The Hits Just Keep Coming for Trump on Truth Social Value

Donald Trump’s social media venture, Trump Media & Technology Group, debuted on the stock market in late March with a strong initial public offering of nearly $80 a share. Today? It’s less than half that, trading at just under $33.  

The company’s slide began shortly after it debuted, when its 2023 filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission were released. They showed only $4.1 million in revenue, coupled with a loss of a whopping $58 million. Days later, two of TMTG’s investors pleaded guilty to insider trading in connection to one of the major sources of the company’s value: its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corporation.

Since then, Trump Media’s stock has continuously plummeted, losing close to $2.7 billion. Not coincidentally, Donald Trump fell off the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which ranks the 500 richest people in the world every day. His bragging about the stock last week didn’t help at all and may have even violated SEC rules. 

In the past, Trump has hardly ever dealt with the SEC, since his businesses are usually privately held, and it’s showing. As Timothy Noah wrote for The New Republic last week, “It’s much harder to lie to the SEC than it is to lie to a bank or insurance company about a privately held business.”

Trump has a number of legal debts that he can’t begin to pay without the help of surety firms with questionable reputations. He also can’t dump or borrow against his Trump Media stock without the permission of his board for six months. And with the stock sliding further every day, he may not see much of a windfall by then, anyway. 

Donald Trump may have just issued one of the weirdest calls for a debate ever.

In a series of videotaped rants posted to his Truth Social account on Wednesday night, Trump attempted to turn all of the blame for his own legal problems onto Joe Biden, espousing debunked claims that the president is covertly behind Trump’s mountain of legal woes.

“He’s the worst president in the history of our country, and the only way he thinks he can get elected is to take me to trials, take me to courts, city, state and federal. They control them all,” Trump said. “All of these cases that you’re reading about are Crooked Joe Biden’s case because he can’t put two sentences together. He can’t do anything. So they weaponize government and they take me to court on bullshit.”

According to Trump, his legal comeuppance for committing bank fraud and sexual abuse are all the more reason to prosecute Biden—and not him.

“At what point are the actions of a sitting president using lawfare and weaponization against his opponent for purposes of election interference considered illegal?” Trump demanded. “I believe, as do various highly respected legal scholars, that Crooked Joe Biden has long since crossed over that very sacred threshold. He is a criminal. He is a horrible president.”

After spending several videos harping on Biden and his alleged political antics—and criticizing Democrats for “killing social security and medicare” even though it’s the Republican Party that is attempting to raise the Social Security retirement age—Trump issued a brief invitation to debate the president “anytime, anywhere, any place.”

“It’s time for Crooked Joe Biden, the worst president in the history of the United States, and I to debate,” Trump said. “We have to talk about what he’s doing and where we’re going. We owe it to our country. We owe it to all Americans.”

Despite refusing to participate in any Republican primary debates, Trump and his team have increasingly started to demand the opportunity to debate Biden. Last week, Trump’s daughter-in-law and RNC co-chair Lara Trump insisted that Biden “has a lot of answers to give the American people.”

“I can only assume he doesn’t have the answers to the questions that he will be asked,” she then snidely and nonsensically quipped.

Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday that if reelected, he would not sign a national abortion ban—but he’s not fooling anyone.

During an exchange with a reporter on the tarmac of Atlanta’s airport, Trump simultaneously managed to celebrate the overturning of Roe v. Wade as an “incredible achievement” while also slamming the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to revive an abortion ban from 1864 as going too far.

“So for 52 years the people have wanted to end Roe v. Wade to get it back to the states. We did that. It was an incredible thing, an incredible achievement,” Trump said. “Now the states have it, and the states are putting out what they want. It’s the will of the people.

“So Florida’s probably going to change,” he continued. “Arizona is going to definitely change, everybody wants that to happen. And you’re getting the will of the people. It’s been pretty incredible when you think about it.”

Trump then went on to say that he would not sign any formal abortion bans that crossed his desk if he reclaimed the White House in November—though his track record, and his opponents, call that into question.

Trump has made abortion a key component of all three of his campaigns, repeatedly promising over the last eight years to ban the medical procedure at every available opportunity. While in office, he expressed support for a bill that would have banned abortion nationwide at 20 weeks.

Since then, he has used scare tactics to spread disinformation about the procedure, erroneously claiming as recently as Monday that Democrats support “execution after birth.” And Trump’s track record includes the most egregious offense against national access—the appointment of three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

What’s more, declining to sign a national abortion ban is just as dangerous as signing one. Abortion rights activists warned that by claiming he thinks states should set abortion regulations, Trump is really backing the cruelest laws, such as those in Texas and Florida.

“Actions speak louder than words,” posted Jim Messina, White House deputy chief of staff under President Barack Obama, noting that Trump is once again attempting to “muddy the waters.”

“That’s always been the case with Trump—what he says has never mattered,” Messina continued. “He just says what he needs to wiggle out of whatever situation he’s in. Trump has only one track record: overturning Roe v. Wade and ushering in these horrifying bans.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson is heading to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Donald Trump to discuss a topic with which neither is familiar: election integrity.

According to MSNBC, Johnson and Trump will speak together on Friday, presumably to reminisce about their last joint venture. In 2020, Johnson, then a little-known Louisiana congressman, led an amicus brief supporting the Texas lawsuit that sought to stop the Supreme Court from certifying the election by challenging vote counts in key swing states. One hundred thirty-nine House Republicans signed on to the brief, even in the wake of the January 6 insurrection (which Johnson defended), and the flimsy legal logic undergirding the lawsuit became the go-to line for election deniers, including Trump himself.

When Johnson emerged as a possible replacement speaker in the wake of Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as speaker of the House, Trump threw his support behind his candidacy on Truth Social.

No details were yet available Wednesday about the exact topics Johnson and Trump will discuss, but any sign of Trump continuing to support Johnson could prove hugely beneficial to the embattled House speaker.

Since becoming speaker, Johnson has faced questions about his leadership. He’s been unable to rein in the right flank of his caucus and has been criticized as “weak” and an “appeaser.” To the extent that the GOP has united around him, it has done so to stifle criticism of his election denialism. A seal of approval from Trump could help bring the party together on actual legislation efforts too.

Johnson has insisted that Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is “not calling the shots.” In one respect, he is correct, and it has nothing to do with “election integrity.” Both he and Trump are in perfect lockstep about subverting democratic elections in the United States.

Donald Trump is drawing another line in the sand, this time of the antisemitic variety. According to the GOP presidential nominee, if you’re Jewish, you can’t vote Democrat.

Trump traveled to Atlanta on Wednesday for a campaign event. While at the airport, when one reporter asked if he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump went off on a wild rant.

“[President Joe] Biden has totally lost control of the Israel situation. He has abandoned Israel. He’s totally abandoned Israel,” Trump replied. “And frankly, he’s a low-IQ individual. He has no idea where he is and who he’s supporting.

“He doesn’t know if he’s supporting the Palestinians, but he knows one thing: He’s not supporting Israel. He has abandoned Israel,” Trump said. “And any Jewish person that votes for a Democrat or votes for Biden should have their head examined.”

Trump’s been thinking a lot about Jewish votes recently, and how he can convince the demographic to vote for him in November. During an interview on Real America’s Voice on Tuesday, Trump argued that “any Jewish person that votes for Biden does not love Israel” and ominously commented that those people “should be spoken to.”

“How a Jewish person person can vote for Biden is—or a Democrat, because they are on the side, 100 percent, of the Palestinians, and he doesn’t know how to get out of it. He’s stuck. But he is—if you look at what he’s done—he is totally on the side of the Palestinians,” Trump said, deriding the decision to vote blue as a “bad habit.”

“And frankly, it’s incredible that historically Jewish people vote for Democrats. To me, I cannot. And I know you’re Jewish, Wayne, and I know you vote for me, but I don’t understand it. And you probably don’t understand it either.”

On the other side of the aisle, progressives have continually slammed Biden for refusing to take a hard line with Netanyahu, either by calling for a cease-fire or pausing weapons shipments, even after the war has cost the lives of more than 32,000 Palestinians.

Biden’s harshest critique of Netanyahu came Tuesday, a week after an Israeli airstrike killed seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen in Gaza, including one Canadian American dual citizen. Biden described Netanyahu’s strategy as a “mistake” and added that he didn’t “agree with his approach.”