It's almost as if the Republican National Convention is tearing a page out of The Love Boat.
On topic, The New Yorker (from June 22) reports that former Trump employees/grifters will say Happy Birthday to your grandpa for money:
When Cameo launched, in 2017, it trafficked in videos of C-listers such as Tony Hawk doing a “gender reveal” for a baby (price: two hundred dollars) or Caitlyn Jenner saying happy birthday (twenty-five hundred dollars). In recent months, the ex-Trump officials have come pouring in. Anthony Scaramucci used to be Trump’s mouthpiece, but he has extended his reach, offering himself as a spokesperson to anyone who can pay. On Cameo, he holds a pillow that says “mooch” and bellows, “I’ll talk about anything, as you guys know. So look me up, dial me in, and tell me what you want me to say to you!” He concludes with a loud kissing noise and promises to respond within three days. (Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s former deputy assistant, guarantees a same-day response.) Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime adviser, whose incarceration has been deferred, has started making Cameos for seventy-five dollars apiece—a quarantine pastime until he’s due in prison, later this month. The former press secretary Sean Spicer is on the app, too. “It’s like the Uber of fan mail,” he said. “People are paying for what they want.”
...There’s one person on Cameo who still works for the President. Although Corey Lewandowski is a senior adviser on Trump’s reëlection campaign, he appears to have ample time to make Cameos, which he films in front of an American flag and a Trump-Pence sign. He tends to insert his politics into his videos, such as when he commended a woman for working hard to “instill conservative values” in her pet pug, Nobu. Tomi Lahren, a Fox Nation host who moonlights on the app, randomly slips pro-Trump phrases into her videos, like “No obstruction, no collusion.”
One of the few Democrats on Cameo is Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor who was in prison for corruption until Trump commuted his sentence, earlier this year. (Trump fired Blagojevich, too—in 2010, on “The Celebrity Apprentice.”) Positioned in his study with a biography of Churchill behind him, Blagojevich advertises himself in a tone one might hear in a hostage video. “If you want a birthday greeting, an anniversary greeting, motivation, or any other kind of shoutout, I can’t wait to hear from you,” he says. Cameo is his main source of income. His wife, Patti, is also available for booking. (Forty dollars, “Political Spouse,” seated in a leopard chair.) “I was sheltering in place for eight years in prison, and, when I suddenly came home, it was time to figure out a way to make a living,” he explained by phone. “Some people, like me, leave the shithouse and make Cameos from home. Others leave the White House and make Cameos from home. It’s freedom. It’s a free market.”
Who would pay cash money to Seb Gorka to say happy birthday to a relative, when you can get Diamond and Silk on zoom for free, courtesy of the RNC?
UPDATE: This is possibly satire, as noted by Media Matters' Parker Malloy. Trump's camp fired this tweet back:
Fake news! There has been no announcement. https://t.co/dtVeoXrPQw
— Trump War Room - Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) July 27, 2020
