A Miserable Week for DDT

Journalist Maggie Haberman, longtime follower of Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) for the New York Times, summed up his state of mind: “I don’t think he’s in a happy place.” The week’s unhappiness starts on Monday when a New York parole officer interviews DDT in the first step after his conviction of 34 felony charges for his July 11 sentencing.

While DDT tries to get his gag order lifted, he continues to smear people involved in his trial as well as any other non-loyalists and denies any wrongdoing, including having sex with Stormy Daniels. Remorse is an important part of leniency for felons, but not expected in DDT’s case. Again DDT’s favoritism allows him to be interviewed from Mar-a-Lago via Zoom. On the same day, the revengeful presidential candidate will also give a virtual address to the Southern Baptist Conference’s annual meeting.

DDT’s MAGA base has five talking points: (1) he did nothing wrong; (2) all the jurors hated him; (3) only fools or haters could have found him guilty; (4) nobody respecting this jury can be a Republican in good standing; and (5) the jury is trying to steal the election. Still whining about the trial being unfair, DDT complained about how the jurors never smiled.  

Michael Wolff described DDT as “completely incoherent” when he’s not onstage. Even on stage, he nears that. At Sunday’s rally in Nevada, he brought out his story about whether he would choose to be electrocuted or eaten by a shark if his electric boat sinks. He finished by forgetting about the nuclear bombs dropped during World War II.

Whining about being a “political prisoner,” DDT’s first week of “imprisonment included these details from Dana Milbank:

• Many rounds of arduous golf.
• The “harsh confines” of his Trump Tower triplex, Mar-a-Lago compound, and his Boeing 757.
• Ringside seats at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event.
• A 90-minute interview with Fox & Friends Weekend, hour with Sean Hannity, and one-on-one with Newsmax.
• A trip to Phoenix to face supporters’ adoration at a campaign event.

A decade ago, the Vermont GOP created a rule against supporting any candidate with a felony conviction. Fortunately for Felon DDT, the rule was amended in 2022 permitting exemptions for candidates with a majority vote. Before dropping out of the race, Nikki Haley won all the Vermont GOP delegates.

The MAGA base criticized the 272,000 new jobs created in May, bringing the total to almost 16 million during President Joe Biden’s 28 months after DDT lost almost three million jobs, the first failure since Herbert Hoover who started the Great Depression. DDT’s MAGA PAC said the better-than-expected jobs report “paints a dire picture for the American economy”—with its decrease of employed native-born workers. A large number of native-born people in the U.S. are not in the job market because of age, and the unemployment rate is higher for non-native born people.

DDT’s “incoherence” is confusing the RNC in his frequent reversals about voting positions. Controlled by DDT, the RNC stated that mail-in ballots and early voting are the secrets to winning elections for Republicans, but DDT condemned the early voting as “ridiculous” in a Minnesota event a few weeks ago. He advocated “Swamp the Vote” by all Republicans voting at the polls on Election Day. Six days before condemning early voting, he endorsed mail-in voting and early voting, flipping at least four times within three weeks.  

After several bribery offers to the wealthy for campaign donation, DDT now faces a blackmail offer from Miriam Adelson to get $100 million from the widow of Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. All he has to do is support Israel’s annexation of the Palestinian-controlled West Bank territory, violating the Geneva Convention. He already moved the U.S. embassy into Jerusalem, not an Israeli city, and officially recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights territory, illegal under international law because it’s not part of Israel. DDT already promised to delay the pro-Palestinian movement by “25 or 30 years.”

Republicans and DDT have a new loyalty litmus test. First it was claiming that the 2020 election was “rigged.” Now they must agree that DDT was wrongly convicted despite all the evidence and the jurors’ unanimous conclusion.  

Once trying to ban TikTok with its Chinese owner, DDT has joined the social media to reach younger voters with a 2-1 pro-DDT ratio. He tried to ban the app when he was in the White House , but his House base has already voted that the platform must be sold within the next year because of potential national security.

DDT’s statements on last weekend’s Fox interview were so outrageous that even that ultra-right network was afraid it couldn’t broadcast some of them. Heavily edited, the broadcast had “abrupt cuts while he’s still talking.” Gone is the segment in which he said he might not declassify federal files related to his late associate, sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein, after his initial saying that he would release them. Fox radio show played the entire answer when he added “less so,” just “the way he died.” That was after he said he would declassify documents about 9/11 and John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The TV broadcast also skipped his comment about having “nice conversations” with the Taliban.

Robert Reich points out DDT’s “stupidity” by continuing to do something already costing him a minimum of $91 million, referring to DDT’s two losses against E. Jean Carroll but continuing the same defamation offences. DDT again claims he has “never heard” of her and she “made up” the story, attacks possibly resulting in a third trial, according to Carroll’s lawyer. Reich listed other DDT comments such as magnets not working in water and negotiating the Civil War.

Even people who he appointed called him a “dope,” “moron,” and “dumb as sh*t.” He left halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored. About the Constitution, he said he “got as far as the Fourth Amendment.” According to Reich, DDT has “emotional intelligence,” the ability to influence others’ emotions and manipulate their vulnerabilities for his own purposes.

Legal Issues:

In the UK, DDT is “in breach of” an order to pay £300,000 to Christopher Steele’s company Orbis Business Intelligence after losing his lawsuit against the British ex-spy. The payment was due in February and confirmed when his right of appeal was rejected in March. Steele’s dossier has not been verified, but he stands by it.

New York – Criminal Business Fraud/Hush Money to Stormy Daniels to Interfere with 2016 Election:

As a convicted felon, DDT isn’t allowed to own a gun, and New York is trying to revoke his concealed carry permit. He handed over two of his three pistols to the New York police in March 2023 after his criminal indictment, but the third one has been moved to Mar-a-Lago, where his possession of it is illegal.

Much is said about Republicans not believing DDT’s guilt, but 50 percent of people believe the verdict is correct, and 49 percent think he should end his 2024 presidential campaign after the conviction. In another survey, 54 percent approve of the verdict compared to 34 percent who don’t.

Georgia – RICO Conspiracy to Overturn Election:

A Georgia appeals court froze DDT’s criminal trial proceeding, attempting to disqualify DA Fani Willis because of her relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade. Oral arguments are scheduled on October 4, a month before the general election.

Florida – DDT’s Taking Classified Documents: 

Judge Aileen Cannon’s latest delaying tactics for DDT has drawn even more amazement from legal experts as unprecedented. She has new hearings, one of them determining whether special counsel Jack Smith was illegally appointed although his legality is settled precedent by the Supreme Court in 2019. Then she permitted three groups of lawyers, not party to the case but who filed amicus briefs, to testify, two of them supporting DDT. This hearing is on June 21. Cannon may have opened the floodgates: two elderly New Jersey activists demand that they also argue in her court for DDT because they are discriminated against for being disabled.

A hearing on June 24 considers prosecution’s request to restrict Trump from making further incendiary claims falsely suggesting that FBI agents were “complicit in a plot to assassinate him.” On June 25, Cannon hears arguments by DDT’s lawyers to disqualify audio notes from Evan Corcoran, another DDT lawyer. DDT declares attorney-client privilege, but a crime-fraud exception makes DDT’s claim exempt to shield a crime.

The 11^th Circuit Court has received so many complaints about Cannon’s poor handling of DDT’s case—over 1,000 since May 16—that it refuses to accept any more.

Supreme Court:

After inciting violence from his base for his conviction and possible jailing, DDT demands the Supreme Court intervene in his imminent sentencing to block violence. “I don’t know that the public would stand it,” DDT told Fox & Friends in his interview. He issued his request on social media and again falsely used the lie that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is “Soros backed,” an antisemitic slur frequently used by Republicans.

In a campaign ad, AG Ken Paxton listed Democrats’ problems, including the “dangerous open border.” Unfortunately for him, however, his leading video of charging the U.S. border from Tijuana, Mexico, which debuted at last month’s Texas GOP convention, was filmed in 2018 when DDT was in the White House.

Missing from this weekly roundup is the vast number of DDT’s revenge threats which requires much more room.