July 24, 2020

The Trump Files: Donald and the Great Geico Boycott

“Something has to be done about this terrible, terrible Geico ad.”

Mother Jones illustration; Shutterstock

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

This post was originally published as part of “The Trump Files”—a collection of telling episodes, strange but true stories, and curious scenes from the life of our current President—on June 16, 2016.

The Donald knows a bad commercial when he sees one, and he won’t hesitate to strike back against them.

“Something has to be done about this terrible, terrible Geico ad,” he demanded in the March 21, 2011, edition of his “From The Desk of Donald Trump” YouTube series. At the time, Geico was running ads that featured basically nothing but a gravelly-voiced man in a suit asking rhetorical questions. (Look, they were weird. Just watch them yourselves.) Trump was incensed by the ads.

“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen on television,” he complained. “They’ve got this third-rate guy acting like he’s Humphrey Bogart, he’s driving people crazy…It’s a horrible commercial, it bothers everybody.”

But, as always, Trump had a plan to solve this. “We ought to boycott Geico,” he told his internet fans. “This is not Humphrey Bogart. If it were, Humphrey Bogart would not be a very famous guy.”

Read the rest of The Trump Files:

 

We were built for times like these

Russian bots are impersonating us. Trump and his allies want to silence us. AI wants to (and does!) steal our content. The list goes on. But with 50 years of experience, we know we were built for this moment: We’re ready to keep diving deep and uncovering the truth, then getting that to you right here, completely accessible and never behind a paywall.

While our work is free to read, watch, and listen to online, it’s incredibly costly to make. Court documents, travel, research: It all adds up. Because we’re a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on reader support to fund our investigations. Will you stand with us in these extraordinary times, as headlines clamour for our attention and disinformation is rampant? We can’t get the truth out without you.

We were built for times like these

Russian bots are impersonating us. Trump and his allies want to silence us. AI wants to (and does!) steal our content. The list goes on. But with 50 years of experience, we know we were built for this moment: We’re ready to keep diving deep and uncovering the truth, then getting that to you right here, completely accessible and never behind a paywall.

While our work is free to read, watch, and listen to online, it’s incredibly costly to make. Court documents, travel, research: It all adds up. Because we’re a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on reader support to fund our investigations. Will you stand with us in these extraordinary times, as headlines clamour for our attention and disinformation is rampant? We can’t get the truth out without you.

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

INDEPENDENT. BECAUSE OF YOU.

Mother Jones has no billionaires calling the shots—just readers like you making fearless reporting possible

Donate