More than half One million concurrent viewers tuned into Adin Ross’s Kick channel Monday afternoon to watch an interview with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida. In addition to hearing the Republican presidential candidate talk about some of his favorite topics, they also watched Trump receive two expensive and illegal gifts from Ross: a gold Rolex watch and a custom-wrapped Cybertruck.
Ross, a 23-year-old active content creator with millions of followers across Kick, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube, is known for his raucous energy and often-violent antics that cross the line into toxic territory. He has previously attacked white supremacist Nick Fuentes, as well as alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate, a sort of mentor. In March, Ross accidentally reported Tate while he was planning to flee criminal charges in Romania. (Tate, who is awaiting trial, has denied the charges.) After several Twitch bans over the years, the last of which was permanent, Ross moved to the streaming platform Kick in 2023, which allows gambling content and is virtually uncensored. “We can do whatever we want,” he told his audience at the time.
Ross kicked off Monday’s Kick show by acknowledging that many people doubted he had actually gotten an interview with Trump. “Today is going to be the most important live broadcast I’ve ever done,” he said after Trump broke out to 50 Cent’s “Many Men (Wish Death)” and joined Ross in front of a small audience. “Everyone thought this was going to be a fake,” he added. (Ross’s last successful political interview, which was promoted as a conversation with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, instead featured him talking to a professional impersonator.)
Ross, wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, made no effort to appear neutral. His questions prompted Trump to complain about everything from supposed liberal bias in schools (“Even the teachers are brainwashed,” the former president said) to border security (though Trump unusually made no mention of Hannibal Lecter this time). Trump, for his part, praised Ross as a “special” young man, predicted the livestream would break viewing records, and said his youngest son, Barron Trump, is a “huge fan” of Ross. Trump’s positive comments about Ross’s youth and influencer status seem to suggest he saw the friendly interview as a welcome boon in an escalating battle for the hearts and minds of Gen Z. Vice President Harris also has the backing of prominent content creators and is riding the wave of Zoomer memes.
When he wasn’t attacking Harris and President Biden — or calling Harris’ rise to the top of the 2024 Democratic ticket a “coup” — Trump offered dire predictions for the country’s future if he doesn’t win the election: “I don’t think he’s going to last,” he once said. He also made several of his own bizarre claims about his time in office, saying that he once played Elton John’s “Rocket Man” for Kim Jong Un and that before he became president, “you weren’t allowed to say ‘Happy Birthday.’ I took it back.” As Ross pointed out that he is Jewish, Trump continued, “Even if you’re Jewish, they love to say Happy Birthday. All my Jewish friends say, ‘We love Happy Birthday.’”
Trump specifically praised Ross’s success on the air and his respect for him, drawing a sharp contrast between the friendly conversation and a combative event hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists last week. In that appearance, Trump attacked ABC News congressional correspondent Rachel Scott over a tough first question about his past comments about black people and his associations with white supremacists including Fuentes. During the same interview, Trump also made racist comments about Harris, falsely asserting that she never claimed to be of Indian descent until she “turned black.” In Monday’s broadcast, Ross agreed that Scott was “very rude,” with Trump calling her “terrible” and “evil.” Trump, on the other hand, said Ross’s public endorsement of him as president was “moral.”
Elsewhere, Ross, who has been banned from Twitch in the past for hateful insults and once streamed explicit Pornhub videos to an audience that likely included many underage viewers, sought to criticize Harris for “a rapper dancing with her at a rally.” He didn’t mention the artist, Megan Thee Stallion, by name, and given his history as a content creator, the shocking routine rang somewhat hollow. But the most telling signs that Ross was out of his depth came in the form of his gifts to Trump. First, he gave the former president a gold Rolex watch. “That’s a great watch company,” Trump said as he opened the box. “Now I know they deserved it,” he added, seemingly joking that it was worth his appearance on Ross’s channel.
Then, at the end of the livestream, Ross took Trump outside — pausing to greet Felix Lengyel, a Canadian publisher known as xQc, who was wearing a Trump T-shirt with gold and silver braces on his teeth — to unveil a Tesla Cybertruck wrapped in an image of Trump raising his fist after being wounded in an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania last month. (Earlier in the broadcast, Ross had expressed amazement at the “incredible” image. “I got beat up,” said Trump, who described the bravery of his supporters in not fleeing the scene. He did not comment on who was killed or the two others who were seriously wounded in the shooting.)
“It’s a very real thing,” says Brendan Fisher, deputy executive director of Documented, a watchdog group that tracks and investigates money used in politics. rolling stone Fisher notes that Ross’s gifts appear to have been “given to Trump as a candidate and because he is running for office, and therefore are contributions” to his campaign—an interpretation supported by the images of Trump on the truck. “These gifts are not part of a pattern of gifts he and Trump exchanged before his candidacy,” Fisher notes.
Fisher explains that contributions are subject to Federal Election Commission rules — in this case, the $3,300 per election limit for individuals. Furthermore, the definition of “contribution” includes any “gifts.”
“Giving tens of thousands of dollars in gifts to a candidate is an illegal and excessive campaign contribution,” Fisher said. “I suspect that once Trump speaks with his lawyers, we will have an announcement that he will decline the gifts or donate them to charity.” Carolyn Levitt, Trump’s national press secretary, said: rolling stone The campaign added that it “will submit an advisory opinion to the Federal Election Commission to seek guidance on how to handle gifts.”
“The evidence suggests that Ross made or sought to make an illegal contribution, and therefore could face civil penalties,” Fisher says. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if Trump rejected the gift and Ross claimed ignorance of the law, in which case I suspect the FEC wouldn’t spend much time on the matter.”
Still, Trump at least got to try out the Cybertruck’s sound system as he and Ross waxed lyrical about Tesla CEO Elon Musk, another vocal Trump supporter whom the former president had called a “genius” earlier in the livestream. The duo listened to “California Dreamin'” by the Mamas and the Papas and “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys, as well as tunes by Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson, whom Trump said he knew well. The pair decided to end the show by dancing down the aisle to “YMCA” by the Village People, a favorite song at Trump rallies. “This is the best,” Trump said of the song, before showing off his moves and offering a final shout-out to young viewers: “Trump is going to keep doing TikTok,” “while Biden and Harris have no idea what that means.” Trump initially led a campaign in Washington to ban the app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, but reversed course earlier this year while competing for youth votes.
After the broadcast ended, President Harris's spokeswoman, Sarafina Chitica, criticized Trump's performance in a statement provided to rolling stone“Donald Trump’s sad attempt to connect with young voters failed because Gen Z, like the rest of America, doesn’t like a tired, unbalanced man who is trying to raise their taxes, kick them off their parents’ insurance, deny climate change, take away their freedoms, and impose his Project 2025 agenda on their entire generation,” Chitica said. The Harris campaign called the broadcast a “dull, low-energy interview” in a statement, noting that Ross failed to meet his goal of 1 million viewers at a time, and noting that “Trump was so weak that he could barely be heard by frustrated viewers who repeatedly commented to turn up his microphone.” (The audio issues were ironic given Trump’s complaints about faulty microphones and difficulty hearing at the NAJB event.)
If Trump does try to keep his Cybertruck, he might want to heed the warnings of other owners who have reported a variety of faults and structural problems that have already led to several recalls. Perhaps the safest thing to do would be to park it in front of a resort as a billboard. Or, like his new friend Ross, he could take the car to a shooting range and pump it full of 9mm bullets. American freedom at its best.
