On 29 May 2017, reporters tweeted screenshots of e-mails they received from President Trump's mailing list, inviting recipients to take advantage of a subscription called the "Big League Box":
The Trump campaign is taking the @birchbox subscription approach, introducing the "big league box" pic.twitter.com/41zUCxAlYA
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) May 29, 2017
Not everyone was convinced the boxes were legitimate:
IT SCARES ME TOO but fortunately its a joke and not real (i googled big league boxes trump and it took me to that tweet)
— Nosh (@qqnosh) May 29, 2017
Complicating matters was the fact that not all subscribers to President Trump's e-mail updates received the purported e-mail, and news outlets reporting on the story largely referenced secondhand sources (using flexible language like "reportedly"):
President Donald Trump will reportedly take a page from the subscription box business model with his own monthly box full of stuff people probably don't want.
As CNN reporter Betsy Klein tweeted Monday, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee will offer "Big League Boxes," packed with "exclusive and vintage" (read: old) Trump merchandise and delivered monthly to recurring donors' doors.
Missing from all the articles was a link to the purported "Big League Boxes" subscription signup page, and Trump's web site's "News" section made no mention of the endeavor. However, we managed to track down the original link:
Get your Big League Box!
Every month as a recurring donor - you will receive a handpicked bundle of exclusive and vintage OFFICIAL Donald J. Trump merchandise.
There’s a limited number of subscriptions available due to supplies.
Get your first Big League Box delivered before June 30th [2017] with a recurring contribution of just $49 or more today.
It is true that the web site offers "OFFICIAL Donald J. Trump merchandise" in monthly "Big League Boxes" in exchange for a "recurring contribution of just $49 or more." (Some versions of the e-mail reportedly asked for "$69 or more.") As of 31 May 2017, no one had reported purchasing or receiving the boxes to describe its contents, but the link and advertisement (archived above) are real.