The real Donald Trump news that everyone missed while they were freaking out yesterday
Last night I spelled out why I still expect Donald Trump’s federal criminal trial to take place before the election. As I’ve said before, when the rest of the media and pundit class starts unanimously and repetitively chanting that we’re doomed, I can’t compete with that noise. All I can do is make my case, and point out that these doomsday types are never right, and move on. After all, these are the same people who insisted Trump would never be indicted, and before that insisted Trump would never leave office after he lost, and before that insisted that Trump would never lose in 2020 to begin with. I rest my case about their track record.
The real news from yesterday is that Donald Trump was forced to admit to the court that he can’t afford to post bond in his New York civil fraud verdict. This is major news for a few reasons. First, it means Trump was indeed pretty much broke even before this verdict came down. Second, it means that Trump has no method to stop his assets from being seized. And third, it’s proof that Trump does not have a magic wand for getting out of these situations.
Trump long claimed to the media that he had around $400 million cash on hand, and the media often printed that as if it were plausible. But if that were the case, Trump would be able to post the full bond or something close to it. Instead he’s begging to be allowed to post a small fraction of the bond. We also had to endure weeks of doomsday theories about how someone else was just going to pay Trump’s bond for him, but that didn’t happen.
It’s all a reminder that in spite of all the doomsday hype that surrounds every one of these storylines, Donald Trump doesn’t get away with these things. We were told he was going to be able to magically delay his civil fraud trial for as long as he liked. Then we were told Trump would get off because of something Michael Cohen said on the stand. Then we were told that the slightly delayed verdict meant something was wrong with the case. When none of that turned out to have been true, we were then told that Trump (or someone else) would just pay the bond. And then that didn’t happen either.
Not one negative thing that we were told about this case turned out to be true. Not one. And yet somehow that’s always the pattern with these things. Even as justice is playing out on a fairly straight line, the media and pundit class spends the whole time jumping out and yelling “boo” in our faces, to try to scare us into believing that the case was terribly off track. And in the end none of it turned out to have ever been true, and justice was served accordingly.
Oh and by the way, Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial (Alvin Bragg) is now set to start in about three weeks. This trial is not in any way dependent on the Supreme Court’s immunity appeal. There is nothing that can or will stop this New York criminal trial from happening on time. But remember back then everyone on TV and Twitter was screaming about how Bragg had supposedly dropped the case after Pomerantz quit? That was obviously never true. In fact not one negative prediction that’s been made about this New York criminal trial has turned out to be true, and now the trial is starting in three weeks. Funny how that works.
I know it may be difficult to accept that these things really do tend to play out more or less like they’re supposed to, given the sheer number of people jumping out and yelling “boo” in your faces right now about how Donald Trump’s federal criminal trial will never happen before the election. But that’s not in line with reality. You don’t have to just take my word for it. You can also look back at the literally zero percent track record of accuracy that these doomsday types have had with their predictions about Trump’s downfall. They’ve never been right once yet, because they’ve never even once been trying to get it right. Why would they suddenly be right this time? When the doomsday pundits are loudly and unanimously insisting that we’re totally doomed on a certain thing, it’s actually a pretty reliable indicator that it’s something you shouldn’t lose sleep over. Bad things happen in politics. But those actual bad things never, ever correlate to any of the fantasyland stuff that the doomsday pundits are predicting. So why would anyone ever take these types seriously?
