Crooked Media - What A Day: All hands con deck

- Disgraced former president Donald Trump talking about his personal terrorist cell: Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)

We hate to continue having to cover Donald Trump, but his national polling numbers demand it, and he continues to be insane on the campaign trail. 
 

• Lawyers for disgraced former president Donald Trump disclosed on Monday that their client failed to secure the $454 million-plus-interest bond he needs for his New York civil fraud case. His bond is due in one week. This means the state could seek to freeze some of his bank accounts and possibly seize some of his properties. That would be pretty fun! 
   

• The lawyers said Trump approached about 30 (!) different companies that provide appeal bonds, and they all turned him down, because Trump doesn’t appear to have enough liquidity for the bond companies to take him on as a client. Trump only has about $350 million in cash on hand, according to an analysis by the New York Times, which is about $200 million short of what he would need to secure the bond with one of these companies. Trump is also facing a cash crunch on the campaign side of his operation, seeing sharp declines in both big money interest and in small-dollar donations. 
   

• Meanwhile, Judge Juan Merchan on Monday denied Trump’s bid to prevent his former attorney Michael Cohen and adult film star Stormy Daniels from testifying in the former president’s New York criminal trial related to hush money payments made to Daniels in 2016. Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up his reimbursement of Cohen to pay Daniels for silence about an alleged affair she and Trump had in 2006 while his wife, Melania, was pregnant. Trump denies the encounter happened and any associated wrongdoing. That trial is now due to start in April.

Trump’s polling numbers heading into the general election are scary as hell, giving some of his crazier proclamations a frightening gravity as we look ahead to November and beyond. 
 

• Trump has continued to “question” the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny after many criticized the former president for not blaming his buddy Russian President Vladimir Putin for what is widely seen as an assassination. All Trump would say, when pressed, was: “I don’t know..Something happened that was unusual.” Wow, thanks for that invaluable analysis!
   

• Trump is expected to bring Paul Manafort back from political exile to advise his campaign this year, the Washington Post reported citing unnamed sources. That would be the former Trump campaign chairman, whom Trump later pardoned for money laundering and other charges resulting from the special counsel probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The discussions between Trump and Manafort have reportedly centered around the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this July. Over the weekend, Trump said the country would face a “bloodbath” if he lost in November, but tried to sort of walk those comments back on Monday, saying he was only referring to the auto industry. Lol, okay my guy; that is also not true. 

Apparently, a not-insignificant number of American voters think that a Trump-Biden rematch won’t even happen. That’s an enviable level of denial, but all signs point to the contrary. Despite the significant number of voters who say they would not vote for Trump if he were convicted of a crime, President Biden needs to find a way to win back the voters he has lost before it’s too late.

If you caught Strict Scrutiny’s episode this morning, that means 1) you are a super fan, and 2)  you deserve first access to their presale tickets for Strict’s newly announced DC show! Hosts Leah Litman, Kate Shaw, and Melissa Murray are headed to the nation’s capital on June 22, in DC at the Howard Theatre to host Strict LIVE. Grab your presale tickets NOW with the code SCRUTINY. Head to crooked.com/events or here to snag them now! 

President Biden spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, their first known interaction in over a month. White House leaders said that the two men discussed the areas of greatest tension in their relationship: the necessity of increasing humanitarian aid and allowing it to flow into Gaza, and the pending Israeli ground operation in Rafah, where more than one million displaced Palestinians—half of the enclave’s population—are currently sheltering. Netanyahu has agreed to send a delegation to Washington in the next few days to discuss an alternative strategy to the ground invasion, according to a statement made in a briefing with White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday. 

Netanyahu has continually stressed that anyone who opposes Israel’s operation in Rafah opposes the destruction of Hamas, an argument which Sullivan said Biden rejects as “nonsense.” Sullivan continued that Israel hasn’t presented the United States with a plan for where the civilians sheltering in Rafah are supposed to go, nor how they will access food and shelter. Additionally, he pointed out that an invasion of Rafah will make it even more difficult to get aid into Gaza. Israel has pressed Gazans to move south for months so it can conduct an air and ground campaign in the northern part of the enclave. Should the country move ahead with a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah, the move risks endangering over a million people in an area that Israeli forces once indicated would be “safer” for civilians. 

In parts of Gaza, extreme food shortages have already exceeded famine levels, according to the global hunger monitoring agency, the Integrated Food-Security Phase Classification (IPC). Mass death is now imminent without an immediate ceasefire and surge of food and aid to areas that have been cut off by fighting, according to the agency. The IPC reported that it does not have enough data on death rates, but estimated that Gazans will die at famine scale imminently, which is defined as two out of every 10,000 people dying per day from starvation, malnutrition, and associated disease. The organization’s statement read: "The actions needed to prevent famine require an immediate political decision for a ceasefire together with a significant and immediate increase in humanitarian and commercial access to the entire population of Gaza.” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said at a conference on aid for Gaza: “In Gaza, we are no longer on the brink of famine. We are in a state of famine…Starvation is used as a weapon of war. Israel is provoking famine.” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded to Borrell by saying he should “stop attacking Israel and recognize our right to self-defense against Hamas’ crimes.”

Trump said that any Jewish American who votes for Democrats “hates their religion” and Israel in an interview on Monday with his former White House aide/deranged guy Seb Gorka. 

TikTok may sue the U.S. government for free speech infringement should the bipartisan legislation to ban the short-form video app if its Chinese parent company does not divest prevail in the Senate. 

The Supreme Court seems likely to shoot down a GOP-led effort to hamstring communications between the federal government and social media platforms on issues such as public health, national security, and elections. 

Russian state media and online accounts tied to the Kremlin have begun to spread and amplify disinformation content about American immigration and border security, seemingly to stoke outrage and push voters to the right on the issues. The move may be part of a savvy ploy to undermine U.S. support for Ukraine, according to the Associated Press. 

In an interview with NBC News, the father of Laken Riley, the 22-year-old medical student killed by a suspect who police say entered the United States illegally, says that his daughter’s death “being used politically” angers him. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) interrupted President Biden’s State of the Union Address by repeatedly shouting her name. 

The Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday as to whether a New York State official violated the First Amendment by trying to dissuade companies from doing business with the National Rifle Association after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. The Court appeared to be sympathetic to the NRA’s arguments.


A U.S. government research team found no significant physical evidence of so-called “Havana syndrome,” a condition that emerged in 2016 and was first reported by U.S. embassy officials in Cuba. Sorry to all of those at the intersection of the hypochondriac and the conspiracy theory communities for this news.  

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The United Auto Workers union is calling for a federally-sanctioned vote to unionize the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TN. The factory, which employs over 4,000 workers, would be the only automotive assembly plant in the United States to be unionized outside of the Detroit Three (Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis).

The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Couy Griffin, a convicted January 6 insurrectionist who was barred from public office in New Mexico under the Constitution’s insurrection clause. Could have used your help with Trump, but okay!

President Biden announced $200 million in new annual funding for women’s health research to better understand issues affecting people with female reproductive organs. 

The EPA announced on Monday it is finally enacting a comprehensive ban on asbestos, a deadly carcinogen still used in some chlorine bleach, brake pads, and other products. 

Opill, the first over-the-counter birth control pill approved in the United States, became available for purchase online on Monday.