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Food

Trump Parades His Nonexistent Line of Steaks for All the Haters

what else would the front-running Republican candidate use as symbols of his greatest accomplishments but the following: bottles from Trump Winery, several cases of Trump Natural Spring Water, and a butcher block heaped with so-called “Trump Steaks.”
Photo by Stephen Lovekin/WireImage for Hill & Knowlton

Following big wins in the Michigan and Mississippi primaries, presidential candidate Donald Trump set up a celebratory display at his golf course in Jupiter, Florida, where he gave a news conference yesterday. And what else would the front-running Republican candidate use as symbols of his greatest accomplishments but the following: bottles from Trump Winery, several cases of Trump Natural Spring Water, and a butcher block heaped with so-called "Trump Steaks."

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Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Why would the real-estate magnate be trumpeting his food-and-drink businesses—none of which amounted to a great success? Apparently, the display was assembled in response to the vitriolic speech given last week by Mitt Romney, who called out Trump's failed business ventures of yore. Romney, who ran for president in 2012, asked, "Whatever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? And then there's Trump Magazine and Trump Vodka, and Trump Steaks, and Trump Mortgage?" Romney summed up his point: "A business genius he is not."

READ MORE: Donald Trump Is Being Trolled at Rallies for Ordering Well-Done Steak

In a visual rebuttal, Trump piled up the foodstuffs. Gesturing at the Trump-branded "Natural Spring Water," Trump said, referring to Romney: "He talked about the water company. Well, there's the water company. I mean, we sell water. And we have water, and it's a very successful, you know, it's a private little water company, and I supply the water for all my places, and it's good. But it's very good." The water is apparently distributed at Trump-branded properties but not sold elsewhere. Trump Ice, the candidate's bottled water company, is no longer in business.

Then he turned to the steaks. "Trump steaks, where are the steaks? Do we have the steaks? We have Trump steaks," he told the audience. Then he said, "And by the way, you want to take one, we charge you about, what, 50 bucks a steak?"

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The fact that no one can buy Trump Steaks anymore because the business venture went belly-up almost a decade ago didn't stop Trump—whose truthiness has been questioned by The New York Times, among others—from insinuating they were still around. Trump Steaks were sold exclusively by both Sharper Image and QVC back in 2007 before the business was wrapped up—and they got less-than-stellar reviews at the time. Actually, the reviews were pretty damn awful.

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READ MORE: Trump Says He Eats Lots of Fast Food Because It's 'Clean'

But truth, or the lack thereof, is, it seems, a matter of debate in the 2016 presidential election. Standing before the pile of beef, Trump said: "So I wanted to put that to rest: So you have the water, you have the steaks, you have the airline that I sold… And Trump University, we're going to start it up as soon as I win the lawsuit."

So whose steaks were those? Is there still such a thing as a "Trump Steak"? Trump certainly seems to think there is, as long as he says so. After all, its just like Trump says, "When it comes to great steaks, I've just raised the stakes!"