Nearly 1 million “Make America Great Again” hats have been sold by President Donald Trump’s campaign, his campaign manager revealed.
Brad Parscale, who helped propel Trump to the presidency and is working for the 2020 campaign as campaign manager, said that the number of hats sold is close to the one million mark.
“We’ve sold—we’re closing in on selling our one-millionth red MAGA hat, you know those are 45 bucks a piece. You do the math there really quick, it’s 45 million dollars,” Parscale said during an appearance on CBS “Face the Nation” on April 28.
Parscale touted the breadth of Trump’s operation, noting that the campaign is targeting states they narrowly won in 2016, such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and focusing on them in addition to trying to flip other states where they barely lost such as Minnesota.
The volunteers on the re-election campaign “will be connected through technology on your phone, through apps, and other development and different things,” Parscale told host Margaret Brennan.
“Some people might just hold block parties. Some people might be engaging on social media. Some people might be knocking door to door. In every single metric, we’re looking at bigger, better, and badder than we were in 2016. But this time we’re not out there trying to prove we can do something, the president’s proved he has done it and now we just have to deliver what he’s done.”
Brennan referenced a movement when the government was shut down over border wall funding negotiations where Trump’s campaign asked supporters to send a brick to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Parscale said that was an example of getting voters involved.
“They want to be part of an activity. They want to be involved. And this is a way that they got to—to buy a foam brick—and get it labeled with their name and sent to Nancy Pelosi’s office and say you know build the wall,” he said.
“You know its a way it’s a way for them somewhere in the middle of Nebraska who’s you know so far from the system but wants to be involved. This is a way for them to put 25, 45 dollars and say look I want to make a difference. We do that with T-shirts, we do that with hats,” he added, then revealing how many “MAGA” hats have been sold.
“Those kinds of things—that this president has—has changed the game in way merchandise, rallies, the entire experience of being part of the political movement, he’s changed it,” Parscale said.
In addition to the money from selling shirts, hats, and other merchandise, the campaign also gets information about voters through the sales, Parscale said.
“How much can you actually know about someone based on a text they’ve sent?” Brennan wondered.
“So the Republican Party built this thing called the Data Trust. One of the largest databases in the world to understand what people are,” Parscale responded. “And can now provide over to me a universe of people attached to the social media and or possibly by text message or different ways and say, ‘Hey these are the people that are staying in the criteria you’re speaking about.'”
