Category Archives: Donald Trump

For all the defects Donald Trump has as a politician, he does possess certain skills, among them an almost preternatural ability to tap into the sensibilitiesthe idof the American right. More than any other Republican candidate in 2016, Trump was in sync with the base of the party. He still is, as he prepares for what looks like another run for the presidency.

Returning to Washington, D.C., for the first time since he left the White House in the aftermath of the violent assault on the Capitol, Trump gave a speech last Tuesday to the America First Policy Institute (AFPI). It was billed as a policy address on public safety. But everyone knows that policy doesnt interest Trump in the least. What he cares about is the performative part of politics, inflaming peoples passions, creating chaos and conflict. Politics is a stage on which his disordered personality plays itself out.

Like every Trump speech, it was undisciplined. The former president stayed on script and went off script, sometimes reading from his prepared text and other times riffing on topics including tent cities for homeless people, transgender athletes, and election lies. (The riffs are what most charged up the crowd.)

Despite the speechs unruliness, certain themes in it are worth examining, because they signal what a Trump campaign might look like. And even if he doesnt run, they reveal the mindset of the American right. These are the pillars of the GOP.

From the June 2019 issue: An oral history of Trumps bigotry

Fear: If the hallmarks of Ronald Reagans speeches were optimism, hope, and a sense of limitless possibilities, Trumps speeches are the antithesis. Trump is a genius at tapping into fear. In his AFPI speech, for example, he portrayed America not as a great nation facing significant challenges, but as a dystopia, hellish and desolate, a cesspool of crime on the edge of extinction.

Trump spoke about streets riddled with needles and soaked with the blood of innocent victims, a nation being terrorized by drugged out lunatics and sadists who prey on children. He invoked violent gangs laughing as they bludgeoned the life from their helpless victims and described a woman being repeatedly stabbed and bleeding to death in her own bathtub. He claimed that Americas largest cities are literal war zones.

We have blood, death, and suffering on a scale once unthinkable, because of the Democrat Partys effort to destroy and dismantle law enforcement all throughout America, according to Trump. Our country is going to hell, he said.

This grim narrative is one Trump has used for many years, and last Tuesdays speech echoed his American carnage inaugural address. But this speech was bleaker, its portrait of America more terrifying.

This dark view of the world reflects Trumps own dark temperament. But his description of America also resonates with many on the right who believe that America is caught in a spiral of doom. It reinforces the core belief among Trump supporters that things are so desperate, embracing Trumps corruption and lawlessness is necessary to defeat the barbarians at the gates (Democrats).

Trump is positioning himself as the indispensable man, a selfless public servant who, because of his boundless love for America and its people, will give up his life of comfort and ease to reluctantly reenter the political arena.

Im doing it for America, Trump said. And its my honor to do it. Its my great, great honor to do it. Because if I dont, our nation is doomed to become another Venezuela or become another Soviet Union or become a very large-scale version of Cuba, where all is lost and there is no hope.

In the world according to Trump, the choice is a stark one: Support him, and you defend civilization; oppose him, and you invite savagery.

Grievances: One of the things Trump understood from the moment he ran for president in 2016 was that the Republican Partys base was roiling with resentments and grievances. Its members felt patronized, disrespected, dishonored, and persecuted by the elite culture. They were sick of it, they were enraged by it, and they werent going to take it anymore.

One Trump supporter who is intimately involved in politics, and who requested anonymity so he could speak candidly, put it to me this way last week: The left plays dirty. Theyre smashmouth all the time. They insult and degrade and attack, and theyve done that for years. I think its inevitable that this new wave of GOPersTrump and the countless Republicans who emulate himhas emerged that wants to go toe-to-toe with them. And frankly, most people I talk to say its about time.

Trump has spent half a dozen years not only validating those feelings but amplifying them. Time and again he signaled to his supporters that they were being viciously and unjustly attacked, that the game was rigged against them. He would be their merciless defender, their avenging angel. This created a powerful visceral attachment to the former president.

This time around, Trump has added something new to the narrative, representing himself as persecuted for the sake of his people.

If I renounced my beliefs, if I agreed to stay silent, if I stayed home and just took it easy, the persecution of Donald Trump would stop immediately, he said in his AFPI speech. But thats not what I will do.

A friend of mine recently said that I was the most persecuted person in the history of our country, Trump said. And then, I started thinking about it, Kellyanne [Conway, who was in the audience]. And I said, You know what? He may very well be right. He may be right.

Trump then said this: Never forget, everything this corrupt establishment is doing to me is all about preserving their power and control over the American people. They want to damage you in any form, but they really want to damage me, so I can no longer go back to work for you. And I dont think thats going to happen.

Trump is telling his supporters that he is all that stands between them and those who want to inflict great pain and grave harm on them.

Hate: Trump used his speech to portray his opponents as not just misguided but wicked and therefore suitable objects of hate. Americas 45th president said, Despite great outside dangers, our biggest threat in this country remains the sick, sinister, and evil people from within. And this: Were standing up against some of the most menacing forces and entrenched interests and vicious opponents our people have ever seen or confronted. He described Democratic Representative Adam Schiff as a sick, evil, very bad human being. The January 6 committee, he said, is made up of hacks and thugs. He then made this move: But no matter how big or powerful the corrupt radicals that were fighting against may be, no matter how menacing they appear, we must never forget this nation does not belong to them. This nation belongs to you, the American people.

What Trump has done in the eyes of his supporters is to set up a clash of epic, almost biblical proportions: the children of light versus the children of darkness, patriots versus traitors, the decent versus the depraved. In an existential conflict such as this, everything is permissible; nothing is off limits. This is a fight to the death.

Trump might not run for president in 2024and if he runs, he might not win. Much of Rupert Murdochs media empire is turning against Trump. And as Sarah Longwell wrote in The Atlantic on Thursday, focus groups of Trump 2020 voters indicate that the accumulating drama of the January 6 hearingswhich they cant avoid in social-media feedsseems to be facilitating not a wholesale collapse of support, but a soft permission to move on. He may be just a bit too mad even for a MAGA party.

Whether Trump wins or not, he has left an imprint on the Republican Party. In 2016, Trump was the outlier, a political freak. Today his inclinations, his enmities, his style of politics define the GOP. Even the person widely seen right now as the most formidable challenger to Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is diet Trump, in the words of one political strategist.

David Frum: The rise of Ron DeSantis

Whoever leads the Republican Party in the years ahead, the fear, grievances, and hate Trump poured into the cauldron wont dissipate anytime soon. If and when the GOP finally does break away from the dark, fanatical, cultlike qualities that now characterize it, it will do so because the people who compose and define it seekeven if imperfectlywhat is true and good and honorable. For the Republican Party, the only way out is the way up.

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The Three Pillars of the Trumpist GOP - The Atlantic

If youve paid any attention to current events over the last several years, but especially since January 6, 2021, youve known for some time that Donald Trump should be in prison. The case for him losing his freedom to crash weddings, deface government property, and run for president again has only gotten a boost over the past couple months, during which the January 6 committee and its witnesses have shown that the man is an obvious danger to society. The question, of course, is whether or not the Department of Justice is actually going to indict a former president. That the DOJ is reportedly now investigating his specific actions surrounding the plot to overturn the election results and the ensuing insurrection suggests it might. On the other hand, some worry that Attorney General Merrick Garland wont pull the trigger over fears of politicizing the agency. One group of people expecting criminal charges? Trumps own legal team.

Rolling Stone reports that the ex-presidents attorneys have become increasingly anxious that he will be indicted for his attempt to overturn the election and are preemptively preparing a legal defense against criminal charges. According to reporters Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley, Trumps lawyers have been brainstorming strategy and mapping out potential defenses; Trump himself has reportedly been briefed about the situation at least twice this summer. While the legal team had already begun working on possible responses to charges, the effort apparently ramped up after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified publicly before the January 6 committee. Among other things, Hutchinson told the panel that Trump had been informed that some of his supporters whod gathered in D.C. on the day of the riot were armed, but demanded they be allowed in to hear his Stop the Steal speech anyway; that then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows seemed unconcerned about the violence at the Capitol; that Trump assaulted a Secret Service agent after being told he couldnt march to the Capitol himself; and that the 45th president apparently believed V.P. Mike Pence deserved the chants calling for his hanging.

One person familiar with the matter who spoke to Rolling Stone said, Members of the Trump legal team are quietly preparing, in the event charges are brought. It would be career malpractice not to. Do the [former] presidents attorneys believe everything Cassidy said? No. Do they think the Department of Justice would be wise to charge him? No. But weve gotten to a point where if you dont think criminal charges are at least somewhat likely, you are not serving the [former] presidents best interests.

Rolling Stones sources revealed that the various legal defense strategies being tossed around include throwing Trumps advisers under the bus, or a defense based on the right to petition the government over a political grievance.

Last week, it was revealed that Marc Short and Greg Jacob, two former top aides to Mike Pence, had been interviewed by a grand jury investigating the attack on the Capitol. In addition to being able to speak to the threat to Pences life on January 6Short was at the Capitol with the V.P. that daythe former chief of staff was also in the Oval Office during a January 4, 2021, meeting during which attorneyJohn EastmanpressuredPence to either suspend the Electoral College vote count and ask willing state legislatures to reexamine their results, or just reject Joe Bidens win outright. It was during that meeting that Eastman reportedly acknowledged that he knew such ideas were illegal, but told Pence, with Trump watching, to go along with them anyway. Jacob, Pences chief legal counsel, was present at that meeting as well, and told the January 6 committee of it: During that meeting on the fourth, I think I raised the problem that both of Mr. Eastmans proposals would violate several provisions of the Electoral Count Act. Mr. Eastman acknowledged that that was the case, that even what he viewed as the more politically palatable option would violate several provisions. In March, a federal judgewrotethat Eastman and Trump very likely committed a crime in attempting to overturn the election, and noted that the illegality of the plan was obvious.

Speaking to Rolling Stone in June, Ty Cobb, a former lawyer in Trumps White House said: I do think criminal prosecutions are possible. Whether they are advisable is a more difficult consideration for the country. Possible for Trump and [Mark] Meadows certainly. And for the others, including lawyers, who engaged fraudulently in formal proceedings or investigations.

For his part, Trump reportedly believes that running for president will allow him to claim the investigation is a politically motivated witch hunt, while actually winning a second term will let him shut it down (and, knowing him, try to have anyone who worked on it prosecuted). According to Rolling Stone, hes also told numerous people that should he be indicted, the protests would make January 6 look small by comparison. Which is pretty chilling, given, yknow, what happened on January 6.

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Report: Trumps Legal Team Is Planning for Criminal Charges From the Justice Department - Vanity Fair

Donald Trump has always had a Tom Brady obsession, and now, we might know the reason why. Jared Kushner is offering insight into his courtship of Ivanka Trump in his upcoming book, Breaking History: A White House Memoir, and it surprisingly involves the NFL star.

Kushner and Donald Trump got off to a rough start because he was the publisher of the New York Observerat the time. His future father-in-law sent off an angry missive to him when he didnt like his standing on the magazines annual Power List in 2007. Please stop sending me your paper, so I dont have to read bullshit like this anymore! Trump wrote in an excerpt provided to Forward. That ego-driven letter sounds about right and it was a warning sign to Kushner, which he obviously didnt heed.

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Two years later, Kushner was dating Ivanka, and was time to start discussing possible proposal details to Donald Trump and her conversion to Judaism.I could feel my voice shake as I managed to say that Ivanka and I were getting more serious and that she was in the process of converting, Kushner wrote.Well, let me ask you a question, Donald Trump asked his future son-in-law. Why does she have to convert? Why cant you convert? Noting that it was Ivankas decision to make, Donald Trump also added a bit of competition into the mix for Kushner, reminding him that Brady still had an interest in his daughter, so he better have the best intentions with the upcoming proposal.

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That isnt exactly how the story went down, according to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback. Howard Stern mentioned to Brady in a 2020 interview that he knew that Trump always dreamed of you marrying Ivanka, and he pressed on to ask the athlete if they ever dated.That was a long time ago in my life, Brady answered awkwardly. No, there was never that wherewe ever dated or anything like that. And if you know the Brady-Gisele Bndchen timeline, then you know they married in 2009, the same year Kushner walked down the aisle with Ivanka. So it seems that Donald Trump was playing wishful matchmaker in his head because he wanted Brady as his son-in-law and nobody else was onboard with this scenario.

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Donald Trump Warned Jared Kushner That Tom Brady Was Also Trying to Court Ivanka Trump - Yahoo Life

Poor Mike Pence. The former Republican vice president apparently thinks he has a chance to win the GOP nomination for president even after an angry mob of Republicans stormed the U.S. Capitol with the intention of hanging him for betraying their dear leader, Donald Trump. So Pence is running around the country making speeches in front of small audiences as if he has a snowball's chance in hell of winning a national election again when the sad fact is that he is a man without a constituency.

Republicans who loved Pence when he was Trump's most ardent disciple consider him a traitor. Those who respect him for doing the job every vice president who came before him had done on January 6 still loathe him for all of the years he spent ostentatiously licking Trump's boots. There might be a handful of GOP officials and operatives who look at Pence and see a sort of ghostly George W. Bush (whose vocal delivery he shamelessly apes), and the press, of course, wants to cast him as a viable Trump rival. But the truth is that Mike Pence is a walking piece of Wonderbread toast.

Notably, Pence and Trump have been holding competing public appearances for the last couple of weeks. Down in Arizona,Trump held a rallyfor a couple of wildly extreme GOP candidates for governor and senate, Kari Lake and Blake Masters, as well as a few kooky down ballot endorsees. He gave his usual meandering performance, delighting the large crowd with many of his greatest hits. At the microphone, Lake praised the former president for his inspiration:

"President Trump taught us how to fight and I took a few notes. That's why I go after the fake news because he showed us how to do it. He gave us the game plan and he showed us exactly how to stand up and fight. Republicans need to fight back"

Trump made it very clear that he was going to keep fighting, telling the crowd, "I ran twice and I won twice and I did much better than the second time than the first, getting millions more votes in 2020 than in 2016 and now, we may have to do it again."

Mike Pence is a walking piece of Wonderbread toast.

Across town, Mike Pence wasspeaking at a rallyof about 300 people on behalf of Kari Lake's opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson, whom he described as the true conservative in the race as if anyone cares about that anymore. Pence's big zinger of the night was a swipe at Lake "Arizona Republicans don't need a governor that supported Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton" which he delivered like a blast of foghorn. Nobody mentioned Jan. 6 or the 2020 election.

As it happens, the two former allies also held opposing speeches just a few days later in Washington D.C. Trump returned to the scene of the crime to ostensibly give a policy address at theAmerica First Policy Institute, a Trump-allied "think tank" and slush fund devoted to the former president and culture war propaganda, while Pence spoke at theYoung America's Foundation. The media portrayed these two speeches as a clash of visions for the Republican Party, with Trump offering his patented hellscape view of "American Carnage," complete with his laundry list of grievances about the allegedly stolen 2020 election, while Pence supposedly offered a fresh look to a brighter future which was interpreted as a jab at his former boss. That jab was most apparently expressed as, "I don't know that the president and I differ on issues, but we may differ on focus." (That's telling him...)

Politico wondered what it all meant:

That difference in focus is at the center of several big questions for Republicansin 2022 and 2024: Which vision do they want the party to follow? Which do they think is more appealing to the voters they need in order to win a majority? And even if they agree with Trump on the issues, is his focus with its dark tone and feedback-loop quality helpful in that pursuit?

But this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Trump's appeal and Pence's lack of it.

"Issues" as we previously understood them no longer exist in the Republican Party. Trump's "dark tone and feedback-loop quality"arethe issues. It's all about grievance, anger and resentment served up with the juvenile derision and mockery that only a true demagogue can deliver. A bowl of lukewarm water like Mike Pence simply can't serve that no matter how many dramatic pauses he takes in his speeches.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

But the fact that he cannot deliver a crude joke or stick the knife in and twist it with Trumpian glee doesn't mean that Pence isn't running on Trumpism.

Pence's "policy agenda" is full of culture war grievances. He releaseda pamphletlast spring in which he promoted "patriotic" education (meaning shallow jingoism, banning books and refusing to teach the truth about American history and the indigenous, Black and immigrant experiences.) He backs the cruel assault on transgender kids, draconian laws against abortion and all of the other far-right talking points that Trump and every other Republican on the campaign trail are running on. Pence just hasn't weighed in on the Great Replacement Theory, yet, so perhaps that's what defines a sunny moderate these days.

Most importantly, while he doesn't talk about the 2020 election, Pence also hasn't said a word against the attack on democracy that GOP state legislators and other officials are enacting all over the country. If anything, he's enabling them by endorsing the fatuous insistence that "in-person voting" must be enforced and mail-in voting should be (safe, legal and) "rare." There is no reason for any of that except to continue to encourage the false belief that the electoral system has been compromised on behalf of the Democrats. It is, in fact, the Big Lie and Pence is now perpetuating it just as the man who sat idly by while his rabid mob chanted "hang Mike Pence" has done.

Nonetheless, Pence is as obsequious and submissive as ever, refusing to stand up for himself even in face of what Trump did to him that awful day and never saying a harsh word about his former mentor. He's forlornly trying to salvage a political career based entirely on his fervent devotion to the man whom the only people who would vote for him believe he betrayed. Sad isn't the right word to describe it. It's pathetic.

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Mike Pence can't be president. His devotion to Donald Trump will be his downfall - Salon

In October 1974, President Gerald Ford appeared before Congress to provide his rationale for pardoning former President Nixon after Nixon had resigned from office. Fords purpose in absolving Nixon of criminal prosecution for crimes including obstructing the investigation into the Watergate break-in, he said, was to change our national focus. We would, he argued, needlessly be diverted from meeting (our) challenges if we as a people were to remain sharply divided over whether to indict, bring to trial and punish a former president, who already is condemned to suffer long and deeply in the shame and disgrace brought upon the office he held.

To recall Fords preemptive get-out-of-jail-free card, issued to Americas first certifiably felonious president, is to wonder whether Ford paved the way for our second. Was Donald Trump emboldened by the precedent of letting off a criminal ex-president scot-free in order to spare the nation division? Was he encouraged by the legal opinion issued by Nixons Department of Justice in September 1973 while Nixons criminality was being exposed but before he was forced to resign that a sitting president couldnt be indicted?

Well never know. But we do know that Fords rationale for letting Nixon skate doesnt apply to the decision Attorney General Merrick Garland must make whether to ask a grand jury to indict Trump.

For starters, Nixons obstruction of the investigation into the White Houses role in Watergate may have been profoundly criminal, but it amounted to jaywalking compared with Trumps attempt and conspiracy to obstruct the Constitutionally-mandated counting of electoral votes governing the democratic transfer of power let alone the crime of conspiracy to commit sedition.

Here is one question: if a former president is not prosecuted for attempting a criminal coup to keep himself in power against the expressed will of the American people, when would he or she ever be prosecuted? Heres another: how can we look at ourselves in the mirror if someone guilty of that crime is simply allowed to walk?

The answer to the first question: never. The answer to the second: we cant.

It isnt only the magnitude of criminality that differentiates Trump from Nixon. Trump has defrauded America every time it suited him, and cheated it when he couldnt defraud it. When he couldnt do either, he simply disgraced it, and in so doing disgraced all of us.

Nixon at least slinked away with a modicum of acknowledgement that he had sullied the presidency. Trump is not merely remorseless but defiant, eager to pick up where he left off.

Still, the critical issue is whether the Justice Department has sufficient evidence to establish Donald Trumps guilt of a statutory crime beyond a reasonable doubt. If it doesnt, thats the end of it. If it does, then indictment is the necessary, if painful, course.

What happens if Trump is indicted? What happens if Trump is indicted but acquitted, remembering that all his criminal defense lawyers have to do is persuade one juror not to vote to convict? What happens if he is convicted? Will the Supreme Court dominated by justices Trump appointed really permit him to report to a federal prison?

For wisdom, Attorney General Garland may want to consider other democracies that took a deep breath and prosecuted former leaders for various crimes of corruption. France, Italy and Israel are among them, and their democracies were strengthened, not weakened, for their having done so. They judged that the cost of prosecuting dishonest leaders was lower than that of looking the other way. Whether the United States makes the same judgment is in Merrick Garlands hands.

Jeff Robbins is a Boston lawyer and former U.S. delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission

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Robbins: Merrick Garland weighs decision to indict Trump - Boston Herald

One of the ways Donald Trump has been spending his life post-presidency has been playing golf in his current home state of Florida. In fact, he recently made headlines for sporting golf gear that could potentially get him in legal trouble. The LIV Golf Invitational Series Tournament based in New Jersey showed Trump's official U.S. government seal on full display. A video was captured and is now going viral on Twitter.

The video depicts Trump standing next to a man who is singing 'God Bless America,' and seems confused about what to do during the patriotic song.One Twitter user pointed out that this isn't the first occurrence where Trump has been befuddled on what to do during the Irving Berlin song, posting a video during a former Celebration of America event. Another user concurred, tweeting: "He is always trying to figure out what he's supposed to do while 'God Bless America' is sung, no matter where he is."

One user considered that Trump may be confusing "God Bless America" with the "National Anthem." The tweetread,"He thinks it's the Star Spangled Banner! There is no formal 'God Bless America' song etiquette as it is not our national anthem. Stand if you are asked, it shows respect. Taking your hat or cap off is not necessary. Placing your hand over your heart is not necessary."

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Donald Trump's Awkward Reaction To A Patriotic Anthem Has Twitter In A Tizzy - The List

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Donald Trump Jnr has branded Henrik Stensons victory on his LIV Golf debut the greatest F/U in the history of golf.

The son of ex-President Trump gave his opinion on Twitter after Stensons stunning victory at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster - the New Jersey course owned by his father - which earned the Swede a total of $4.375million.

Stensons move to LIV last month was shrouded in controversy because he was removed from the position as Ryder Cup captain as a result of signing with the Saudi-backed series. Indeed, after wrapping up his wire-to-wire win on his LIV debut, the 46-year-old couldnt resist firing a shot at that decision, saying afterwards that he played like a captain.

Despite the furore around his decision to join LIV, it didnt seem to trouble Stenson too much, as he played his best golf in years, opening with a 7-under-par 64 and sealing his two-shot victory with back-to-back 69s, finishing the 54-hole tournament at 11-under.

Matthew Wolff and Dustin Johnson finished tied-2nd on 9-under-par, both banking $1,812,500, while Johnsons 4Aces won the team event again, just as they did in Portland, to split the $3million prize money with Patrick Reed, Talor Gooch and Pat Perez. Stenson, part of the Majesticks team, had to make do with second place there, splitting $1.5million with Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sam Horsfield.

The Trump family have been vocal supporters of LIV Golf since the launch of the big money series. Donald Trump last week declared LIV Golf a great thing for Saudi Arabia and has encouraged players to take the money and join the breakaway series. Before the Bedmister event, the ex-President and another of his sons, Eric, played in the pro-am alongside Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau.

Trump is said to still be unhappy after this years PGA Championship was moved from Bedminster to Southern Hills following the US Capitol Hill riots on 6th January 2021, while Doral also lost its Tour event (the WGC-Cadillac Championship) after more than 50 years in 2016.

Last week LIV Golf announced huge expansion plans for next year, and more Trump-owned courses could be set to host events. As well as the Bedminster event that just finished, the inaugural season will visit Trump National Doral for the season finale in October. Reports over the weekend suggested that Trump's course in Ireland could host a LIV event in 2023.

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'Greatest F/U In The History Of Golf' - Donald Trump Jr On Stenson LIV Golf Win - Golf Monthly

In this Last Word segment, Lawrence O'Donnell lays out the cold hard truth that no one wants to hear. Donald Trump will likely never hear the sound of prison bars closing in on him. It would be unprecedented for a former president (with his large Secret Service detail) to be sentenced to serve time behind bars. At the most, he could end up with some sort of house confinement, effectively turning his USSS detail into both his protectors and his jailers.

But what is more likely to happen is that he will go completely broke fighting civil suits (like the one brought by Capitol Police officers) and paying any judgements awarded in these cases, which would be hundreds of millions of dollars. And, as Lawrence points out, for Don the Con, ending up penniless may be the far greater punishment. Either way, he will likely spend the rest of his days as Defendant Trump.

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Why Donald Trump will never go to prison but he may go broke - Boing Boing

Former President Donald Trump.Joe Maiorana/AP Photo

Donald Trump said it would be "very hard" not to run against Joe Biden in 2024.

The former president discussed when and if he would announce his candidacy while appearing on a talk show.

While not confirming whether or not he would run, Trump said: "in my mind, I've already made the decision."

Former President Donald Trump said it would be "very hard" for him to not run for president against Joe Biden in 2024, in the latest hint about his intent to run.

While appearing on The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show on Friday, the former president was asked: "Knowing what you know and seeing what you see of Joe Biden, how do you not run in 2024?"

"Very hard for me not to run, to be honest," Trump responded.

"And also, the polls indicate that, from the Republican standpoint, it would be easy. And I think from, like I was up 11 points against Biden the other day. I don't think he's gonna run."

Trump went on to discuss poll numbers, and claimed that he now has "the best poll numbers now I've ever had."

Recent polls have consistently suggested that Trump would beat Biden in a potential match-up, according to polling data aggregator RealClearPolitics.

Trump's most likely contender in a Republican primary for 2024 would be rising star Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

Although he has beaten Trump in some conservative straw polls, others suggest Trump would win.

After discussing upcoming midterms, talk show host Sexton asked Trump if he was going to announce his candidacy when it would be.

Trump went on to muse over the benefits of announcing before or after midterms, and claimed: "if we do badly, they'll blame me no matter what even if I had nothing to do with it."

A detailed view of a golf bag belonging to Eric Trump reads "Trump 2024."Jonathan Ferrey/LIV Golf via Getty Images

Sources close to the president have previously suggested he is more likely to announce before midterms.

While remaining coy about whether or not he will run, the former president said that he had already made up his mind.

"I'll make a decision fairly soon. And my I must tell you and I think I can say this in my mind, I've already made the decision," the former president said.

Recent photographs from earlier this week showed Trump's son Eric's golf bag had "Trump 2024" emblazoned on it, in another hint that he intends to run for a third time.

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Donald Trump said it would be 'very hard for me not to run' against Joe ...

When Ivana Trump, Donald Trumps first wife, was buried last month near the first hole of Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, few immediately guessed that her graves location might also serve her ex-husbands long-held tax planning purposes.

Tax code in New Jersey exempts cemetery land from all taxes, rates, and assessments and her grave, as such, potentially has advantageous tax implications for a Trump family trust that owns the golf business, in a state where property and land taxes are notoriously high.

According to documents published by ProPublica, the Trump family trust previously sought to designate a nearby property in Hackettstown, New Jersey, as a non-profit cemetery company.

But Ivana Trump, who died earlier this month at 73 after a fall at her home in New York Citys Manhattan, is the first person known to have been buried at the golf course, where Donald Trump and his family spend a lot of time in the summers.

Under New Jerseys tax code, cemetery companies are not only exempt from real estate taxes, rates, and assessments or personal property taxes, but also business taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, and inheritance taxes, according to Insider.

Brooke Harrington, a professor of sociology at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, tweeted on Saturday that she had looked into claims that Ivana Trumps resting-place might also benefit her ex-husbands tax planning from beyond the grave.

As a tax researcher, I was skeptical of rumors Trump buried his ex-wife in that sad little plot of dirt on his Bedminster, NJ golf course just for tax breaks. So I checked the NJ tax code & folksits a trifecta of tax avoidance. Property, income & sales tax, all eliminated, Harrington wrote, after opinions accusing Trump of being primarily motivated by the possibility of a tax break began popping up on social media.

Harrington later tweeted the full New Jersey tax code for cemetery land. While there is no stipulation for the amount of human remains necessary in order to qualify for the break, sales of wreaths, larger evergreen arrangements, flowers and other similar items are taxable.

While saying she was surprised about the tax suggestions she also accused Donald Trump of burying his wife in little more than a paupers grave and as a result disgracing the three children they had together, Ivanka, Don Jr and Eric.

Previous reports have suggested that her former husband has planned to build different types of cemetery operations at the Bedminster golf course.

Last week it was the venue for the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf tournament and was the focus of protests by some families of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, after Donald Trump previously joined opinions that the kingdom was behind the Al-Qaida plot to hijack passenger jets and crash them into World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon.

US public radio station NPR reported in 2012 under the online headline Fairway to Heaven that Trump planned to build himself a mausoleum on the property, prompting some local objections. That proposal was later expanded to a cemetery that could contain upwards of a 1,000 possible graves.

That plan was later dropped and replaced with a design for a 10-plot private family cemetery in the same spot, and refined again into a proposal for a commercial 284-plot cemetery, the station reported.

Ivana Trump was buried in a plot close to the first tee of the golf course, following her funeral in Manhattan on 20 July. Her resting place is currently marked with a rudimentary wreath of white flowers and an engraved granite stone.

However it is unlikely that the 1.5 acre plot would deliver tax exemptions to the entire Bedminster property any break only applies so long as the plot is less than 10 acres.

But every break counts, and the former president has previously designated the plot as a farm because some trees on the site are turned into mulch used for flower beds, according to the Washington Post.

Trumps notions to partially designate the golf course as a cemetery date to at least 2014. Plans then filed with local and state authorities listed a proposal for a pair of graveyards one for the family, another with 284 plots for sale. The Washington Post noted that buyers, presumably avid golfers, could pay for a kind of eternal membership to the club.

But Trump, true to form, had not at that time settled on a course of action. Robert Holtaway, a Bedminster town official, said he had doubts about the cemetery plans. It never made any sense to me. But, he added, we dont question motives. Were there as a land-use board.

Trump already has a plot at All Faiths Cemetery in Jamaica, Queens, close to his mother and father, but plans for his Bedminster mausoleum were suitably grandiose: 19 feet high, in stone, with obelisks, and planted smack in the middle of the course.

Trump has kept silent about his plans for how the Eternal Donald will be commemorated in the earthly realm. In 2007, then aged 60, he told the New York Post that the golden course mausoleum was a rational choice.

Its never something you like to think about, but it makes sense, he told the papers Page Six column. This is such beautiful land, and Bedminster is one of the richest places in the country.

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Will Ivana help Donald Trump with tax breaks from beyond the grave? - The Guardian US