Mar.27

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Trump News Roundup

There was an unbelievable amount of Donald Trump news yesterday. Most of it wasn't important enough to warrant its own item, but is still of interest for one reason or another, so we're just going to do a rundown in the style of an Allan Malamud or a Herb Caen:

• The Grift Goes On, Part I: Trump's new company, Trump Media & Technology Group, had a very good day on its first day being publicly traded. Here's the graph:
  
  
  
  As you can see, it was trading above $70 a share for a while, before ultimately closing at $57.99 a share. At that valuation, Trump's stake in the company would be worth $4,552,215,000. Do you know how many people you can get away with defaming if you have that kind of scratch?
  
  Jim Cramer of Mad Money was tearing his hair out yesterday (well, he would have been, if he had hair). Many, many other stock market analysts were mystified. We obviously have no idea what's going on, but we can at least offer some guesses: (1) maybe it's speculators, (2) maybe it's MAGA fanboys, (3) maybe it's domestic or foreign interests who are trying to curry favor with Trump, or (4) maybe there's some sort of GameStop-style scheme going on here. We'll see if the price holds until Trump is able to dump some of his stock.
  
  There were 37 million shares of DWAC (Digital World Acquisition Corp.) out there on Friday, with a combined value of $1.37 billion. There are about 135 million shares of the new TMTG, of which Donald Trump owns 79 million. Well, the experts who pooh-poohed the $1.37 billion valuation of DWAC were partly right. It isn't worth $1.37 billion. Yesterday the new stock, which trades using the ticker symbol DJT, closed at $57.99, a 56% jump from Friday, so the market capitalization of TMTG is $6.58 billion, a value 22x more than the book value for a company that by its own admission will probably never make a profit. This makes TMTG as valuable as Mattel, which has sold over 1 billion Barbie dolls and is still selling them, PUMA, which sells a lot of shoes, and Choice Hotels, which owns the Clarion, Sleep Inn, Econolodge, and Quality Inn brands, among others. TMTG is more valuable than each of Pirelli, Whirlpool, Qantas, and Harley-Davidson. And again, for a company that admits it will probably never make a profit. And you thought Trump was not a good businessman?
  
  It has occurred to us and probably others, that if Trump loses his appeal in the New York State fraud case, AG Letitia James could ask the judge to seize Trump's stock in TMTG and sell it bit by bit (to avoid having the price crash). This would be easy to do and avoid a big backlash. Even if the stock lost 90% of its value when she seized it, it would still be worth enough to pay Trump's fine.
  
  
• The Grift Goes On, Part II: In yet another sign that, despite the market capitalization of Trump Media & Technology Group, Trump does not expect to realize any money anytime soon, he announced his latest grift yesterday. It's a partnership with country music singer Lee Greenwood; the two men are peddling a Bible that they call the King Donald... er, the God Bless the U.S.A. Bible. It's got the King James text, along with the text of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance. It also comes with a cheap-looking leather cover stamped with an American flag. It can be yours for the low, low price of $59.99. You do have to wait 4-6 weeks for delivery, so you'll also have to find something to fulfill your Biblical needs until then.
  
  You should consider watching the video that Trump cut to promote his Bible. It's a mix of very strange and very disconcerting. Here are our thoughts after having watched it:
  
  
  • Was he told he simply had to fill 3+ minutes? Because he prattles on and on, and keeps saying the same basic things over and over.
    
    
  • He says, once again, that the Bible is his favorite book. Is anyone buying that, even the True Believers, when he says it with so little inflection or enthusiasm? We thought that the appeal of Trump is that he's authentic, but this is as phony as the day is long.
    
    
  • Trump also says, in various ways, that America needs to bring Christianity back into government, that every American must have a Bible in their home, that "we must make America pray again," and that he and his followers "only answer to God." That's called a theocracy. At least the former president is now admitting it out loud.
    
    
  • Don't the people who believe these things... already own Bibles?
    
    
  • As part of his meandering monologue, Trump also manages to insult his followers (or so it seems to us). When he highlights the governing documents included in the book, he says: "Many of you have never read them and don't know the liberties and rights you have as Americans." It's always been clear to us that most of Trump's followers haven't actually read the Constitution, but is their ignorance really something he should be using as a selling point?
    
    
  After Trump made the announcement, former Representative Liz Cheney helpfully suggested that he should take a look at Exodus 20:14, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Of course, it's certainly possible that the Trump Bible is like the infamous Wicked Bible of 1631, and commands that "Thou shalt commit adultery." If so, THEN we would understand why it's his favorite book.
  
  
• Cannon Fodder: David Lat has a very interesting piece about Aileen Cannon at his blog "Original Jurisdiction." The executive summary is that the Judge's (mis-)handling of the Trump documents case isn't really about politics or her future job prospects, and is primarily due to inexperience.
  
  In her first couple of years on the bench, Cannon had a reputation for being fairly apolitical, for being very competent, and for being an excellent supervisor and mentor of her law clerks. That said, by virtue of her lack of experience, she was prone to accept frivolous arguments as "interesting legal questions," when a more experienced jurist would have kicked them right back to counsel, recognizing them for the tricks they were. This is what Lat thinks happened with Cannon's original ruling in the documents case, the one to appoint a special master that was quickly quashed by the Eleventh Circuit.
  
  When Cannon, by random draw, got responsibility for overseeing the actual prosecution of Trump, she was not at all suited to the task. There were (and are) too many questions where she has no experience. And the various security-related concerns, like everyone needing to have clearances, added extra layers of work that she has not managed very well. Cannon's lost four clerks prematurely, two because they were leery of the toxic reputation she rapidly acquired (after all, the point of clerking is to burnish one's résumé), a third who has a newborn at home and was unwilling to work 80-hour weeks, and a fourth who had serious personality clashes with the increasingly irritable and unsupportive Judge. At the moment, Cannon is once again fully staffed, but only one clerk has been with her for more than 6 months, and it's not clear how many of the newbies (if any) have gotten the necessary security clearances to work on the Trump case.
  
  It's worth reading the entire piece, but the upshot is that Lat makes a pretty good case for (a version of) Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence."
  
  
• Gag Him: Between the hush-money trial he's overseeing, and Trump's various other legal entanglements, Judge Juan Merchan has seen enough in terms of the defendant's public behavior. And so, Merchan issued a gag order that prohibits attacks against the court staff and/or the witnesses in the case. Trump is still free to attack Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, however.
  
  
• Well, It's Not a Nobel Prize, But...: Earlier this week, Trump took to his boutique social media platform, the one that will apparently soon be worth more than Ex-Twitter, to share this news:

  It is my great honor to be at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach tonight, AWARDS NIGHT, to receive THE CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY & THE SENIOR CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY. I WON BOTH! A large and golfing talented membership, a GREAT and difficult course, made the play very exciting. The qualifying and match play was amazing. A large and distinguished group will be there tonight. Very exciting, thank you!!!

  Bragging about winning a trophy, when you are an adult, speaks to a lack of self-awareness. Bragging about winning ALL the trophies, when you are an adult and they were awarded by the club that YOU OWN, really, really speaks to a lack of self-awareness. But what turned this into the meme heard 'round the world was the response sent out under Joe Biden's name on Ex-Twitter: "Congratulations, Donald. Quite the accomplishment." That burns. It's also a reminder that Team Biden is going to be doing some trolling this election season because they know it gets under Trump's skin and makes him say stupid things.

And that's the latest. Undoubtedly there will be 12 more things by this time tomorrow. (Z)