DonOLD Trump is confused and may be going crazy

George Conway launches ‘Anti-Psychopath PAC’ focused on Trump’s mental health, reported in the Independent. 

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-mental-health-antipsychopath-pac-b2581622.html

And in The New Republic (TNR): "How to Make Trump Go “Crazy,” 😜😮😩😁According to George Conway: The Never Trump lawyer says the Democrats need to wage “psychological warfare” on the former (x-president), and he has an idea how to do it.

Former Republican George Conway said Democrats need to wage a “psychological war” against Donald Trump until it makes him so “crazy” that he violates court orders.

“I think you have to wage psychological war on Donald Trump,” Conway, a lawyer and Never Trump activist, said during a panel discussion at The New Republic’s Stop Trump Summit on Wednesday. “I don’t think the Democrats have ever attacked Trump enough.”

Donald Trump is losing his mind on Truth Social over this @PsychoPAC24 ad.

In an interview afterward with TNR (The New Republic), Mr. Conway explained that Democrats could wage a coordinated psychological campaign against Trump through a series of advertisements. “You can just run ads on TV in the local area where he is,” said Conway, whom Trump had once considered nominating for solicitor general.

Conway said that the ads could target the things Trump feels the most insecure about. “He knows he’s not that smart, he knows he’s not that rich, he knows that he’s not that good. And so, if you go and attack him for the things he knows he is not deep down, it makes him crazy.”

“He’s not that far from his bursting point,” Conway added. And making Trump nuts could impact ongoing his legal troubles.

“The more he gets attacked the more he will talk about things he shouldn’t be talking about,” Conway said. “I think you could even get him thrown into jail, by running the right ad,” he added.

Trump was slapped with a gag order in his New York trial after he made comments attacking New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has accused him and his associates of fraudulently inflating the value of their real estate assets. 

In the Georgia case, the conditions of his release on bail bar him from intimidating witnesses and co-defendants.

“You run ads that make him angry at those people, like [Mark] Meadows,” said Conway, referring to the former top Trump aide and co-defendant in the Georgia trial. “You run these creepy ads that get into his head, he’ll just go out there and he’ll violate his conditions of release.”

Conway went on to say that beating Trump requires the media to show America who Trump is. “I disagree with some of the critiques that you hear, I think predominantly from the left, about ‘You don’t give him oxygen; you don’t give him air time.’ No. You give him more. Show everybody the crazy.” #PsychoTrump  @PsychoPAC24 

Elise Stefanik fails screen test to be Trump "cult diva" president of vice - VP

New York #21 Representative Elise Stefanik is a lot of things, but this week, she made a good case that she’s not a historian.

Echo opinion published in The New Republic by Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling:

Rep. Elise Stefanik is a Trump cult diva

During a (botched !) speech on Super Tuesday, Stefanik tried to insert a callback to a famous campaign line by Ronald Reagan, in which he coyly questioned the progress made during President Jimmy Carter’s term. But the House Republican Conference chair had none of the charm—or apparently any memory—of what happened during the previous administration.

“Are you better off today than you were four years ago? The answer for hard-working Americans around the country is a resounding no,” Stefanik said.

This time four years ago, the nation was being ravaged in a dystopian way by the Covid-19 pandemic, with former President Donald Trump ordering sick passengers to stay quarantined on the Grand Princess cruise ship to keep case numbers inside the country low.

Droves of viewers with working memories were quick to glom onto the scripted error, including several of Stefanik’s Democratic colleagues.

One user on X (formerly Twitter) pointed out that “4 years ago this month Covid exploded out as Trump endlessly lied about the seriousness of it and there were so many dead bodies from it that cities had to rent trailers to stuff full of corpses.”

“Four years ago, people were rationing toilet paper and dying in hospital hallways,” posted Virginia Representative Gerry Connolly.

“The gentlelady from NY seems to have forgotten about body bags in Central Park, a collapsing economy, loss of faith in US democracy around the world and a tax-dodging, COVID-denying rapist President who was preparing his final act of sedition,” said Illinois Representative Sean Casten.

Rep. Don Beyer (on X- formerly Twitter) "Do these people have amnesia? Four years ago we were in a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, people couldn't safely leave their homes, the economy was taking the biggest hit since the Great Depression, and Trump was lying to the country about all of it.

Other wanna-be contenders to be Trump’s Number Two include one-time Democratic presidential primary candidate Tulsi Gabbard, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, Florida Representative Byron Donalds, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the last of whom has already outright rejected the offer (“I am not doing that.”) 

And the list continues to grow. Just last week, Trump added Texas Governor Greg Abbott to his dumpster fire pick list.

Don "Pooorleone" or Broke Ass Don: IOW Trump is Broke

Echo report published in The New Republic by Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling: Donald Trump has had to admit that he cannot afford his legal comeuppance—a punishment that might have been even worse for the self-proclaimed billionaire than the actual 💲454 million penalty in his New York civil fraud trial.

“Well, of course, he’s embarrassed because his entire net worth, the constant reiteration that ‘I’m worth at least 💲10 billion,’ maybe even more, obviously goes to his id, his ego, his super-ego,” former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen told CNN.

“And so, that’s now super deflated, because it’s just not true,” he continued. 

“They had to acknowledge, HELLO❓ that they don’t have it❗ 

It wasn’t that long ago that he stood on the stand, and he told everybody that he was worth many, many, many, many billions of dollars and has a very low debt-to-value ratio.”

Trump’s last-ditch effort to postpone paying the full amount in lieu of a $100 million bond was rejected by a New York appeals court judge. The judge did, however, grant some relief after Trump’s legal team argued in an 1,800-page court filing that it would be “impossible” to secure a bond covering the full amount of the multimillion-dollar ruling. The granted request will allow Trump to continue borrowing money, though the ruling is temporary until a full panel of judges deliberates on the order.

Failing to obtain a loan, however, could result in the seizure of Trump’s assets, warned New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“I mean, what is he going to do?” Cohen continued. “What’s 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❓💰💲”

Justice Arthur Engoron had originally slapped a 💲354 million fine on Trump for committing real estate–related fraud in New York, but by last week, that sum had grown to 💲454.2 million thanks to added interest, which is tacking on an additional 💲112,000 with each passing day.

The penalty also came with an addendum that Trump cannot serve as an officer or director of a New York company for three years, including his own Trump Organization. His two adult sons were also penalized by the ruling:  Additionally, they were fined 💲💲4 💰million each and will have to stay out of New York business for two years. They will also be prevented from obtaining loans from any New York financial institutes for three years.

Supreme Court enabling Donald Trump's outrageous immunity declaration. Shame on Chief Justice Roberts

Echo opinion by Greg Sargent published in The New Republic: Delaying the January 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear. Donald Trump attempted to overturn an election and seize power. 

Our American justice system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election. SCOTUS should decide this case promptly.

Digital Disinformation and Vote Suppression

Liz Cheney nukes the Supreme Court vver Trump delay—and hands the Democrats a political weapon. What percentage of voters know that Trump can cancel prosecutions of himself if he wins back the White House?

In the wake of the Supreme Court agreeing to hear Donald Trump’s demand for absolute immunity from prosecution—potentially delaying his insurrection-related trial until after the election—Democrats should take careful note of Liz Cheney’s response to the decision:

Delaying the January 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear. Donald Trump attempted to overturn an election and seize power. Our justice system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election. SCOTUS should decide this case promptly.

The court’s decision is terrible news, to be sure, but it gives Democrats an opportunity to clarify a few crucial points, and they should seize it.

First, Democrats should stress that voters need to know before the election whether Trump committed crimes—and this is due to them as a matter of right. Second, Trump is seeking these delays to end all prosecutions of himself if he regains the White House—to corruptly place himself above the law by pardoning himself or having his handpicked lickspittle attorney general do it. Democrats must say clearly that if the court helps delay the trial until after the election, it will be enabling him to do that.

Liz Cheney’s language provides the beginnings of a template. Democrats, don’t mince words: Just tell the plain, blunt truth❗

As many have noted, the Supreme Court didn’t have to agree to review an appeals court ruling against Trump, who is demanding immunity from prosecution for conspiring to obstruct the official electoral count and defraud the United States, among other charges. The high court could have simply let the lower court ruling stand, given that Republican-appointed and Democratic-appointed judges unanimously ruled that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election don’t constitute official acts—and thus don’t get immunity—a clear-cut legal case.

First, Democrats should stress that voters need to know before the election whether Trump committed crimes—and this is due to them as a matter of right. Second, Trump is seeking these delays to end all prosecutions of himself if he regains the White House—to corruptly place himself above the law by pardoning himself or having his handpicked lickspittle attorney general do it. Democrats must say clearly that if the court helps delay the trial until after the election, it will be enabling him to do that.

As many have noted, the Supreme Court didn’t have to agree to review an appeals court ruling against Trump, who is demanding immunity from prosecution for conspiring to obstruct the official electoral count and defraud the United States, among other charges. The high court could have simply let the lower court ruling stand, given that Republican-appointed and Democratic-appointed judges unanimously ruled that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election don’t constitute official acts—and thus don’t get immunity—a clear-cut legal case.

“This is not a difficult legal question,” Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law professor, told me. “All the Supreme Court has done is to introduce several months of gratuitous delay right before the presidential election.”

The court has set April 22, to hear arguments, and if it takes its time in ruling, the decision may not come until late June. That and pretrial logistics might postpone the trial until after the election.

Perhaps you think the Supreme Court has good reason to weigh in on a matter of such importance. But even if we accept this, the court still has the option of deciding the case in time for the trial to proceed before the election, notes Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at University of Texas at Austin. Though justices likely won’t be influenced by the election schedule, Vladeck says, the trial’s timing is “clearly within the court’s control.”

This is where Cheney and Democrats come in.

Note that Cheney stated unequivocally that voters deserve to know whether Trump committed crimes while trying to overthrow democracy—and deserve a full accounting of those actions—precisely because the sheer gravity of what he did threatens the democratic system itself. As Will Stancil points out, Democrats sometimes hesitate to talk this way, out of fear of being perceived as trying to politicize legal processes.

But in this case, Democrats have an obligation to level with voters about what’s really happening here.

At this point, the notion that Trump would use presidential power to end prosecutions of himself is so widely accepted that news accounts note it in passing. “He could use the powers of his office to seek to dismiss the election interference indictment altogether,” The New York Times observes, as detachedly as it might report on Trump’s plans to alter the decor in the White House Oval Office.

So ask yourself this: What percentage of voters is aware that Trump actually will have the power to cancel ongoing prosecutions of himself, if he’s elected president again?

Remember, sizable majorities believe Trump committed crimes in trying to overthrow the election and that the prosecutions are holding Trump accountable under the law, as opposed to trying to hurt him politically. Voters do care that Trump committed alleged crimes, and they do think he is being legitimately held accountable.

But how many voters grasp that if the trial is delayed, the election itself will decide whether that process runs to completion? How many understand that the Supreme Court’s handling of this matter will determine whether Trump has the opportunity—should he win the election—to place himself beyond legal accountability in a way no other criminal defendant can?

Democrats need to seize this moment to make those stakes clear.

It’s not unreasonable for Democrats to worry about the implications of being vocal on this matter. It is potentially problematic to demand that the Supreme Court make decisions in keeping with the political timetable. But Trump himself created an unprecedented situation: Trump tried to nullify constitutional democracy to seize power in defiance of lawful processes. He’s demanding total immunity for any crimes he committed toward that end. He’s dismissing any and all prosecutions for those crimes as inherently illegitimate. And he will use his presidential powers to end those prosecutions the second he’s given the chance.

In short, because of Trump and nobody else, the Supreme Court’s handling of the situation will inescapably either create a potential pathway for Trump to render the law moot, or not do that. This is what Democrats have to communicate to voters.

As of now, Raskin told me, “The Supreme Court has bestowed a giant gift on Donald Trump.”

Any efforts by the hard-right faction of the court to delay Trump’s trial render it an “enemy of the Constitution and the rule of law,” Raskin continued. “The Democratic Party has to stand up. It’s up to us.”

Some Democrats will balk at this kind of talk. But there’s a way for them to allow that the Supreme Court shouldn’t tailor its deliberations to the political timetable while also communicating this undeniable reality: How the court proceeds will of necessity dictate whether Trump has a plausible pathway toward placing himself above the law entirely, or whether that pathway is barred to him.

Liz Cheney’s language provides the beginnings of a template. Democrats, don’t mince words: Just tell the plain, blunt truth.
Greg Sargent @GregTSargent

Greg Sargent is a staff writer at The New Republic.