Spineless Trump Admits Why He Was Too Afraid to Testify

Donald Trump claims he wanted to testify in his hush-money trial—but he was afraid he’d be found guilty of more crimes. Trump’s statements came during a meandering, often incoherent tirade in front of the press at Trump Tower on Friday, the day after he was convicted of 34 felonies by a Manhattan jury.

“I would have testified. I wanted to testify,” he said one day after his first criminal trial came to a close.

“The judge allowed them to go into everything I was ever involved in–not this case–everything I was ever involved in, which is a first. In other words, you could go into every single thing that I ever did [and ask], ‘Was he a bad boy here? Was he a bad boy there?’” he continued, seeming to imply that if the prosecution really dug into his past they would have found more crimes.

“But you would have been, you would have said something out of whack, like, ‘It was a beautiful sunny day,’ and it was actually raining out,” Trump continued, providing a false example of perjury, before seemingly word-associating to talk about the pro-Trump gathering outside Manhattan Criminal Court.

Trump opened his presser with claims that witnesses for Trump’s defense were “literally crucified” by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who Trump described as looking “so nice and soft” and that he “looks like an angel, but he’s really a devil” before moving on to his boilerplate racist rant about migrants.

During the trial, Trump falsely claimed he was prohibited from testifying as a result of a gag order restricting his public statements after he incited harassment against judge Juan Merchan and Merchan’s daughter. Trump allies opposed him testifying, voicing concerns about his tendency to ramble.

The day after Donald Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a felony, he rushed to Trump Tower to hold a press conference proclaiming his innocence. But in doing so, he also immediately violated his gag order.

In a 30-minute speech on Friday, Trump slammed his former fixer Michael Cohen as slimy and untrustworthy.

“Again, if I wrote down and paid a lawyer—and by the way, this was a highly qualified lawyer. Now, I’m not allowed to use his name because of the gag order,” Trump said. “But, you know, he’s a sleazebag.”

“Everybody knows that,” he continued. “Took me a while to find out, but he was effective. He did work.”

Trump’s gag order—which has not yet been lifted—bars him from publicly attacking the court staff, witnesses, or jurors involved in the case. And he’s already been hit with repercussions for previous transgressions. Earlier this month, Judge Juan Merchan ruled that Trump would have to pay $10,000—the maximum penalty of $1,000 per violation—for continually breaking the order.

But that ruling came with an added threat that is still on the table. Since the court could not craft an “appropriate” financial penalty for a deep-pocketed defendant like Trump, Merchan wrote that, in order to “protect the dignity of the judicial system and to compel respect for its mandates,” the court “must therefore consider whether in some instances, jail may be a necessary punishment.”

Trump is due to be sentenced on July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention. And his words could come back to haunt him in that hearing: In criminal cases, judges often consider a defendant’s level of remorse (or lack thereof) when deciding a sentence.

Meanwhile, Cohen responded Friday in real time, posting on X that “Trump’s press conference was nothing shy of a batshit crazy avalanche of broken brain word manure,” while tagging his nickname for his former boss: “#VonShitzInPantz.”

Senator Joe Manchin is leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent.

Politico reports that the West Virginia politician and thorn in the side of liberal priorities has made the decision to leave, citing sources close to Manchin. Shortly after, on Friday morning, Manchin confirmed the move.

Manchin had previously announced that he would not run for reelection for his Senate seat. His change in party affiliation now means he can run as an independent for the Senate, or even for governor of West Virginia, where he’d take on Republican rival Jim Justice. He has not announced plans to do either yet. Right now, the move makes him the fourth independent in the Democratic Caucus.

It’s the latest move from Manchin in a long career of taking shots at the Democratic Party. At one time, he was a critical part of the Democrats’ majority in the Senate, which he used to his advantage. He regularly sided with Republicans on critical issues such as student loan relief and climate change. He worked to keep the Senate filibuster, despite Democratic objections, with the help of fellow Democratic (and also now independent) Senator Kyrsten Sinema. He refused to back President Biden’s Build Back Better bill, resulting in the watered-down Inflation Reduction Act. He even killed the expanded Child Tax Credit.

So what’s the reason behind this move now? Manchin already toyed with a third-party run for president before backing out. Is Manchin going to stay in politics after all, staying in the Senate or looking at the governorship? Either way, it will be, in his mind, the best decision for himself.

Donald Trump and his fans are losing big on the crypto marketplace following his guilty verdict, despite his bragging just days earlier that he was confident in cryptocurrency.

As news of the verdict broke Thursday, the TRUMP token fell 35 percent, while a memecoin for President Joe Biden called “Jeo Boden” grew 20 percent.

Trump may have personally lost money last night too. According to blockchain data tracked by Arkham Intelligence, the former president reportedly holds assets worth approximately $10 million, with sizable amounts of MAGA tokens, ethereum (ETH), and MAGA VP tokens.

Alongside these memetokens, Trump has launched three NFT collections since December 2022, including the “Mugshot Edition NFTs.” But as the hush-money trial began in late April, the first edition of the Trump Digital Trading Card’s trading volumes fell 99 percent in 30 days.

Trump has bet heavily on a cryptocurrency payoff. Earlier this month, he spent one of his few days off the trial courting NFT buyers at a dinner in Mar-a-lago. Shortly after, he vowed to “build a crypto army.” And on Thursday, just hours before the verdict, Bloomberg reported that Trump was discussing crypto policy with Elon Musk.

While Musk denied specifically talking about crypto, it does appear that the Trump campaign is looking for an advisory role for Elon if he wins a second term.

Meanwhile, Trump and his allies are losing on standard markets too, with Truth Social stocks plummeting as much as 15 percent on Thursday.

Despite Trump’s myriad monetary failures, crypto traders at Polymarket, the blockchain-powered betting site, are still banking on Trump defeating Biden—putting his odds of winning at 54 percent—even after the conviction. Traders are also placing $900,000 wagers on whether Trump will see the inside of a jail cell by November, with some saying he has a 17 percent chance of imprisonment.

Ultimately, let’s hope the only blocks and chains Trump is involved with in the next year are in a cell block.

Representative Lauren Boebert’s attempts to highlight her congressional track record may have unintentionally damaged her reelection campaign.

Fending off criticism Thursday night during a Republican debate for Colorado District 4 representative hopefuls, Boebert attempted to draw attention to her work in the House—but ended up having to admit to her minimal accomplishments.

“For Ms. Boebert, how many bills did you prime-sponsor … in the U.S. Congress that actually were signed by the president of the United States?” asked state Representative Richard Holtorf, noting that “anybody can put their name on a bill after it passes” and become a co-sponsor.

Boebert immediately attempted to dodge the question, hitting the local conservative and primary competitor for having a “failing Liberty score,” a measure of a conservative’s policy stances.

“Would you like to answer the question, or would you like to talk about Liberty scores?” pressed Holtorf. “You can answer the question, ma’am, it’s OK. I asked a very specific question, please answer it.”

“I certainly will. One of my favorite pieces of legislation that has been signed into law is my Pueblo Jobs Act that creates at least 1,000 jobs in Pueblo, Colorado,” Boebert said, not revealing that that is actually the only bill she’s prime-sponsored that has become law.

“But there are also many other pieces of legislation that I’ve passed through the House—” she continued, before getting cut off by Holtorf, who clarified that “it doesn’t matter if it’s passed through the House. If the president doesn’t sign it, ma’am, then it doesn’t get passed.”

But the debate moderators gave Boebert one more chance to elucidate her congressional scorecard after her speaking time ran out.

“So my Pueblo Jobs Act—” she started, before the moderator insisted on a number.

“That is one,” Boebert finished weakly.

Boebert’s time in Congress, instead of being spent working on legislation for her constituents, has been sprinkled and seasoned with scandal. In September, the gun-toting Republican was caught vaping, recording, loudly singing along, and fondling her date during a performance of Beetlejuice in Denver, causing her and her date to get kicked out of the theater for “causing a disturbance.” And in February, the Colorado representative’s son was arrested in the city of Rifle over a string of thefts.

Boebert has also used her national platform to call Representative Ilhan Omar a “terrorist,” joined fellow conspiracy theorist Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene in heckling President Joe Biden during his 2022 State of the Union address, and faced calls for her resignation after she tweeted out the location of Nancy Pelosi as the former speaker of the House escaped charging rioters on January 6.