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I knew this day was coming. I don’t mean that I had some sort of premonition that President Donald Trump’s granddaughter would launch a “collection” of overpriced sweatshirts, because that would have been oddly specific. I’m just saying that broadly speaking, I had a hunch that Kai Trump was one to watch, that it was only a matter of time before she embraced her influencer potential and started to emerge as the Trump family’s true Gen Z ambassador. Now, with her first foray into fashion—to use the term loosely—that day is here, and we should all be a little scared.

At 18, Kai is the oldest of Trump’s grandchildren, the daughter of Donald Trump Jr. and his ex-wife, Vanessa Trump (who, you may recall, last we heard was dating Tiger Woods). Kai has at least one big thing in common with her mother’s boyfriend, and her grandfather too: She golfs. She’s good enough at it that she has already announced she will play at the University of Miami next year, where she’ll also likely rake in significant cash via endorsement deals and sponsorships—the Washington Post put those at $1.2 million so far. Though she’s still in high school, she’s had to navigate being in the public eye to some extent for her whole life, thanks to her famous family. Still, she was just 9 when her grandfather started his first term, so it makes sense that she only really started building more of a personal brand last year. And now these sweatshirts mark a potentially crucial turning point in her ascent, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Kai’s first big moment in the spotlight was at the 2024 Republican National Convention, when she gave a speech wherein she described Trump as a “normal grandpa.” She also started posting on social media regularly around then, and she has since grown a following of 3.3 million on TikTok, 1.9 million on Instagram, and 1.2 million on YouTube. Her vlogs about election night, watching a SpaceX rocket launch, and the inauguration (one of which was memorably titled “My Grandpa Became the President Again”) are what really got me to take notice of her. At the same time, she also showcased her life as a relatively normal kid, with videos about trying everything at Starbucks or Dunkin’ or getting her wisdom teeth removed.

Kai uses Gen Z slang and occasionally lightly mocks her father the way most teenagers do; on Inauguration Day, her main concern was securing a cookie beforehand. Part of what makes her likable is that she doesn’t tend to get political, meaning there isn’t a record of her saying a bunch of vile things. Maybe she doesn’t even consider herself political, and it’s worth remembering that she didn’t choose to be born a Trump. But a wholesome, respectable veneer can be the perfect way to whitewash abominable politics, which was Ivanka Trump’s whole M.O. not so long ago. Ivanka’s lack of presence in the second Trump term, along with first lady Melania Trump’s habitual ghosting, leaves a void for a palatable-seeming woman in the Trump family that Kai could easily eventually fill. She might only be a kid now, but it’s hard to ignore that she’s the perfect potential main character for establishing some soft power with Gen Z, a new avenue for young women and young people to get on the right-wing pipeline and into her “normal grandpa’s” movement.

Until now, all of that was theoretical. It sure looked like Kai Trump was laying the groundwork to become an influencer and the Trump family’s special Gen Z envoy, but maybe she would decide that she’d rather not be in the public eye in college, or otherwise set herself apart from her family somehow. After all, commentators love to cast Barron Trump, Kai’s uncle (!) and Trump’s youngest child, as some kind of genius at tapping into the Gen Z id, but Barron himself keeps such a low profile that it’s a fair assumption that he has no real interest in taking up that mantle. So Kai Trump coming out with a ludicrous line of $130 sweatshirts—and apparently hocking them in front of the White House—actually shows us a lot. It shows us that she’s committed to all of this, from being a public person to using her image to make money. Posting videos is one thing, but now she’s monetizing with merch, an important step for any influencer. Slapping the Trump name on stuff and selling it is a time-honored family tradition, and Kai is proving that she’s a Trump through and through.

And because they are a quintessential Trump product, it goes without saying that the sweatshirts are ugly, with a confusing and cheap-looking K-on-top-of-a-T logo that does for logos what “Be Best” did for slogans. In her X post introducing the items, I particularly liked the part where Kai recommended that people “mix and match” them, because how exactly would you mix and match sweatshirts with other sweatshirts? I get it—buy them all!—but even Steve Bannon knows you can’t wear multiple sweatshirts at once. Kai also specifically mentioned the “quality of the fabric” and the “details in the designs,” which is so perfectly Trump: What details? It’s a sweatshirt. And tell us more about this “quality”! I reached out to ask where these sweatshirts are manufactured—in America, one would hope?—but I didn’t get a response.

Coming out with a vanity line of merch and calling it a collection is pretty standard nepo-baby behavior—one of the Real Housewives’ kids did it on the first season of Salt Lake City—but it’s saying something that Kai’s sweatshirts are making me feel like I was too harsh on Brooks Marks, whose $78 hoodies suddenly look reasonably priced and well-designed.

It would appear that Kai did a photo shoot at the White House to model these sweatshirts, something that might have raised eyebrows back when rules mattered. They don’t anymore, but unfortunately, I worry that Kai Trump, sweatshirt proprietor and Trump family chosen one, may turn out to matter quite a bit.

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