11 stripes. Last I checked, there should be 13.

The 13 stripes symbolize the original colonies that fought for independence from British rule, so it’s puzzling to see two of them omitted. Even stranger is that Trump Mobile altered its logo to introduce this mistake. If you examine the nearly-final version of the phone I saw back in February, with its large T1 logo (which has thankfully been removed), you’ll notice the flag at the bottom has the correct number of stripes. Someone at Trump Mobile decided to remove stripes for the final version. Under a president who wants to criminalize flag-burning, that’s skirting dangerously close to the law.

Left is the US flag with 11 stripes, as found on the latest version of the T1 Phone. Right, the 13-stripe version I saw in February.

There’s a more charitable interpretation of this situation. If you look at the two logo versions, you’ll see that the “Trump Mobile” logo beneath the flag has shifted slightly closer, about the same distance as the other stripes are spaced apart. Perhaps it’s now intended to represent the 13th stripe, which could feel a bit sacrilegious in its own right. While that would be a clumsy design choice, at least it wouldn’t be a blatant error.

But that doesn’t explain this week’s flashy promotional video for the phone. While it primarily showcases the typical version of the phone with its 11-stripe logo, there’s one luxurious, slow-motion close-up shot that reveals… nine stripes. Nine!? There’s no way to justify that with some clever design excuse; it’s simply incorrect, no matter how you look at it. It’s also confusing: Why does the logo change on the phone between different shots in the video?

The obvious theory is generative AI. Perhaps Trump Mobile just whipped up a quick prompt for a “slick marketing video for a golden phone that definitely has the correct number of stripes on the American flag.” This seems plausible, especially since there are other inconsistencies: the texture of the phone’s signature gold finish varies throughout, appearing frosted in some shots and perfectly shiny in others. The boot-up screen changes too, as does the packaging — I’ve counted three different versions of each. Surely only AI could be this inconsistent?

Maybe… but things are rarely straightforward with Trump Mobile. There’s another oddity in this promo video: a fleeting glimpse of a scratch on the camera module, easy to miss but impossible to ignore. You might have guessed it, but in subsequent shots, the scratch disappears. It seems unlikely that AI would introduce a scratch, suggesting that there was a real phone somewhere in this video — poorly handled and filmed — but likely mixed in with a sea of AI-generated clips.

It’s enough to shake one’s confidence that Trump Mobile actually has phones ready to ship. So far, I haven’t found a single person online who can credibly claim to have received a shipping alert, let alone a phone. We haven’t received any email notifying us that the two phones we ordered are ready to ship, and logging into our Trump Mobile account doesn’t show any clear indication that the company even has our order. There’s a box labeled “T1 deposit,” but it merely lists details of a cell plan we didn’t order and states “Expiry Date: To be assigned.” It’s unclear what exactly is supposed to expire, other than my hope of ever receiving a phone.

For what feels like the hundredth time, I’ve reached out to Trump Mobile for comment. For the first time, I’ve had to ask them if they know how many stripes are on the US flag.