Two recent verdicts have now left Donald Trump on the hook for nearly half a billion dollars.

On Friday, a New York judge handed the former president a $355 million penalty, and banned him from serving in a leadership position in any business in New York for three years, for fraudulently inflating his net worth to lenders in order to receive more favorable loan agreements. And in January, a Manhattan jury ordered Trump to pay the writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her after she accused him of raping her. (A separate jury in May had found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the 1990s.)

“It’s pretty scary from an ethics perspective,” said Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group that has chronicled Trump’s abuses of power and filed lawsuits against him.

You don’t have to look far to find the reasons why. Trump’s first term was riddled with conflicts of interest, and that’s in no small part because of his financial well-being (or lack thereof, depending on how you look at it). At the time that he tried to overturn the 2020 election, he was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, largely stemming from loans to help rehabilitate his struggling businesses, and most of which would be coming due over the subsequent four years. Throughout his presidency, he refused to divest from his businesses, which made millions of dollars in revenue from taxpayers and continued to do work with other countries while he was in office — a practice he indicated he would repeat in a second term.

106 points
*

Good thing he launched a sneaker line today, that’ll really turn things around.

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58 points

Oh that’s real! I thought it was an AI image or something.

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40 points

That’s fair, everything about the story seems AI generated.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-launches-sneaker-line-rcna139334

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I love that it was announced at Sneaker Con. The writers for our reality are just messing with us now.

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8 points

Strange you call that a storm. That’s a press release for marketing purposes. The media are falling into the same trap as before. Clicks for them equals incomez so all the crazy and stupid stuff trump does that can be monitored, is.

Anyone remember press conferences from trump hotels? Not to mention events, conferences, NFTs etc. It’s all a con and we and they need to stop giving it air.

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38 points

The line, called Trump Sneakers

The high tops, which are gold and emblazoned with a “T” on the outside of each shoe, are called the “Never Surrender High Top Sneaker” and are priced at $399 online. The athletic shoes, which feature a “T” and the number 45 on the sides are priced at $199.

This man (and whoever he works with) does not have an ounce of creativity in his entire body.

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30 points

"Never Surrender "

Wasn’t that Desantis’s tag line before he…well… surrendered?

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22 points

It was also Trump’s tagline sold on T-shirts under the mugshot shot picture that was taken when he surrendered to the police.

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10 points

These dumbfucks are wearing shirts that commemorate his literal surrender, bearing the slogan “never surrender”. They are fucking stupid, in other words.

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5 points

For the dumbasses that are going to buy and wear these to virtue signal to other dumbasses, no creativity is needed. These are the people that think it’s a real knee-slapper to wear “Let’s Go Brandon” gear (or “Fuck Your Feelings” or “Trump that Bitch” or…).

If they are spending lots of money to “own the libs” - which really means signal to all family and friends, as well as strangers to stay TF away from them - they are going to spend it on any form of obvious dreck like this.

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4 points

Fuck me, one of my daughters was randomly assigned #45 for club volleyball this season. Didn’t even think about it but now I feel dirty.

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4 points

Really awkward that Jordan’s second number was 45

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10 points

Be pretty funny if Nike held a trademark for sneakers with a 45 on them for that reason…

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29 points

Jfc, I’m so tired of this shit.

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9 points

Jesus Christ on a cracker…I’m going to laugh my ass off at the first moron wearing these

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9 points

I’m going to feel sorry for the parents that force their children to wear these

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2 points

If you know anything about sneaker-heads, you know they don’t often wear their very expensive sneakers.

Which makes these things even more stupid. But you and I aren’t the target demographic for throwing $400 in a trash can.

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14 points

I thought this was a joke, but nope, the man continues his scams: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-launches-sneaker-line-rcna139334

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10 points

What do you even say, at this point. Holy hell.

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8 points

Wow. I just-

Wow.

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2 points

Those would be prime ATBGE material, if i didn’t know that they are produced so cheaply that you get orange feet cancer wearing them.

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45 points
*

So I went to the Saudis - lovely people by the way with the best camels, just amazing - and I said hey, I’ve got this problem with a judge and I need half a billion. And they said ‘Donald, don’t worry about it, we got you’ and that’s how I got rid of those crooked Democrats and their election interference case

We are about to witness either;

  • An epic fire sale of Trump world assets to cover this judgment bill
  • Donald trying to weasel out of this, as long as the courts allow
  • The biggest foreign influence operation this country has ever seen
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17 points

My bet is on the latter 2 at the same time

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3 points

My bet is Voronizh budget will be cut in half. Also Trump will get donation of half the Voronezh’s budget.

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9 points

He’s not gonna pay shit and we’re well on our way to forgetting about it. As soon as the papers stop asking the judge will lower the sentence or some shit. The courts are for us, not for them.

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41 points

Its really not my problem.

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44 points

If you’re not a US citizen, then I guess it’s not your direct (financial) problem.

Otherwise, I think the point of the article is that, if re-elected, he’s going to grift even harder than the first time by funneling even more taxpayer money into his businesses.

Throughout his presidency, he refused to divest from his businesses, which made millions of dollars in revenue from taxpayers and continued to do work with other countries while he was in office — a practice he indicated he would repeat in a second term

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7 points

If re-elected we’ve all of a sudden got so many more problems, his grift falls way down the list. I’m would be more concerned about ever having an election again if Trump gets back into power than I am if he self-enriches while in office.

Him being further in debt, real debt that he actually has to put up money to deal with is absolutely fantastic. It puts him in a weaker, less flexible position for bullshit going into he election. His corruption will be on full display as he robs Peter to pay Paul.

This article is a bit of a gaslight. Its really not our problem. Him being elected again is a much bigger problem. Him having to pay up on these debts makes that harder.

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5 points

He was trying to get a Trump Tower in Moscow and pretty much bowing down to Putin and trying to break up NATO to help Russia. He’ll do anything for money, it’s a big problem

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19 points

Seriously! If I’m broke and owe people money is Trump gonna come and help me out? If not, that fucker can lie in the bed he’s made. If he can’t afford to pay, garnish his wages. At the end of the day, Trump is a regular citizen. Whether he accepts it or not is irrelevant to the facts. He might be rich (or once was) and is used to the silver spoon lifestyle, but why should that matter to me? The closest I’ll get to “silver spoon” is stainless steel. The closest this dude should get to compassion is the warm embrace of a guillotine.

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3 points

When in his almost eighty years on this planet has he ever acted or been treated like a regular citizen? Regardless of what should be, and what should have been, he isn’t normal. He is, by luck, by practice, and by preternatural talent, always evading consequences.

Those he cannot evade, he deflects onto others. So this moment of extraordinary , if his pattern holds, will also be extraordinarily laid upon others. If the GOP doesn’t find a way to remove it for him, and he doesn’t win the presidency, they know they’re in line to be footing the bill. If he does win the presidency, he’ll either evade(saying the president cannot be beholden to such a punishment and serve) or deflect, and through internal graft or external selling of favor, we’ll all end up paying his bill.

This isn’t an argument to feel sorry for him, nor to soften the judgment against him. This is an argument to be wary that he is still the same person he was before the judgment, and is likely to be as conniving as he has always been, if not the more so if he feels cornered by it.

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3 points

This is a pretty big lump of coal to put in his stocking. How he reacts will be interesting and we should watch it closely.

My called shot is he just doesn’t pay. I don’t know what happens after that.

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-3 points

How’s that hole in the sand treating you?

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31 points

I really don’t care, do u?

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9 points

No, I really do honestly. He needs to be out, gone, out of the media’s eye. He’ll just bleed some more off his upper middle class and his lower lower class. If he does manage to make it back in He’s going to owe a whole bunch of people a whole bunch of favors and most of what they want from him are going to qualify as human rights violations.

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8 points

That was a Melania Trump quote from a coat she wore, and yeah, I very much do care.

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27 points
*

We really think he wouldn’t have sold out the country before this? This is basically an argument that we shouldn’t hold Trump accountable because he might do something rash or lash out. Fuck that and fuck him. He shouldn’t get special treatment. Throw the book at him.

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-4 points

glad to see the secret art of reading comprehension remains closely guarded

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6 points

glad to see the art of sarcastic ad hominem is alive and well

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1 point
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