In early April 2025, claims (archived) circulated that U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered his cabinet, Republican congresspeople and other supporters to wear golden lapel pins depicting the president's face.
One Facebook user wrote:
FCC Chair Brendan Carr sports a gold Trump-head lapel pin. Members of Trump's cabinet, along with Congresspeople and Senators, are being instructed to wear a tribute to their inglorious, convicted-felon leader. Just another day in Emperor Trump's hellscape
The claim also circulated on X (archived), Reddit (archived), Threads (archived) and Bluesky (archived).
However, it was unclear at the time of this writing whether Trump or his administration had ordered anyone to wear golden Trump lapel pins.
A White House official said via email: "Obviously, we did not order officials to wear this pin. If they choose to wear one, it is to show support for the greatest President in history." Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair seen in photos wearing the golden Trump lapel pin, had not responded to requests for comment about why he wore the pin at the time of this writing.
The claim originated from a Substack post by the Canadian sports writer Dean Blundell that in turn relied on pictures (archived) posted (archived) by the American political commentator Benny Johnson showing Carr appearing to wear a golden Trump lapel pin on April 3.
We reached out Blundell how he knew about the order and for proof that other Republican figures had worn the pin, as Blundell claimed. We reached out to Johnson and Carr to ask about the authenticity of the pictures showing the pin, among other questions.
Substack post said GOP officials 'quietly told' to wear pins
The first mention of the golden Trump lapel pins appeared to be from two X posts on April 3, 2025, by Benny Johnson, a self-described conservative political commentator.
The first post showed Johnson and Carr, with Carr wearing the golden Trump pin on his left lapel.
Johnson captioned the post: "With the unstoppable FCC Director Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) This man fights for Free Speech in his very bones. What a legend."
The second post, later reposted by Carr, showed a closer look at the pin on Carr's lapel.
Johnson captioned the post: "Do you even understand the level of fit that @BrendanCarrFCC has? Please check ???"
The images from Carr's second post were reposted across X, including one post (archived) on April 5, 2025, that was viewed more than 300,000 times at the time of this writing.
On April 9, 2025, Blundellwrote a post on his Substack blog, titled: "Trump Is Now Mandating His Cabinet/Loyalist Wear "Trump Golden Bust" Pins." This post made the headline claim — that "loyalist" Republicans were ordered to wear the golden Trump lapel pin — and also claimed that other representatives and senators were wearing the accessory.
We did not find images from reputable sources online that showed other Republican lawmakers wearing the golden Trump lapel pin. Searches on popular search engines mostly showed reporting referencing Blundell's Substack post.
Photographs showing Carr and other high-profile Republicans in early-to-mid April further cast doubt on Blundell's claims that "loyalists" were ordered to wear the golden Trump pins.
Carr appeared to wear the Trump pin in a video posted (archived) on his X profile on April 4, 2025. However, on April 10, he instead donned a U.S. flag pin for meetings, seen in posts on his X profile. Had Trump or other officials ordered the wearing of the pin, Carr would have likely worn it consistently, or in addition to the U.S. flag pin.
Additionally, it did not seem that Trump's alleged order for officials to wear the pins had reached the president's closest advisers. Photos from Getty, a reputable picture agency, show high-ranking Trump administration officials, including RFK Jr., Doug Burgum, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth and Howard Lutnick wearing either different pins or no pins at all during a cabinet meeting with the president on April 10, 2025. An official order to wear the golden Trump lapel pins would likely have included these individuals.
Meanwhile, social media users pointed out that online retailer Amazon sold a very similar-looking pin for around $7.