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White House reporter says new 'Trump document dump' vindicates Michael Cohen​

A new document dump paralleling the one in prosecutor Alvin Bragg's criminal case against Donald Trump appears to show the ex-president has been deceitful about his former lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Brian J. Karem, the former White House correspondent who has previously given insight into how the ex-president might be feeling, wrote in an article published on Saturday that he had filed his own public records request on the Trump and Cohen case several years ago.

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Funding bill bars U.S. embassies from flying LGBTQ Pride flags

WASHINGTON — Tucked in the massive funding bill signed Saturday by President Joe Biden is a provision banning the flying of LGBTQ Pride flags over U.S. embassies, but the White House has vowed to work toward its repeal.

The prohibition was one of many side issues included in the mammoth $1.2 trillion package to fund the government through September, which passed early Saturday shortly after a midnight deadline.

Trump is about to take a step that once bankrupted his company: report

Donald Trump is ready to take Truth Social public, and he's expecting to have a huge cash infusion as a result. But the last time he took a company public, it didn't go so well for the company or investors.

Trump's decision to go public with his right-wing social media company mirrors a move he made with Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, according to CNBC.

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'Three strikes': Ex-prosecutor wants Cannon removed from Trump case over 'unusual' filings

Judge Aileen Cannon should be removed from Donald Trump's classified documents case because she just keeps getting things wrong, according to a legal expert.

Former federal prosecutor Kristy Greenberg appeared on MSNBC on Saturday, where she was asked about Cannon's recent orders. Specifically, the topic of discussion drifted to Cannon's recent filing about jury instructions.

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'He perjured himself': Trump biographer says ex-president just did 'the dumbest thing'

Donald Trump's own biographer says the ex-president may have recently perjured himself.

Tim O'Brien, the author of Trump Nation: The Art of Being the Donald, appeared on Saturday on MSNBC's Weekends With Alex Witt, where he was asked about Trump's recent social media post that appears to contradict what he has argued before a judge in court.

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'Hypocrite': Jim Jordan accused of taking credit for results of Biden act he voted against

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) is being called a hypocrite for taking credit for the results of Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which Jordan voted against.

Jordan, a frequent defender of Donald Trump who was recently accused of causing "real harm to the American people" in a letter by an ethics group, has been a staunch opponent of Biden, and has co-led the push to investigate the president for potential impeachable offenses.

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'Ugly in the extreme': Truth Social stock can be easily 'cratered' by cash-hungry Trump

With the merger between Digital World Acquisition Corp. and the Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Donald Trump's Truth Social, completed on Friday, one Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist suggested there are several red flags investors should consider before taking a leap of faith into another Trump venture.

In a piece for the LA Times, noted business columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote that there is a better than even chance that the cash-strapped Trump will be given a waiver to sell off a substantial portion of the reported $3 billion in stock he now controls by a board of handpicked Trump loyalists.

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'This has been different': Trump insider alarmed that Letitia James is plunging ahead

The very fact that New York Attorney General Letitia James is plunging ahead with paperwork to seize assets belonging to Donald Trump to satisfy a nearly half-billion dollar judgment is 'derailing" the former president's delay strategy and is causing no small amount of alarm among insiders.

According to a report from CNN, the former president has been remarkably successful at using the courts to forestall being brought to justice but the financial fraud ruling by Judge Arthur Engoron is not playing out like his multitude of other legal problems.

Noting the avalanche of Trump Truth Social posts on Friday about his worth and the money he needs for his appeal bond due by Monday, CNN is reporting they reveal a "... reality that has pushed Trump’s company and personal finances to the brink with just two days remaining to land a solution."

ALSO READ: 11 ways Trump doesn’t become president

One problem, the report notes, is that even if the former president has the $400 million he boasted about in an early morning Friday posting, it doesn't come near enough to the total he needs.

"He consistently pegged the number during legal proceedings at $400 million and, barring any recent and unreported cash infusion, a person familiar with his finances confirmed that remains roughly where his cash holdings stand," CNN is reporting before adding, "The $464 million decision levied in the verdict, and the bond Trump is scrambling to secure to forestall potential seizure of his properties, would require cash or cash equivalent of roughly $557 million based on industry practice. And at least some of the money Trump does have is tied up in loan agreements that include terms requiring him to have tens of millions of dollars in cash on hand."

According to a GOP lawmaker close to the Trump camp, until now the former president has seemed invulnerable but AG James' plan to have liens in place if the bond is not posted has changed the game.

“I think the whole thing is b------t,” they explained. “But it had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing will ever stick to him, so this has been different.”

You can read more here.

'She can’t be trusted': Kari Lake has become 'a tough sell within her own party'

Attempting to straddle two worlds, former television personality Kari Lake is not finding gaining the trust of Arizona's Republican voters an easy task having alienated many conservatives when she ran for governor and chasing away some supporters she needs as she now runs for the U.S. Senate.

According to a report from the New York Times, Lake has been trying to make amends with the so-called "McCain Republicans" she disparaged in her losing 2022 run while also still insisting that her bid for governor was beset with election tampering.

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'Call her bluff': WSJ urges Speaker Johnson to put Marjorie Taylor Greene in a corner

Calling her "Rep. Mayhem," the opinion page editors of the conservative Wall Street Journal urged House Speaker Michael Johnson (R-LA) to proceed with running the country's business as he sees fit and ignore Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene's latest tantrum.

In a scorching editorial, the editors pointed to Taylor Gtreene's threat to oust Johnson if he doesn't toe the line when it comes to what she wants to do and stated it is time for the putative GOP leader to stand up to her and similar "vandals" in the Republican Party caucus.

According to the editors, Johnson did the rational thing by forcing through a budget bill to keep the government funded and the Georgia Republican is only interested in creating "chaos" and drawing attention to herself.

ALSO READ: Marjorie Taylor Greene to federal election regulators: get bent over ‘MTG’

"Politics isn’t the art of the impossible, but Ms. Greene and her crew of vandals prefer to scream and throw soup at the walls, like those climate-change protesters who think their ludicrous gestures are accomplishing something," they wrote. "They have no strategy for achieving the conservative victories they claim to want, beyond shutting down the government and shouting for the cameras that everyone else is a sellout."

Pointing to the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) by a group of similarly disaffected conservatives, the editors suggested Taylor Greene may be able to force a vote only to find out the hard way that her GOP colleagues don't want to suffer through that again — particularly in a pivotal election year.

"After the weeks of tumult last fall following Mr. McCarthy’s removal, even Ms. Greene’s putative allies might be skeptical. Is this the vision for GOP governance that House Republicans want to offer in an election year?", they asked before bluntly stating, "If Mr. Johnson isn’t conservative enough to succeed as Speaker, who would be? Call her bluff."

You can read the entire editorial here.

'It's not worth anything': Former Trump lawyer blows a hole in 'hype' over Truth Social

During an appearance on MSNBC's "The Weekend," former Donald Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen dismissed the idea that the Friday merger of his former client's Truth Social — and the cash that reportedly comes with it — will help with the former president's financial woes.

Speaking with the hosts, Cohen accused Trump and his close associates of "hyping" up the value of Truth Social where there is none.

"What is the value to it?" he asked. "The fact that they want to make claims that it's worth $4 billion or $5 billion and he has like 85 percent of the stock. Wouldn't that stock be valued based upon its profitability?"

ALSO READ: Here's why conservative elites are bailing on Trump now

"I understand it has like 15 million users on it," he elaborated. "Compare that to somebody like Taylor Swift who has 120 million followers — 120 million. What is the profitability that they are making the statement that it is worth not just into the millions or the hundreds of millions, but into the billions of dollars? I don't buy it either."

"They are trying to hype up the stock the same way they would do it for Trump Mortgage, Trump University, Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump this or Trump that — it's not worth anything " he added. "There is no profitability and there is no future in sight for that profitability either. I mean, who wants to go on to Truth Social? It is nonsense and I do not think that anybody is going to take this -- the stock as an advance for cash."

Watch below or at the link.

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Top Trump funder admits 'donor fatigue' as his campaign lags behind Biden’s fundraising

Former President Donald Trump may be the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, but his third bid for the White House is already at a significant financial disadvantage compared to President Joe Biden's reelection operation.

According to a recent Politico report, the ex-president is blocking off entire days on his calendar to call donors and ask them for help shoring up his campaign's infrastructure with less than eight months to go before Election Day. Former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Georgia), a top Trump fundraiser, admitted that trying to build up the ex-president's war chest is an arduous task.

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'Hemorrhaging users': Trump's Truth Social's longtime 'viability' questioned after merger

The merger on Friday between Digital World Acquisition Corp. and the Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Donald Trump's Truth Social, may have resulted in a temporary $3 billion windfall for the former president, but technology experts are more than skeptical that the merged company will survive in the long term.

According to a report from CNN, the social media platform is barely scraping by and is solely dependent on Trump posting on it to have any value as users abandon it in droves.

CNN is reporting, "Outside of his MAGA movement, though, the social media site is struggling to find a wider audience. It is hemorrhaging users, and its traffic has plummeted. There were roughly 860,000 accounts active on the site as of November – a tiny blip compared with more mainstream platforms."

ALSO READ: A criminologist explains why half of America does not care about Trump's crimes

The report notes that after three years of existence, Truth Social lacks appeal to new users with the app "not among the 100 most downloaded social media applications in the Apple App store."

According to tech experts, that should be concerning to investors hoping to make a killing.

With CNN reporting, "Trump Media’s management warned last year that the company was at risk of insolvency without a merger, and most analysts are skeptical of its current valuation above $6 billion," Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida indicated he was less than impressed.

"It’s grossly overvalued. It qualifies as a meme stock for which the price is divorced from fundamental value,” he explained.

As noted, the platform will live or die with Trump's fortunes and participation.

According to Josephine Lukito of the University of Texas at Austin, "Truth Social’s clout is driven very much if not entirely by Donald Trump’s popularity. Without him, I don’t think there’s a viable path forward for it.”

You can read more here.