Trump Mobile Backlash: CNN Tech Expert Claims New Phone Looks Like a Urine Sample

Donald Trump's long-delayed Trump Mobile smartphone has finally begun landing in customers' hands in the US, only to be met with ridicule, technical scepticism and a viral put-down from a CNN tech expert who claims the device 'looks like a urine sample.'

The news came after Trump, 79, and his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, first unveiled Trump Mobile in 2025, urging supporters to put down deposits for what was billed as a patriotic, premium handset.

Those early buyers then faced months of silence and growing anger as the phones failed to appear. A nine‑month delay, confusion over where the device was actually made, and a design row over a misprinted US flag had already tainted the launch before anyone could seriously test how the thing worked.

By the time CNN's OutFront devoted a segment to the phone, it was less a tech rollout and more a political Rorschach test. Host Brianna Keilar set up the critique bluntly, saying the Trump Mobile was 'not living up to its initial promise,' with a smaller screen than advertised and a quiet retreat from claims it was 'made in America.'

The new marketing line, she noted, was softer and more nebulous: 'Designed with American values in mind.'

Trump Mobile's Gold Finish Becomes a Punchline

Trump Mobile was always going to lean hard into symbolism. The branding is heavy on gold, flags and the familiar Trump aesthetic of gleaming opulence. On paper, that made sense. In practice, the finish appears to have backfired.

Tech journalist Patrick Holland, brought on as CNN's guest reviewer after he received one of the phones, said the device barely resembled the slick imagery used to sell it to supporters last year.

'It looks nothing like the original image that we saw about a year ago, which kind of looked like an altered iPhone 16 Pro,' Holland told Keilar.

Then he turned to the colour. On camera, he sounded almost bemused, as if trying to be fair but unable to ignore what was staring back at him.

He said the gold tone shifted unpredictably depending on the lighting.

'Sometimes it looks like those gold coins that Scrooge McDuck would jump into for DuckTales,' he said. 'Other times, it's got a mustard vibe to it, and yet other times it kind of looks like a urine sample.'

For a product literally bearing Trump's name, that comparison was always going to travel.

Clips of Holland's remarks were swiftly clipped, captioned and recirculated across X, where users piled in with their own variations on the theme.

'Concentrated urine, that's the color,' one user wrote. Another added, 'Well, he did paint everything in the Oval Office a shade of piss yellow. This makes sense.'

Those online reactions are subjective and often gleefully hostile, but they reflect a broader problem for Trump Mobile. Once the internet decides your flagship product resembles a lab sample, it is very hard to claw back any aura of luxury.

Questions Over Trump Mobile's Specs And 'Made In USA' Claims

Holland was clear that the colour, while striking, was not his main concern. The more serious issues, in his view, lay under the hood and on the box.

'We don't know what the processor is in the phone. We don't know what the software and security updates will be,' he said, contrasting that vagueness with the industry's biggest players.

Samsung and Google, he noted, now promise around seven years of software support. For those brands, buyers know roughly what they are signing up for until 2033. With Trump Mobile, there is no such guarantee.

This lack of transparency might be a niche detail for Trump's core political base, but for a tech product, it is fundamental. Security updates are not an embellishment; they determine whether a phone stays usable and safe over time.

Then there is the matter of where Trump Mobile actually comes from. The campaign‑style rollout had initially traded heavily on the idea of an American-made smartphone, aligning neatly with Trump's 'buy American' rhetoric.

That framing has now been softened to 'Designed with American values in mind,' a phrase that sounds patriotic but does not tell consumers much about supply chains or manufacturing.

Holland said the phone's box states that it is 'assembled in the USA.' He suggested that the wording could be interpreted rather narrowly, raising the possibility that the only thing definitively assembled in America is the packaging, rather than the core hardware.

He also pointed to what he described as a striking similarity between Trump Mobile's performance and that of a specific overseas handset.

'The performance of the processor and the graphics card is very similar to a Taiwanese phone called the HTC U24 Pro 5G, rolls off the tongue there,' he said. 'And this phone, there's nothing inherently wrong with the phone, that's not a bad phone by any means, but it's certainly not made in the USA.'

For now, the phones are finally shipping, the refunds row has eased, and supporters are at last receiving the product they were promised.

Yet Trump's attempt to turn his political brand into a pocket-sized status symbol has run headlong into a brutal rule of modern tech culture; if your premium smartphone reminds people of a urine sample, no amount of patriotic branding can make that image go away.