Broke Trump’s Latest Desperate Strategy to Avoid Paying E. Jean Carroll

After losing the second defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, Donald Trump has a new demand for Judge Lewis Kaplan: Reduce the $83.3 million penalty, or do the whole trial over again.

In a motion filed in court on Tuesday, Trump’s attorneys argued that Kaplan had overstepped by curtailing the bombastic disruptor’s testimony, limiting his answers to just a handful of pre-reviewed questions in an attempt to limit Trump’s courtroom outbursts and to streamline an off-the-rails trial.

“This Court’s erroneous decision to dramatically limit the scope of President Trump’s testimony almost certainly influenced the jury’s verdict, and thus a new trial is warranted,” the motion reads.

Trump’s team also claimed that the harm inflicted upon Carroll was “garden variety,” and that the columnist’s legal team failed to tie the harassment she endured after going public with sexual assault allegations to the GOP primary front-runner. All in all, Trump’s lawyers requested the judge downsize the self-purported billionaire’s penalty to a fraction of the jury-ordered figure, describing some of the fines as “grossly excessive.”

The filing is, frankly, a long-shot bid, and Carroll’s team has already opposed the motion, calling one of his arguments “laughable.”

Meanwhile, Trump insisted in interviews Tuesday that he has “a lot of money” and doesn’t “worry about money,” despite trying to worm his way out of his legal comeuppance—of which Carroll’s judgment amounts to just one small part. Trump has twice asked Kaplan to delay requiring payment to Carroll. The first time was last month, and Kaplan denied but asked Carroll’s attorneys to respond. In a filing last week, Carroll’s lawyers blasted Trump’s legal reasoning for reducing the fine, saying it “boils down to nothing more than ‘trust me.’”

Trump asked again on Monday, requesting a reduced bond of $24.475 million. Kaplan shut him down again.

A 1,439-page document dump from a settlement involving Donald Trump ally Kenneth Chesebro reveals the inner machinations of the so-called architect of Trump’s 2020 fake elector scheme.

Text messages between Chesebro and another Trump lawyer, Jim Troupis, reveal a man hunting down every possible loophole in an effort to undermine the electoral transfer of power.

“Republicans have 26 states,” Chesebro messaged Troupis on January 3, 2021. “McConnell should not allow a vote either, because Republicans electing Pence would look illegitimate—would seem like Pence froze the process to become acting president instead of Pelosi.”

“Republicans electing Harris would be a horror,” he added, noting that “McConnell would need to protect his caucus from such a Hobson’s choice.”

Three days later, Chesebro attended the Capitol riot, tagging along with a group including InfoWars’ Alex Jones. In private messages, Chesebro celebrated having helped devise a plot to prevent Joe Biden’s peaceful succession.

But hours later, his messaging had changed, instead trafficking conspiracies that the riot had been instigated by “antifa” rather than Trump’s MAGA crowd. The following day, Chesebro turned his ire onto former Vice President Mike Pence, whom he wanted to publicly blame for the fringe plan’s failure, claiming Pence had given Trump and his allies false hope.

“He had top-flight advice available to him more than a month ago,” Chesebro wrote on January 7, 2021. “I sketched what we had in mind for alternate electors, with Pence not opening envelopes. I detected no enthusiasm for any deviation from the [Electoral Count Act].”

“I now think Pence had decided by then not to do anything to press the envelope or create a test case, but decided to not be straight with the president.”

“If I’m right, Pence gave him false hope,” Chesebro continued. “He allowed Trump to hear of valid legal theories from Rudy [Giuliani] and [John] Eastman which gave him hope, which was crushed when Pence suddenly crushed them at the end.”

In other delusional messages, Chesebro wrote that Trump could potentially defuse the tension after the riot by inviting Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over for coffee on the morning of the forty-sixth president’s inauguration and by making “a few well-placed jokes.”

Last month, Chesebro was caught lying to Michigan prosecutors about his social media presence ahead of and during the scheme to overthrow the 2020 election, hiding an account with dozens of posts that reveal his role in the plot and illustrate a far more aggressive election subversion strategy.

Chesebro has struck a plea deal in Trump’s Georgia election interference case and has so far managed to skirt charges in other states affected by the fake elector scheme thanks to his cooperation with prosecutors. But all that could change with the attorney’s true opinions and dirty laundry in the air.

In an announcement Tuesday, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema announced that she will not be running for reelection in November.

The move comes as polls show her in a distant third behind Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake, who ran a losing campaign for governor of Arizona in 2020. Sinema chose to leave the Democratic Party in 2022 and become an independent, and until Tuesday’s announcement, was running for reelection without a party affiliation.

In a delusional video posted on X (formerly Twitter), Sinema pretended like she did a ton of good during her time in office.

In reality, Sinema’s stances against popular Democratic legislation, such as raising the minimum wage, drew opposition from Democrats who saw her as betraying the party as well her constituents. Perhaps most memorably, she made a thumbs down gesture to vote against an amendment to add a minimum wage increase to President Biden’s coronavirus relief bill in 2021. At the time, she drew ire for what many thought was a misguided attempt to copy the late Senator John McCain, who made a similar gesture in 2017 to save the Affordable Care Act from Republicans.

Replace Sinema PAC, formed to defeat her in the 2024 election, released a statement after her announcement.

“We started this effort to Replace Sinema over two years ago to hold Sinema accountable for betraying the Arizonans who elected her. Sinema obstructed President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, got in the way of fundamental rights like abortion care and voting, and did the bidding of her wealthy donors who fund her luxury lifestyle. We succeeded in first pushing her out of the party – by making clear she couldn’t win a Democratic primary – and now we’ve also helped push her out of the Senate. Good. Arizonans deserve better. We now must put all of our efforts into helping elect Ruben Gallego, a pro-choice champion who will fight for Arizonans every day, over MAGA extremist Kari Lake. Game on.”

Sinema’s departure from the Senate ends a career full of betrayal of her own constituents, who believed they were electing a Democrat, as well as the rest of the country. In addition to blocking a minimum wage increase, she also famously helped reshape the Inflation Reduction Act for the worse, pressuring Democrats to remove proposed tax overhauls for the wealthy.

Even outside of the policy realm, she wasn’t much better. She was allegedly a very demanding boss, giving her staff a 37-page guide to working for her that included buying her groceries, fixing her internet, and even making sure her airline preferences were fulfilled. She reportedly kept up an active Facebook marketplace account mostly selling her exercise clothing and equipment. And then there’s that fact that she spent roughly $210,000 of her taxpayer-funded budget on private air travel, ironic considering that earlier in her career, she was once a member of the environmentally conscious Green Party.

What’s next for Sinema after her Senate term runs out this year? A lucrative career in lobbying to cap her six years as corporate America’s darling? A vanity presidential campaign from corporate-backed No Labels, whose donors also gave to her aborted Senate campaign? Regardless of where she goes, at least one person is sorry to see her go: noted senator’s daughter Meghan McCain.

This article has been updated.

Despite the uncommitted votes against Joe Biden in Michigan, and despite polls showing a majority of Americans support an immediate cease-fire and even ending arms exports to Israel, Donald Trump doesn’t think Israel’s actions are the problem.

Trump made a phone call to Fox & Friends Tuesday morning and gave an impromptu interview to hosts Lawrence Jones and Brian Kilmeade. After being asked whether he is “on board with the way the IDF is taking the fight in Gaza,” Trump responded, “You’ve got to finish the problem.”

“You had a horrible invasion, it took place, it would have never happened if I was president, by the way,” Trump began. He then went on to claim that “Iran was broke” during his presidency and would not have been able to send money to Hamas or Hezbollah.

He went further in claiming that “they wouldn’t have done it to me,” and that the invasion took place because of a lack of respect for Biden. Continuing on his rant, he claimed Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine on his watch, either. In his mind, each of these conflicts wouldn’t have happened “if things went right” in 2020.

It’s not the first time Trump has said Russian President Vladimir Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine on his watch. Despite Trump’s assertions, however, even his own former advisers have criticized his dealings with Russia and Ukraine, claiming that the former president actually emboldened Putin.

Regarding Israel, Trump has softened his tone toward the country after he was forced to make an about-face from his initial remarks in October, when he said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “let us down” by failing to prevent the October 7 attacks. In any case, a Trump victory in November doesn’t seem likely to stem the continuing violence resulting from Israel’s war in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of 31,052 Palestinians and about 1,139 people in Israel.

A Hitler-quoting, gay-bashing, conspiracy-flouting antisemite is on track to cinch the GOP’s gubernatorial nomination in the battleground state of North Carolina.

North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson is up for election in the state’s primary election on Tuesday. He has so far pulled ahead by double-digit percentage points over his GOP opposition, Bill Graham, according to a February High Point University Survey Research Center poll.

That’s in spite of the fact that the Trump-endorsed candidate quoted Adolf Hitler in a 2014 Facebook post that normalizes the German dictator’s stance on racial pride.

“History who said it #1; ‘Pride in one’s own race—and that does not imply contempt for other races—is also a normal and healthy sentiment. I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves... They have the right to be proud of their past, just as we have the right to be proud of the civilization to which we belong,” the post (which is still up) read.

Then, at a Moms for Liberty summit in July, Robinson fervently defended his choice to quote the genocidal leader of the Nazi Party, implying that doing so without context is not akin to endorsing his words or actions.

“Whether you’re talking about Adolf Hitler, whether you’re talking about Chairman Mao, whether you’re talking about Stalin, whether you’re talking about Pol Pot, whether you’re talking about Castro in Cuba, or whether you’re talking about a dozen other despots all around the globe; it is time for us to get back and start reading some of those quotes,” Robinson said, adding, “It’s time for us to start teaching our children about the dirty, despicable, awful things that those Communist and socialist despots did in our history.”

Again, the Facebook post quoting Hitler is still up with none of this additional context.

Robinson has drawn immediate comparisons to Trump for his bombastic orations and loyal GOP following, and like Trump, he has a laundry list of controversies.

In other posts, Robinson has minimized the horrors of the Holocaust, claimed a “satanic marxist” had made the movie Black Panther to pull “shekels” out of Black audiences, likened women getting abortions to murderers, and derided gay people as “filth” and “maggots.”

He has also expressed archaic views about women’s role in society, telling a Charlotte-area church in 2022 that Christians are “called to be led by men.”

“God sent women out … when they had to do their thing, but when it was time to face down Goliath, [He] sent David. Not Davita, David,” Robinson said at the time.

And yet, Robinson’s gubernatorial win would turn the state’s executive branch—its last Democratic holdout—red, effectively locking Democrats out of a state they had once predicted would be their stronghold in the South.

Robinson’s likely opponent come November will be Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic favorite.

For conservatives, it can be difficult keeping up with the latest outrages. Yesterday, it was Chik-fil-A and Target. Today, the cultural criminal du jour is tortilla chip brand Doritos.

Yes, right-wingers are angry about nacho chips thanks to the chip brand’s Spain division partnership with transgender activist and singer Samantha Hudson, a native of the European country. Many on the right are calling for a boycott of Doritos, similar to the one of Bud Light, which became a target of conservatives and transphobes last year after hiring transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney as a brand ambassador.

Notable right-wing accounts such as End Wokeness and Chaya Raichik (better known as Libs of TikTok) have gotten in on the action, claiming that Hudson has tweeted about abusing minors and has made pro-pedophile statements. Hudson claimed in a 2023 interview that she herself has been sexually abused.

Whether it’s Doritos, Frosted Flakes, Bud Light, or any number of businesses that decide to honor diversity and the LGBTQ+ community, the far right is running out of things to eat and places to shop these days, and even trying to start its own economy, with questionable results.

Hudson and Doritos Spain have not responded to the attacks.

Donald Trump is well on his way to replacing the conservative party with a “counterestablishment” of his own that, according to his family, has no room for dissenters.

With Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel on her way out the door, Trump’s allies are doing everything within their power to leverage the conservative election machine for the GOP front-runner’s sole benefit, even if he’s not yet the formal nominee. One key element for the takeover? The success of his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who’s gunning to replace McDaniel in a power-sharing agreement that would have her split duties with North Carolina GOP chairman Michael Whatley.

In an interview on Real America’s Voice, the 41-year-old Trump insisted that she was the only person loyal enough to the former president to be considered for the job—which she plans to use to transform the RNC into a Trump-electing machine.

“Anyone who is not on board with seeing Donald Trump as the forty-seventh president and America-loving patriots all the way down the ticket being supported by the RNC is welcome to leave because we are not playing games,” Lara Trump said.

“We have no time to waste,” she continued. “We have to ensure that every single penny of every dollar donated goes to causes that people care about. That’s part of the reason that I think I’m such a great fit for this: There’s no one more loyal to Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again movement than this person you’re looking at right here; than me.”

It’s not the first time that she’s cast the warning, insisting that the sole purpose and focus of the RNC should be reelecting her father-in-law.

“Every single penny will go to the number one and the only job of the RNC,” Trump told Newsmax last month. “That is electing Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and saving this country.”

Meanwhile, McDaniel’s tenure ends on March 8, putting a cap on a monthslong feud with Trump over her former endorser’s demand for “total loyalty.”

Donald Trump wants you to know that he is absolutely not having a hard time finding the money to pay his legal comeuppance and that he is still totally super, super rich.

The former president was fined $354 million for committing real estate–related fraud in New York. In order to appeal the decision, Trump must post a bond of the full amount plus interest—which has already reached more than $450 million, with an additional $112,000 tacked on per day.

“You have to come up with something like $400 million; how close are you to securing the bond or would you need for that?” asked Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade on Tuesday.

“I have a lot of money, I can do what I want to do, but this was a horrible, illegal decision,” Trump said. “This was a decision made up by a crooked judge, a 100 percent crooked clubhouse judge, a disgrace with an equally crooked attorney general, who campaigned on ‘I will get Trump,’ and we’re appealing that decision and we’ll see how we do.”

So far, the self-purported billionaire has attempted to pause the rapidly growing interest on the order with a $100 million bond in lieu of the full $465 million. That effort was roundly rejected by a New York appeals court judge last month, who did allow Trump to continue borrowing money.

Trump’s legal team is still working to appeal the entirety of the decision—but even that avenue would still require them to put nearly half a billion dollars into an escrow account with the court, or Trump could be hit with more fines or held in contempt.

“So you’re not worried about the money?” Kilmeade clarified.

“No, I don’t worry about money,” Trump snipped.

That’s good to know, because launching a sneaker campaign the day after getting hit with the legal penalty and flagging a fan-funded GoFundMe to help with his bills had definitely raised a lot of eyebrows.

Still, his former allies aren’t so quick to believe Trump, especially since he still owes an additional $88.3 million to E. Jean Carroll for sexually assaulting her and then defaming her twice in his rabid denials. He also owes $400,000 to The New York Times and has racked up thousands more over gag orders he’s violated amid all these trials. And in the realm of non–court ordered debts, Trump’s former right-hand man Rudy Giuliani claimed he still hasn’t been paid for the legal services he provided to the former president and is reportedly waiting on a sum of about $2 million.

“I mean, what is he going to do?” Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, told CNN on Thursday. “What, is he going to call like a J.G. Wentworth and say, ‘I need cash now’? How was he going to raise more than this half a billion?”

Trump has until March 25 to implement a stay on the fraud order, by which he would need to put up the money, assets, or an appeal bond to cover the $465 million disgorgement. Failing to do so could result in the seizure of Trump’s assets, warned New York Attorney General Letitia James.

As he campaigns for a second term for president, Donald Trump has taken his attack on migrants to the next level.

But a shocking new low came during an interview with the right-wing Right Side Broadcasting Network Monday, as Trump proceeded to invoke a horror movie character to describe migrants.

“They’re rough people, in many cases from jails, prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums. You know, insane asylums, that’s Silence of the Lambs stuff,” Trump said. “Hannibal Lecter, anybody know Hannibal Lecter? We don’t want ’em in this country.”

The line drew laughter from the audience at his Mar-a-Lago estate, where the interview was taking place. He also compared migrants’ languages, bizarrely, to languages from Mars, and then made the claim that cities where large numbers of migrants have gone don’t even have youth sports anymore.

“We have children that are no longer going to school. They’re throwing them out of the park. There’s no more Little Leagues, there’s no more sports, there’s no more life in New York and so many of these cities,” Trump said.

This line was seized upon by the Biden campaign, who posted video of it on X, formerly known as Twitter.

It’s only the latest outlandish remark he has made about migrants in recent days. On Thursday, during a visit to the southern border, Trump claimed that many of the migrants arriving in the United States are people “who don’t speak languages.”

And if that anthropological impossibility wasn’t absurd enough, Trump on Saturday confused President Biden with former President Obama and mistook the country of Argentina for a person, among other gaffes.

Meanwhile, media reports are full of stories about Biden’s supposed decline in mental acuity, despite Trump’s slip-ups and missteps veering into far more dangerous territory, echoing rhetoric like that of Adolf Hitler.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Donald Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, the decision could protect him from any legal consequences in his forthcoming election interference trial. But the stakes are even bigger than the threat of jail time for the former reality TV star … at least, according to Trump.

On Monday, the GOP front-runner tried to argue that his preordained innocence is an issue of national security by admitting that he’s actually very susceptible to blackmail.

“Without Presidential Immunity, a President will not be able to properly function, or make decisions, in the best interest of the United States of America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Presidents will always be concerned, and even paralyzed, by the prospect of wrongful prosecution and retaliation, after they leave office. This could actually lead to extortion and blackmail of a President. The other side would say, ‘If you don’t do something, just the way we want it, we are going to go after you when you leave office, or perhaps even sooner.’ A President has to be free to determine what is right for our Country with no undue pressure,” he continued.

That is, of course, despite the fact that the United States has had 46 presidents in its 248-year history. Of those, Trump is the only one to face criminal charges—some of which relate to insurrection.

“Without Immunity, the Presidency, as we know it, will no longer exist,” he added in a follow-up post. “Many actions for the benefit of our Country will not be taken. This is in no way what the Founders had in mind. Legal Experts and Scholars have stated that the President must have Full Presidential Immunity. A President must be free to make proper decisions. His mind must be clear, and he must not be guided by fear of retribution!”

The Supreme Court has scheduled hearings pertaining to Trump’s immunity claim for the week of April 22.