In April 2025, claims (archived) circulated online that U.S. President Donald Trump's Cabinet members and Republican legislators had been ordered by the president to wear golden lapel pins depicting his face.
In one TikTok video, which was viewed more than 60,000 times after being shared on X, a user said:
Trump is now telling his cabinet members to stop wearing their American flag pins and start wearing golden Trump heads on their lapels instead. It's, like, one way that they know that they're "in with the cool crowd." Little Trump heads.
The claim also circulated on Facebook (archived), X (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."
Claims circulated after Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission chairman, appeared (archived) in photos (archived) wearing a golden Trump lapel pin. Carr has not responded to requests for comment about why he wore the pin.
The claim originated from a Substack post by the Canadian sports writer Dean Blundell that in turn relied on pictures posted on X by political commentator Benny Johnson showing Carr appearing to wear a golden Trump lapel pin on April 3. Photos (archived) from Carr's X profile (archived) on April 10, 2025, however, showed him without the pin, indicating he was not wearing it consistently. Photos taken on the same date of high-ranking officials in Trump's cabinet also showed them without pins.
We reached out to Blundell to ask 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. We await replies on the above requests.
Substack post said GOP officials were '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 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 ???"
According to the online AI detectors Sightengine and Hive Moderation, there was a 0-1% chance of Johnson's photo of Carr from the second post being AI-generated or fake.
The images from Carr's second post were reposted across X, including one post (archived) on April 5 that was viewed 350,000 times at the time of this writing.
On April 9, 2025, Blundell wrote 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.
Pics of high-ranking officials showed no Trump pins
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 in his cabinet 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 Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wearing either different pins or no pins at all during a cabinet meeting with the president on April 10. Had an order gone out, Cabinet members would've likely worn the pins to this meeting.
Meanwhile, social media users pointed out that online retailer Amazon sold a very similar-looking pin for around $7.