So I had to look this one up, and admittedly my patience for these rabbit holes peters out, but yes, it’s most likely a regular passport.
I guess they do some SovCit shenanigans while applying and they think it makes it a super-secret diplomatic and sales-tax immunity passport that will 100% for sure you guys show up when it’s scanned, especially when you wave it in front Darlene at Walmart who defintely has time for your bullshit. It’s all been reinforced by the fact that different batches of land-transit passport cards will come with different numbers of asterisks towards the top, so they think there’s a magic code there that is related to status and privileges.
I’m guessing they had to keep dialing back the crazy until the State Department was finally willing to process their application, and surprise surprise, our SovCit friend found that process onerous.