Iowa Firm Wins $400K in SBA 'Million Dollar Pitch' Game Show
Is this a long-overdue tribute to aspiring entrepreneurs or just spectacle to distract from Trump's economic failures?
Above: Kelly Loeffler at a Donald Trump rally in Dalton, Ga., on Oct. 16. Image credit: Eric Lee/Getty Images
The Facts
- Plas-Tech Tooling won the U.S. Small Business Administration's "Million Dollar Pitch" competition and a $400,000 first-place prize, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), said on X Wednesday. The White House had promoted the contest as five small business owners vying for $1 million.
- The White House promoted the competition, hosted by actor Dean Cain, on X. The judges, who decided the $75,000, $125,000, $150,000, $250,000 and $400,000 prizes, were investor Grant Cardone, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia and rapper Nicki Minaj.
- President Donald Trump met the five finalists in the Oval Office, where SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler introduced them as "the job creators, the manufacturers who are rebuilding made in America." Nicki Minaj, who said she would host, also attended.
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The Spin
Pro-Trump narrative
Celebrating the people who build things in towns like Iowa's is long overdue. Companies that hire dozens of neighbors and give back to their communities earn every dollar of a prize like this. Treating entrepreneurship as the surest path to the American Dream is the message that Main Street has been waiting to hear from Washington.
Anti-Trump narrative
Calling government contractors and globally connected manufacturers small businesses stretches the word past recognition, especially when robots handle the labor. A jackpot game show does nothing for the real corner stores drowning in rising costs, making this just televised spectacle used by Trump to distract from his failing the American people.