USA 2024: -224, Black Monday for Donald Trump, anti-shutdown becomes law

The road to USA 2024 presents further obstacles for Trump. Indeed, a black Monday looms on the judicial and financial fronts for Donald Trump after anti-shutdown measures became law over the weekend with the signature of President Joe Biden, who warned lawmakers: their work is not done, the bipartisan “supplement on national security” must still be approved, already passed by the Senate, which includes aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan as well as funds for the border crisis. However, the president’s appeal is likely to fall on deaf ears, at least in the immediate term: it’s practically impossible for anything to happen before Easter, with Congress on recess.

There is turmoil among Republicans over the party’s Trumpian turn. Senator Lisa Murkowski, an opponent of the former president, announced that she might leave the Republican Party. This was reported by NBC: “I have a very independent mindset… I’m sorry that our party is becoming the party of Trump,” said the Alaska senator, assuring that she will not vote for the mogul in November and suggesting that “she won’t be the only one” to do so. Another anti-Trump senator, Mitt Romney of Utah, a former Republican presidential candidate in 2012, will leave politics at the end of his term.

Murkowski is among the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment after the January 6, 2021, Capitol assault. Since then, she has become a target of the former president and his allies.

USA 2024: start date of the NY trial and deadline for bail payment
Today, the start date of the trial for hush money payments to the porn star Stephanie Clifford, alias Stormy Daniels, should be set, and the deadline for depositing the $464 million bail set in the civil trial for the inflated assets of the Trump Organization expires, thus avoiding asset seizure.

In New York, his city, now a minefield for him, Trump – portrayed by Benedetta Guerrera, ANSA correspondent – “is caught between the anvil of Judge Juan M. Merchan, who recently postponed the start of the proceedings scheduled for March 25, and the hammer of Attorney General Letitia James, who has already initiated the complicated operations to expropriate the mogul of buildings, cars, planes, and helicopters.”

For days, the former president’s lawyers have been racing against time to find an insurance company willing to guarantee half a billion dollars. Trump managed to list his Truth social media platform on the stock exchange for a value of approximately $6 billion, of which about $3.5 billion are his – but he cannot capitalize on them for six months. However, the situation does not seem to have been resolved.

What worries the Trump clan the most is the freezing of bank accounts, easier to do than seizing physical assets: all the sheriff of New York has to do is go to the bank where the former president keeps his money and present the court order to the director.

What are Trump’s options? On his Truth social platform, the mogul boasts of having $500 million in cash and says he wants to use it for the election campaign. Claims refuted by the New York Times: he would have no more than $300 million in cash, and he hasn’t spent his own money on a campaign since 2016.

The uncertainties of the story remain numerous: he has appealed to the appellate court for more time or a reduced penalty, and the stock market listing of the social media platform may induce some company to act as a guarantor.

The ‘bankruptcy option’ suggested by some of his lawyers remains: by declaring “bankruptcy,” as his ally Rudy Giuliani did, the sanction would be automatically annulled. But Trump has always rejected this option, which would tarnish his image as a businessman: he prefers to continue attacking Attorney General James, who is “persecuting” him instead of dealing “with real criminals”: “Letitia has a terrible record as New York Attorney General and continues to hunt down Trump who has done absolutely nothing wrong!”