Even though he coasted to an easy 30-point win in the Iowa caucus on Monday evening, things are not all rainbows and unicorns for failed one-term, twice-impeached ex-president Donald Trump.
As MSNBC host Rachel Maddow noted while the results trickled in from the Hawkeye State, Donald is facing some major obstacles to winning a second term in office, and most of those can be found on the legal front.
Referencing a poll from Iowa that shows 63% of Republicans think Trump is fit to serve as president even if he’s convicted of a felony, Maddow explained that means there are still more than a third of GOP voters who believe Trump shouldn’t be returned to the White House if he’s convicted.
Maddow added:
“They’re going to nominate him nationwide?” Maddow asked incredulously. “When even a third of Iowa caucusgoers say, ‘No, he can’t be president if he’s convicted’?”
“I’m sorry. But he’s gonna be convicted.”
Legal analyst Ari Melber was quick to interject that while there’s “overwhelming evidence” in the four criminal cases Trump is facing, one can’t “say what’s going to happen” in those.
Maddow: “I can. He’s gonna be convicted.”
Maddow: This means of people turning out to caucus in Iowa, a third of them think that if Donald Trump is convicted he is not fit to be president. In this incredibly conservative electorate, They’re going to nominate him nationwide? I'm sorry, but he's going to be convicted. pic.twitter.com/a89ghyuY8F
Dude has 91 counts against him. He incited an insurrection. And freaking Republicans still blindly vote for him. It is not the law & order Party. It is a cult.
CNN host Kate Bolduan got the better of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) when he tried to suggest she wasn’t smart enough to fully understand a piece of legislation he voted against.
The interview began cordially, with Bolduan asking about the upcoming Iowa caucus, but turned ugly when the host asked about a House resolution, Mediaite reports.
After discussing the spending bill that may or may not threaten a government shutdown (again), Bolduan turned to the campaign trail. Massie is a surrogate for presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), and while he was not named during CNN’s debate on Wednesday, he was called out by former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (R) as “the most anti-Israel Republican” who “voted against Israel’s right to exist in Congress.”
Haley was referring to House Resolution 888, entitled “Reaffirming the State of Israel’s right to exist,” which was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support with 21 not voting, one member voting present, and one sole vote against: Massie’s. It’s a quick read, and plainly states what Bolduan presented to Massie, that the resolution “reaffirms the state of Israel’s right to exist, recognizes that denying Israel’s right to exist is a form of anti-Semitism.”
Bolduan read some of the resolution, which led to Massie interrupting her and interjecting, “That’s the name of resolution, congratulations.”
The host noted that she wasn’t reading the name of the resolution. Massie grinned as he again told the host, “Congratulations, you’re able to read the name of the resolution.”
Tilting her head and glaring at the congressman, Bolduan remarked, “Congressman, I don’t think you’re trying to question my intelligence now, are you?”
“No, I’m saying you don’t have time to prepare for this,” he replied.
When Bolduan informed the congressman that she had specifically highlighted the document before she interview, the Kentucky Republican snarked:
“Good for you, you took two minutes. There have been 19 resolutions. I know what’s in all of them. I studied them and I say right on social media, if you had done a little more research, you wouldn’t have to ask me if I acknowledged Israel’s right to exist. It’s right there on my social media.”
“I can read your social media. I also think given what is stated in this resolution, it is worthy of re-asking,” Bolduan told Massie.
Sarcasm dripping from his voice, Massie grinned and said, “I enjoy this dialogue. I hope I get to come back on and talk about what’s in these bills again.”
Bolduan, however, got the last shot in.
“I’m happy to have you on any time to discuss, and will continue to do my research and do not appreciate when someone even suggests or insinuates that I’m not prepared.”
As he gets closer to seeing a New York judge impose a fine that could be as large as $370 million, failed former president Donald Trump is also on the verge of having a make a choice that would be the ultimate humiliation for him.
That’s what New York Times investigative reporter Susanne Craig says she believes she has Trump so worried: He’s going to be forced to sell off his properties in order to pay the penalty for decades of lying on financial disclosure forms.
Appearing on MSNBC, Craig noted:
“The argument has been that he submitted these statements of financial condition in order to get better rates at the banks. And they went through some of the spending that Donald Trump has been doing recently. There have been a lot of renovations at three properties. He put $250 million into Doral and the old post office; he spent $225 million on renovations.”
In other words, Trump and the Trump Organization are facing a major cash crunch, Craig continued.
“Then secondly, I was listening to it because he is facing coming into a judgment with this judge of penalties going up to $370 million. We’re looking at the hundreds of millions of dollars range. The attorney general painted the picture that the cash position is not good. It also supports the analysis that we have done at The New York Times that he doesn’t have a lot of cash on hand to meet a penalty of that size.”
Trump’s only option will be to sell his properties in order to cover the massive court judgement, which led former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann to explain that the process could take place sooner rather than later, even if the ex-president decides to file an appeal.
“Very often the courts of appeals will require a cash bond. And so that issue of can he wait until the appeal is over to start paying this, that may not be an option.”
Like his father, Donald Trump Jr. suffers from acute verbal diarrhea, spewing fact-free nonsense and assorted conspiracy theories that have no basis in reality.
So it should come as no surprise that Don Jr. happily proclaimed this week that the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol was fake insurrection and the “feds” were acting as “tour guides” as rioters stormed the seat of government and attacked anyone who got in their way, resulting in the deaths of at least five people.
Donald Trump Jr., while at an official campaign event for his father, calls the January 6 insurrection a “fake insurrection” while spewing MAGA conspiracy theories pic.twitter.com/it6SboqSqX
Those comments were quickly picked up by the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign and turned back on Junior in a devastating fact-check that was posted on Twitter/X. Best of all, the retort from the Biden campaign only had to use Don Jr’s own words to prove what a enormous lie he had just spewed.
With text messages Junior sent to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the Biden-Harris team made it clear that the disgraced ex-president’s son certainly thought Jan. 6 was a problem.
Yes! Don't let people forget what they said on January 6th and immediately after. They all knew Trump was responsible, including Sean Hannity, Lara Ingraham, Junior, McCarthy, McConnell, Stefanik, Lindsey Graham, etc. etc.
Failed one-term, twice-impeached, and multiply-indicted former president Donald Trump loves to mock and ridicule President Joe Biden for being too old to lead the United States.
But new polling shows those attacks on the 81-year-old incumbent are backfiring badly on Trump and could wind up costing him millions of votes.
That poll, from Quinnipiac University, reveals that Biden leads 60 percent to 39 percent among voters over 65, and that, according to an MSNBC panel, could prove decisive when the votes are counted later this year.
“Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough noted, “I want us to talk about this part of it, because everybody is focusing on the younger voters who right now are not moving towards him as much as they thought. They’re going to come home. they just will. You look at this number though: voters 65 and older, Joe Biden, 60 percent, Donald Trump — Sam, nobody expected this, but we have seen this. Older voters have been moving toward Joe Biden steadily for quite some time, and of course, as we know, older voters? They vote.”
Contributor Sam Stein concurred.
“Yeah, I was picking up on this a couple of years ago. The New York Times did a story about who was actually concerned about Trump’s legal troubles and if they thought they were serious, and we saw an age breakdown; 65 and older, way more concerned about it than the younger generations that kind of piqued my interest.”
“Maybe they lived through Watergate and they understand the severity of it,” Stein added. “You’ve seen it in poll after poll after poll, where more conservatives, traditional Republicans are backing Joe Biden. There’s a number of theories around it. Maybe the age attacks on Biden are actually offending this cohort.”
“It’s that chaos factor that Nikki Haley is starting to play out in New Hampshire,” MSNBC regular Katty Kay remarked. “We keep hearing people talk about, you don’t want the chaos of Donald Trump. If you are getting older — chaos is scary for everybody — but I think it’s particularly for older people when you’re feeling more frail and fragile about the world anyway.”
