“We’re Getting Rid Of the Romneys” Trump Announces Full MAGA Takeover Of RNC, GOP

This wisecrack slash proclamation made in Virginia yesterday is going to be met one of two ways when the RNC meets on March 8: Either there will be silence and utmost compliance with Mango Mussolini’s latest edict, or — and this is a big “or” — the RNC will go ahead and pass the resolution saying they won’t foot his legal bills. And maybe his nominees for leadership will get passed over as well. That could happen. The only one who doesn’t see it as a possibility is Trump himself and possibly la famille. Lara lives in such a dream world, she’s probably taking it in stride that she’ll soon be running something as complex as the Republican National Committee, having zero expertise in politics beyond being a relative of the worst president in the history of this country by marriage.

That's a stupid self-defeating proclamation because only 35% of at the country at most is MAGA and another 5-7% may be non-MAGA Republicans who will vote for Trump. He is excluding non-MAGA's who still lean Republican.

— Utah Girl Chronicles 🌼🌺🦋💐🖌️☮️🌊 Support Writers (@buddywriterdude) March 3, 2024

You well recall how he excommunicated anybody who supported Nikki Haley and now he’s doing the same for the Romney family, all of them, I guess, George, who has long since departed, Mitt, Ronna, all their relatives, maybe the Romney pets as well are no longer welcome in MAGA. (That will last until Trump starts selling MAGA leashes, then you’ll find out how everybody is welcome in Trump’s tent, as long as they’ve got money to spend on his swag.)

And need I call your attention to the facts that we’ve all shared here in the past few days: 1. Lisa Murkowski supports Nikki Haley; 2. Susan Collins supports Nikki Haley; 3. Haley defeated Trump resoundingly in the Washington, D.C. primary. These are small pebbles, yes, but you get enough pebbles rolling, you can start an avalanche. At the very least, this is prima facie evidence that the GOP is not 100% MAGA. There are some outliers.

Super Tuesday approaches, less than 48 hours away. And Trump is slated to become the nominee by an overwhelming majority. And then he plans to take over the RNC a few short days later. But will it all happen that way? It’s hard to say. But here’s what we do know about what Trump faces in the real world, i.e., the world beyond his fantasy wish casting.

It’s not all good news for Trump this week. That’s because Trump has to post a bond in the E. Jean Carroll case by next weekend, or Carroll can begin to collect on her $83.3 million judgment against him. This is commonly referred to as an appeal bond. If Trump manages to either get a bond or pay the full amount of the judgment into a court account, then Carroll cannot begin efforts to collect it while the appeal is pending. If he fails to do so, her lawyer Roberta Kaplan can get to work.

Predictably, Trump asked the court to break the rules just for him, to prevent Kaplan from collecting while he contemplates filing some post-trial motions (they’re all losers). He also offered to bargain with the court over the amount of bond he’d have to post, asking for a “substantially reduced bond.” This isn’t how it works, and the court smacked down his request promptly, writing, “The Court declines to grant any stay, much less an unsecured stay, without first having afforded plaintiff a meaningful opportunity to be heard.”

Carroll’s attorneys filed their response ahead of schedule on Thursday, pointing out that Trump is asking the court to “simply trust that he’s very rich” and therefore doesn’t need to post a bond guaranteeing he’ll pay the money. But Carroll’s lawyers expressed “very serious concerns about Trump’s cash position” and the “feasibility” of him paying what he owes. They referred to him as the “least trustworthy of borrowers.” Trump’s problems don’t end there, as he still has to come up with $454 million and counting, as interest accrues daily, in the New York AG’s civil fraud case against him, where he must post a bond (called an undertaking in New York state cases) later this month if he doesn’t want her to start collecting that judgment while he appeals the case.

So now we wait. We wait on the Supreme Court. We wait on Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida, who heard arguments about when the trial in her case should take place but did not set a date. And we wait on Fulton County, where Judge Scott McAfee is still in the process of deciding whether Fani Willis should be disqualified from prosecuting the case she indicted against Trump and others. An interesting side note on that one: Judge McAfee was appointed to the bench by Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp on April 1, 2023. He was appointed to fill a vacancy and has to run for election this year. March 8 is the deadline to qualify for judicial races in Georgia, although as a practice, sitting judges frequently qualify on the first day they can, which is Monday morning. Presumably, Judge McAfee will run for reelection, which may add a whole new dimension to the past few weeks of theatrics in the Fulton County case.

The Supreme Court updated its calendar over the weekend. It will be releasing opinion(s) in cases on Monday. The Court always tells us in advance when it will release opinions, but not which cases are involved. The speculation is that this will be the decision in the 14th Amendment case out of Colorado, where voters sought to keep Trump off the bench. It has been unusual since the formal end of the pandemic for the Court not to take the bench which it announces its decisions.

And last but not least: do not forget that interest accrues daily on all these bonds that the “very rich” Mr. Trump simply cannot pay. That is important to note because it increases the pressure on him to get money, and as many people have observed, the only deep pocket Trump is anywhere near is the RNC’s pocket.

So those resolutions passing are key. And the drafters of the resolutions know the same things that you and I know about how deeply leveraged is and how much money he needs to bail himself out of immediate financial disasters.

My spidey sense is that Trump isn’t going to just walk in and take over the RNC. I see that being a bit more difficult than he anticipated. I think that there is enough pushback against Trump right now to where the RNC is going to keep its hands on its own money.

And big donors will be there to write checks, of that there is little doubt. And a lot of the dialogue there has been that since the White House looks to be a wash this year, concentrate on the Senate. And if that’s the call from on high, from big money world, then there’s no way Trump is going to be able to both 1. Lose the White House — again — and 2. Take money away from down ballot races.

I see a battle for money coming up in the RNC. And I see one very pissed off Trump. Just wait and see. You don’t have long to wait.