Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

Reporter: Mr. Trump how’s it going in there?

Trump: 🤐 pic.twitter.com/ORTSg6t3zc

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 6, 2023

Judge should punish him by forcing him to take LSD and then try to cross the street outside of the courthouse

^^ what a world this would be.

then forcing him to eat at gunpoint a dead cat

aka Steve Bannon

Gristly.

thought you were going to say "aka McDonald's Filet o Fish"

a dead cat

Trump himself does have, as the kids say, orange cat energy.

lol

“Donald Trump just declared this an unfair trail”

“Do you have more information on that?”

“A very very unfair” pic.twitter.com/SKYeIVPTSW

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 6, 2023

“A very very unfair” for December US Politics thread title

Such genius

NYAG's counsel confronts Trump with the deed stating that "the Club and Trump intend to forever extinguish their right to develop or use the Property for any purpose other than club use."

Trump parses: "'Intend' doesn’t mean we will do it."

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 6, 2023

I heard he has got an agreement with dept of interior or whatever the US heritage is called that it will remain a club and not be developed and he receives tax easements through this agreement so saying you can just say fuck 'em doesn't stack up!

Funny how it works

After Trump repeats his talking points about the disclaimer clause, Wallace tells him he already said that.

"I'm trying to make you understand it," Trump replies.

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 6, 2023

Trump rails on about the "fraudulent" decision, claiming Engoron believed a political "hack" over him, referring to the NYAG.

Wallace: "Are you done?"

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 6, 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noGHvxUtIy0

So far Trump's defenses have largely been along the line of "Yeah, I signed/said it, but I didn't mean it."

Wasn't that his defense of the bleach recommendation? "I was just joking, I wanted to see how'd you react."

lmao

"Aberdeen is the oil capital of Europe, very rich..." Trump says, at which point, the judge interjects: "Irrelevant!"

Trump adds softly, "It is."

— erica orden (@eorden) November 6, 2023

I know the criminal cases are juicier because of the dream of putting him behind bars, but I think this fraud case is going to be massively consequential for him, especially with the genius move of mouthing off to a judge who has sole discretion over his entire fortune.

It probably works well for his fundraising side but when the judge is dismissing every defence from his attorney's as "whistling past the graveyard" you might think it's a terrible tactic and the level of disgorgement to come is going to be more high than low from what is already a high baseline!

This exchange making the rounds as a major gotcha:

Judge Engoran: Proceed.
NY AG lawyer: Mr. Trump, the court officer is handing you PX 416, Deutsche Bank, term loan agreement 2012. Let's go to page 6. Is that your signature?
Trump: Yes.
NY AG lawyer: Page 105, the guaranty, did you sign it?
Trump: Yes.
NY AG lawyer: This says "in order to induce lending" - you see that?
Trump: Yes.
NY AG lawyer: Little Roman i, it says as of June 30, 2011 - do you believe it was true and accurate?
Trump: Yeah, I do.

lol

After Trump again brings up the disclaimer clause, giving a lengthy statement about how it is comprehensive and goes on forever, AG lawyer Kevin Wallace says, "Well, that clause isn’t the only thing that goes on forever."

— erica orden (@eorden) November 6, 2023

This whole thing is so rich

Trump says his net worth was far greater than on the financial statements. “Therefore, you have no case.”

NYAG prosecutor: “Umm”

— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) November 6, 2023

Put your hand in the hand of the man who conned the donors

“Trump testified that he believed he was worth more than his financial statements reflected, concluding: “Therefore, you have no case.”

As for the banks and insurers, Trump again pointed to the disclaimer clause, describing it as an extensive caveat that “goes on forever.”

Kevin Wallace, the lawyer for James’ office who was questioning Trump, replied: “Well, that clause isn’t the only thing that goes on forever.”

In between battling the judge, Trump’s lawyers heaped praise on their client, with Kise calling Trump’s answers “great” and “brilliant,” even while admitting, “I’m just not sure what he’s answering.” Kise also referred to Trump as the “former and soon-to-be chief executive of the United States.””

Reading this almost made me miss being a newspaper reporter, covering courts

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/06/trump-civil-fraud-trial-00125515

Kise also said Trump will be the next Golden Bachelor.

On his way out of court, Kise further applauded Trump’s performance, telling reporters: “In 33 years, I’ve never had a witness testify better.”

The level of sycophancy that this guy demands is so gross. Just odious.

yeah it’s for the paycheck right

That's the weird thing, supposedly Kise got paid up front. (Which, credit to him, everyone else should have figured that out long ago.) I guess he figures doing all this nonsense is worth it.

ha! ty i obv didn’t remember that.

Kise is allegedly the most highly reputable of the Trump legal team, which isn't saying much. He might think peers will understand that you have to be an obsequious creep to work for him and if he faced the press and said it truly was a cringeworthy and legally disastrous performance from his client, well then he'd be sacked and Trump would probably be suing him. But still he went much further than he needed to there!

https://i.insider.com/65492a67b788914e555106ef?width=1000&format=jpeg&auto=webp

https://media1.giphy.com/media/wu2nCG9rOy7AY/giphy.webp?cid=6c09b952p9jk43lltkdanzqhivygxwy3ee0uk5n3uxajg5xx&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.webp&ct=g

Worth a read for y'all struggling to understand Trump's appeal to Cubans:

To many Republicans, the multiple criminal cases against Trump aren’t viewed as the just desserts of a norm-busting former president who broke the law or inspired angry people to sack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; they’re seen as “the weaponization of the justice system. And for those who fled dictatorships, that’s a red flag,” said Diaz-Balart.

“Trump is being persecuted unfairly. It’s not a prosecution. It’s the banana republic so many of us fled,” said Rafael Montalvo, who was part of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba and is the president of Brigade 2506 Veterans Association​.

The association made its first presidential primary endorsement ever in 2016 by backing Trump and Montalvo said “the Cuban community will always stand by Trump because he stood by us. I like DeSantis. He is great. He will make a great president one day. But he is our governor. Trump is our president.”

Guillermo J. Grenier, who conducts the widely respected Cuba Poll for Florida International University where he’s a sociology professor, said many Trump is a “political Rorschach” where people see what they want, and Cuban Americans and immigrants are no different.

Many voters view Trump as a strong man for tough times, he said, and they see the former New York developer and TV star of ‘The Apprentice” as the “pinnacle of success” who also is “the underdog, someone who has overcome in their view every smear and he’s talked truth to power. And Cubans identify with that here because they feel like they made Miami through hard work: ‘We’re the underdog. We made it.’ That’s just the DNA of this place.”

The man has a gold shitter. He's no underdog.

The irony is, Trump is a weakling and a coward.

Most "strong men" are

so that all boils down to: he had a TV show, Biden never had his own TV show

Alfred, can I ask what role you think racism plays in Trump’s high esteem among Cubans? Having a lot more friends and people around from Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the DR has opened my eyes to some of the racial dynamics at play in these communities, but I’m curious what you think

He routinely “punches down” at people with lesser economic, social and political power. And somehow his fans see that as a sign of strength. This will always baffle me.

so that all boils down to: he had a TV show, Biden never had his own TV show

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, November 7, 2023 1:30 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Take heed, White House media team

anecdotal but one of my friend's mother's growing up was Cuban and any time her daughter went to a dance, she instructed her not to accept dance requests from Puerto Ricans

Take heed, White House media team

― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings)

Three's Company reboot with Biden as Mr. Furley.

Alfred, can I ask what role you think racism plays in Trump’s high esteem among Cubans? Having a lot more friends and people around from Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the DR has opened my eyes to some of the racial dynamics at play in these communities, but I’m curious what you think

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table)

With the younger ones the racism is harder to see; they grew up in a more integrated society (not that Batista-era Cuba had Jim Crow).

My parents and grandparents? For damn sure. Exceptionalism reigns. The Black family friend is treated no differently than the rest (we have a cliche: "Juanito's not Black, he's Cuban!"), but Blacks as a group are regarded as aggrieved, in some cases The Real Racists.

Trump's support among the Hialeahans cited in the article has little to do with racism: it's xenophobia. The Bootstrap Ethos: "We made it; if you can't, fuck you." The Cubans my grandparents age think they earned the Cuban Adjustment Act -- the most generous and far-reaching assimilation law ever signed by an American president -- by demonstrating how hard they worked, not realizing that, as even Joan Didion figured out, they arrived in Miami as the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts passed and promptly took those middle management jobs (supers, bank managers, small business owners, etc.) that would've gone to Miami Blacks as Jim Crow dissolved.

Finally: I've written about this a lot. Those Cubans don't hate Fidel because he was a dictator -- they hate him because he was the wrong kind of dictator. He was one of them, a member of the elite (he went to Belen and studied law!). We like dictators.

https://media4.giphy.com/media/rZJLgMSaRd62HQjAuv/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952xqiw8hg3ezjuzl74f5dbxv74geyunqgltgltoy2h&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=v

"Live and let live, I always say"

xp When I lived in Perú, I got the sense that many people resented Fujimori not because he was a dictator, but because he was a Chino.

The upper class who benefited from Batista disdained him for being mulatto.

They mockingly called it "la blandadura" LOL

Thanks for that response, Alfred!

a pleasure

I meant "la dictablanda," which is actually funnier because it makes sense.

Alberto Fujimori is still rotting in prison afaik. Which, I suppose, is some reason for optimism.