Still Unable to Post Bond, Trump Has Most Crazed Meltdown Yet

In just shy of a week, Donald Trump’s $454 million judgment from his New York bank fraud trial will become collectible, either by way of liquid cash or financial assets—and it has officially sent Trump into meltdown mode.

The notoriously sleep-deprived GOP presidential nominee spent the better part of Monday night shouting into the void about the massive, half-billion-dollar judgment and his apparent inability to pay it off, bemoaning being required to follow the law before being allowed to appeal the case.

“I would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone. Does that make sense? WITCH HUNT. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” Trump posted Tuesday morning.

“I shouldn’t have to put up any money, being forced by the Corrupt Judge and AG, until the end of the appeal. That’s the way system works!” he added, forgetting that he’s being held to the same standards as every private citizen.

The real estate mogul was also having a hard time letting go of one particular nagging detail from the trial: the court’s $18 million evaluation for Trump’s primary residence, the Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago.

“The only FRAUD in the Peekaboo James case, our failed and disgusting New York State Attorney General, was her convincing ‘Judge’ Arthur Engoron to put a value on Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, of just $18,000,000, when it is worth 50 to 100 times that amount. This was fraudulently and illegally done, working closely together in a corrupt Communist system, to set their NARRATIVE after learning that their Values and Facts were completely wrong,” Trump posted, adding that he paid $300 million in taxes—though the public will never be sure of that last point, since Trump famously refused a presidential tradition of turning over his tax returns for examination prior to entering the Oval Office.

In a filing to a New York appeals court on Monday, Trump’s attorneys announced that they had been unable to secure a bond to cover the massive legal penalty for committing widespread fraud related to Trump’s real estate operation. Attorneys for the Trump Organization told the court that over the last several weeks, they had attempted to work with four different brokers and approached 30 suretors (people or institutions willing to take on the primary responsibility of the debt) to no avail. They simply wouldn’t accept Trump’s real estate as collateral, instead accepting only liquid cash to the tune of $1 billion, which the self-purported billionaire said he and his businesses just don’t have, according to the filing.

“A bond of the size set by the Democrat Club-controlled Judge, in Corrupt, Racist Letitia James’ unlawful Witch Hunt, is unConstitutional, un-American, unprecedented, and practically impossible for ANY Company, including one as successful as mine. The Bonding Companies have never heard of such a bond, of this size, before, nor do they have the ability to post such a bond, even if they wanted to,” Trump moaned on Monday night.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell doesn’t seem to be so confident in his election conspiracies these days.

The floundering businessman took to Steve Bannon’s podcast on Monday to push his latest theory that the United States needs to outlaw electronic voting machines. The current suit, led by failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, is being underwritten by the pillow salesman. After admitting the effort is a total long shot and his evidence did not “shock the world,” as he had promised, Lindell decided to ask supporters if they could foot his legal bill.

“It’s an emergency injunction to expedite this case,” Lindell told Bannon. “What’s gonna come out now will be all the declarations and all the evidence to back up the case. So this is the second part of it. This was very much planned by our lawyers.”

“Because the media right now is out there,” he continued. “It hasn’t really reached the masses of the media, but the ones that are out there are trying to discredit [it]. ‘Well, there’s nothing behind this.’ It’s coming, all the declarations.”

If you see the whole hullabaloo as a totally pointless waste of money, you’d be right—especially because Arizona already uses paper ballots and requires election officials to do hand counts of random batches of votes just to make sure the ballots match the machine tallies.

The former millionaire spent months using every platform at his disposal to seed conspiracy theories following the 2020 presidential election, including against Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, claiming the electronic voting companies were complicit in a scheme to keep Donald Trump from retaking the White House. That, however, cost Lindell $5 million and put him on the line in a $1.3 billion defamation suit brought by Dominion, in which he’s being sued not just for spreading the lies but also for attempting to profit from them. Lindell, of course, has a plan for that—he’s going to use the Supreme Court to defend himself with his new crowdfunded legal fund.

“But Steve, all this evidence, this new evidence is gonna be used far and wide,” he told the far-right host. “There’s cases out there, as you know, Mike Lindell and MyPillow getting sued for billions of dollars.”

The self-described centrist group No Labels has been rejected, again, by a potential candidate for its bipartisan presidential ticket.

No Labels voted two weeks ago to plow ahead with its so-called “unity ticket,” a move that will likely unleash chaos on the 2024 election. The third-party movement has not named its presidential and vice presidential nominees, who are meant to represent both parties, but No Labels was reportedly considering former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan.

But Duncan, a Republican, poured cold water on that idea Monday. “After careful deliberation, I have withdrawn my name from consideration for the No Labels presidential ticket,” he said in a statement. “In addition to my private sector career and earning a living for my family of five, I am focused on healing and improving the Republican Party with a GOP 2.0 so we can elect more common-sense conservative candidates in the future.”

It’s unclear who will actually run on a No Labels ticket. In fact, No Labels itself doesn’t even know who could run on its ticket. The group, which has repeatedly been accused of running a pro–Donald Trump spoiler campaign, has promised only to run a ticket if the group believed it had a candidate that could actually win.

During the vote two weeks ago, members praised each other for being courageous and patriotic. But the fact remains that all of No Labels’ reportedly preferred candidates have either been generally unpopular or, like Duncan, have said no—and, in some cases, both.

Prior to Duncan, the group reportedly courted Nikki Haley, Joe Manchin, and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. Haley dropped out of the Republican presidential primary earlier this month after a terrible performance, while Manchin is one of the most unpopular senators nationwide. Both turned down No Labels before a formal offer could be made.

Hogan, who left office with record-high approval ratings, had weighed a presidential run on a No Labels ticket. But he ultimately decided to run for Maryland senator instead.

Duncan was unlikely to garner nationwide support. While he was one of the few Republican leaders willing to state that the 2020 election hadn’t been rigged and he defended Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger against Trump’s conspiracy attacks, Duncan also holds several deeply conservative stances that would have made him unpopular with the majority of the country.

He opposed the Affordable Care Act and expanding Medicaid. Duncan is also staunchly anti-abortion, backing multiple restrictions on abortion access in Georgia and describing Planned Parenthood as a “malicious organization” during his 2018 campaign.

It’s starting to become normal for No Labels, a purportedly nonpartisan group, to court right-wing or right-leaning connections such as Duncan. The organization has accepted donations from a man with close financial ties to Jared Kushner, as well as Nazi memorabilia–collector Harlan Crow.

One of the group’s members is former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, who oversaw a contentious, highly partisan, and decidedly far-right four years. He defended voter ID laws, rejected the Obamacare expansion of Medicaid, and backed a bill that banned people from using the bathroom that matched their gender identity.

President Joe Biden just got another win in his monthslong standoff with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. On Monday, the nation’s highest court ruled that the implementation of Texas Senate Bill 4 would be further delayed until the legal challenges against it are settled.

The court waited until the eleventh hour to issue a ruling—even allowing the delay to lapse for several minutes—before extending the administrative stay indefinitely.

“It is ordered that the stay issued on March 4, 2024 is hereby extended pending further order of the undersigned or of the court,” read a court order issued by Justice Samuel Alito.

S.B. 4 proposed allowing Texas police to question and arrest anyone they believed might have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, and granting them the authority to charge them with misdemeanors for first-time offenders and felonies for repeat offenders. It also would have allowed Texas law enforcement to deport immigrants back to a port of entry along the border. The contentious bill was signed into law by Abbott and was supposed to take effect on March 5—until the Justice Department and several civil rights groups got involved, arguing that the bill went way too far, stepping on the toes of the federal government. Earlier this month, Alito placed a temporary stay on the case, which expired at 4 p.m. CDT on Monday.

Local authorities, however, have indicated that their policies will remain relatively unchanged by the outcome.

“We are aware of the governor signing SB4 into law effective March 2024. Given the stated goals and implementation parameters discussed in the state legislature, we will comply with the law and do not expect to make any substantive changes to SAPD policy or practice,” the San Antonio Police Department told NewsNation on Monday.

Biden and Abbott have had a similar legal showdown over a length of concertina wire along the U.S.-Mexico border, which ended in a 5–4 ruling by the Supreme Court that sided with Biden.

“Texas has the sovereign right to construct border barriers to prevent the entry of illegal aliens,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said at the time.

A conservative influencer has been arrested for participating in the January 6 insurrection.

Isabella Maria DeLuca faces a total of five misdemeanor counts: one each for theft of government property; entering restricted buildings or grounds; disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted area; disorderly or disruptive conduct in the Capitol Building; and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building, according to federal charges unsealed Monday.

The documents show DeLuca was arrested on Friday in Irvine, California. Her case was assigned to a magistrate judge in Washington, D.C.

DeLuca currently works as a conservative social media influencer, boasting more than 330,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter). Before that, she interned for far-right Representatives Lee Zeldin and Paul Gosar.

DeLuca, who according to a post on her LinkedIn is in her midtwenties, shared many details about her January 6 visit to Washington with her social media followers. Court documents show she posted an Instagram story the night of January 5, 2021, complaining about how her train to Washington had broken down and she needed a ride. (Her Instagram profile was private at the time of publication.)

On the afternoon of January 6, DeLuca tweeted, “Fight back or let politicians steal an election? Fight back!” She then sent private messages to an Instagram follower saying she was walking to the Capitol.

Surveillance footage from the attack shows DeLuca inside the restricted area of the Capitol grounds. She stood near one of the doors, taking photos or videos on her phone. Eventually, DeLuca climbed through a window and helped pass furniture outside to the mob. One of the items she passed out, a table, was later used as a weapon against Capitol police.

More than 1,200 people have been arrested in connection with the January 6 insurrection, and the numbers just keep going up. Many said they went to Washington because they felt Donald Trump had personally called on them to fight for him.