Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Cthulhu 2020]

Why do you omit the other 2 cases, sentencing before and him losing and him winning and sentencing after. Instead you just pick 2 of the 4 cases to somehow fit your narrative. That's just more excuses for your broken system.
Delaying the sentencing for those reasons is just a banana republic levels corrupt system.

We basically are a banana republic, largely because this guy has already been convicted of other crimes, we know there are even more after THIS trial coming down the pipe, but the reality is that Trump is a political figure head with a lot of clout and sway over the populace. Sending Trump to jail for breaking the law is seen as a political maneuver by many, and not just blatant Trump supporters, though it's mostly them. Trump seeing the inside of a prison will never be accepted by everyone. And there will be push back if it happens. Trump has largely been able to delay and delay and delay already because he is such a prolific figure on the right, and had influence in the trial Canon presided over.

He's already mentally deteriorating, it's visible every day. His garbled nonsense gets more garbled all the time. Losing TWICE would send a signal that America really is just done with his shit, that he's never getting the presidency again, and that properly punishing him, while it may still be seen as a political move by many, will not really be fought back against.

The right will quickly withdraw all support and megaphones from Trump and start searching for their next messiah.

We have a two tier justice system, and have had a two tier justice system for a very, very, very long time. Rich get more justice than poor. The fact that we're even having to do this song and dance of politics with Trump is frankly absurd, but it is our reality. It fucking sucks, but conservatives especially like to openly flaunt the law, pushing boundaries that liberals are typically too scared to push for fear of being labeled. And I'm frankly pretty sick of how toothless the Democrats have been in all of this.

[Twdft]

So sentencing for the 34 felony counts has been delayed AGAIN. Until after the election this time.

Trump is actually correct when he says he isn't treated the same way in the courts. Because he gets favourable results time after time after time. He was found guilty on 34 counts, it's going to be six months before he's sentenced. And he's a free man that entire time. How is this justice?

What an absolute muppet of a judge.

[Shadowferal]

Maybe I'm seeibg things but I see calculation in Judge Merchan's delay.
Putting Trump in prison now would effectively silence him.
Trump has so far been very effective at pissing his own supporters off. And as such, there are growing breaks in his support. And if he continues, well, it seems to me that Merchan wants to break the name "Trump," before Trump gets broken in November.

[Templar 331]

Why do you omit the other 2 cases, sentencing before and him losing and him winning and sentencing after. Instead you just pick 2 of the 4 cases to somehow fit your narrative. That's just more excuses for your broken system.
Delaying the sentencing for those reasons is just a banana republic levels corrupt system.

Like Cthulhu said, it's what we've got to work with. I don't like it and it should be changed to be fair for everyone. Running for office or holding office shouldn't exclude you from facing justice, but the ones in power have tilted the machine in order to do just that.

But lets discuss the other scenarios if you want to.

Sentenced before he loses. I would LOVE to see this happen. I was looking forward to him being sentenced this month, but here we are. Best case scenario would be he is sent to jail and all of his support in the Republican party dries up. All the connections he has cuts ties with him and lets him rot. The down side to this is that his followers, who tend to lean towards the terroristic side, would be up in arms thinking that the courts were in on trying to make Trump lose. To which he would fan the flames and incite another insurrection. Many of them still think Trump didn't lose the 2020 election. That might still be the case with sentencing him after the election, but now there is at least the image of the justice system trying not to influence the election. I know that's not what's supposed to happen but when a third of the country supports forcefully throwing down the government and living in anarchy you really don't have to many options.

Him winning and sentencing after. This is literally the worst case scenario. We've already seen what his gestapo are planning with the "Project 2025." What do you imagine will happen to the judges and prosecutors in the cases against him? What do you think will happen to the cases themselves? There will be no justice, only retribution. He will die before he is out of office again and by that time he will have set up god knows what to ensure that he gets what he wants no matter what.

[Lynarii]

Maybe I'm seeibg things but I see calculation in Judge Merchan's delay.
Putting Trump in prison now would effectively silence him.
Trump has so far been very effective at pissing his own supporters off. And as such, there are growing breaks in his support. And if he continues, well, it seems to me that Merchan wants to break the name "Trump," before Trump gets broken in November.

That isn't better. When we're talking about justice, nothing in the way the case is handled should be specifically changed either to favor OR disfavor the parties involved. Specifically setting dates in order to hurt someone is as much a sign of corruption in the system as setting them to help someone.

It was Judge Merchan's job to handle this in as fair and above board way as it was possible to do, and unfortunately he really failed. Whether or not the end result is what we want will not correct that.

[Edge-]

Huh, so it seems the stock launched, gained a bit of value, and closed its first day slightly below its opening price. All things considered...not bad even if the opening price is very low.

Then again I didn't even know Frank was still active and thought it'd shut down ages ago due to Lindell's failure to pay even more of his obligations.

Also just a fun casual reminder that my conservative Fox News watching grandmother once bought one of his shitty pillows while she was still alive. She quickly returned it because it was, unsurprisingly, absolute shit.

[Breccia]

Speaking of stock that sucks...

From the Motley Fool: Trump Media Stock Hits a New Low, and This Might Not Be the Bottom

Now it starts with stuff we all already know, things like "the company doesn't make money" and "Trump is ready to sell in a few days" and "Trump is back on Twitter".

Beyond the lock-up expiration, Trump Media could still be heading lower for the simple reason it resembles a meme stock rather than a solid long-term investment. Not only is the business generating little in revenue (just $0.8 million in the second quarter) but the number of users on its social platform are also likely modest as Trump Media does not report many key metrics.

The company says it is "focused on developing Truth Social by enhancing features and user interface rather than relying on traditional performance metrics like average revenue per user, ad impressions and pricing, or active user accounts, including monthly and daily active users."

Yeah, that's not great news. This is the equivalent of telling the IRS "I'm declaring my good feelings and overall well-being, not things like income and taxes".

Trump is hiding the standard stats of his social media for good reason: they suck. He has no traffic and therefore little appeal to advertisers, other than advertisers who just want to hand Trump a large pile of money without it being a campaign contribution.

"Surely there's some way of figuring out those non-reported values?"

Some estimates suggest Truth Social could have 5 million active users. By comparison, X (formerly Twitter), which Trump was active on in the past, had an estimated 368 million monthly active users as of last year. Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has billions of active users.

No one expects Truth Social to be anywhere near those numbers in its early stages, but failing to report user count is a red flag. For social media stocks, such numbers are a key metric for both investors and advertisers, since they help demonstrate just how popular a platform is and how much value it possesses.

The absence of such reporting suggests Truth Social isn't growing as well as management might have hoped, which again supports the possibility that Trump sells at least a portion of his holdings sooner rather than later.

Through the first six months of the year, Truth Social incurred an operating loss totaling $117 million, and it used up nearly $31 million in cash from its day-to-day operating activities. While it still has cash and cash equivalents totaling $344 million, which should be plenty to keep the business running, its financials could worsen as it ramps up spending on growth initiatives, including the launch of its TV streaming platform.

I'll admit, I didn't think it had any money, based on earlier reports. I fully expect Trump to loot all the cash at the same time he sells his stock, by the way.

"Okay, but why should I trust this 'the Motley Fool' anyhow? His name literally has 'fool' in it."

They're well above average in stock evaluations.

"I'm still not sold on why I should trust someone who tells me something that's clearly worthless is worthless.

Let's bring in WaPo then.

Trump’s shares in the parent company of his social media platform Truth Social have plunged in value in the weeks before he can sell them, a losing streak that has at least temporarily erased billions of dollars from his paper net worth.

In those six months, Trump Media’s stock has plummeted almost 70 percent to about $17 — an all-time low since the merger was approved. At that price, Trump’s roughly 60 percent stake in the company would be valued around $2 billion, more than $4 billion less than when the company publicly debuted.

To be fair, Trump could not have sold it at full value, but that's not the real story. It has no value. Once its value was set subjectively by investors, they have unilaterally decided "this stock has nearly no value".

A Trump campaign spokesman referred comment to Trump Media, whose spokeswoman Shannon Devine said in a statement that the company “is rapidly building out our platform while maintaining a strong balance sheet.” She added that the company had successfully launched a video streaming service on its “uncancellable, custom-built content delivery network” and had maintained a strong “financial position with $344 million in cash and cash equivalents and zero debt.”

Again, that $344 million...if it exists, unless it's filed with the IRS (etc) I don't believe Trump when he says he has money and no debt...is well below what the stock price is currently worth. Cash value is objective in this context, but is the rest of the company still worth the well over two billion it'd need to be?

WaPo does confirm what I wasn't sure about: yes, Truth Social did create shares out of thin air and hand them to Trump. It's probably where that $344 million came from, actually. This dilutes the remaining values of the remaining shares, and I suspect it means the $10 bottom is no longer the bottom. There isn't enough money to go around for them.

"Is there any chance Team Trump is lowering the price on purpose to buy up shares?"

No. If they wanted those shares, they wouldn't have sold them for $10 in the first place. Trump wants money and wants his net worth to be a higher number. There is nothing about driving the price down that does either of those things. Also, even Trump knows the company is worthless and doesn't want it.

Though Trump has continued to use Truth Social as his main online megaphone, he has in recent months also expanded his internet footprint to include other larger platforms that could erode a significant selling point: access to Trump.

His campaign now routinely posts videos of him on TikTok, where he has millions more followers. He has also resumed frequently posting to X, formerly Twitter, and last month sat for an exclusive interview there with its billionaire owner Elon Musk. Trump Media shares have lost about a third of their value since that interview.

There is nothing about what's happening to Truth Social that is flattering. They're lying about their number of customers, lying about their assets, and lying about Trump holding the stock. Nobody believes any of that. I'm still predicting a massive "bombshell" announced by FOX News Sept 18 that fizzles, bumping up the price of DJT just before Trump shits all over his investors by ruining what value is left when he dumps most/all of his stock.

[Edge-]

But I thought Devin Nunes, who has never run a tech company or worked for one, was the perfect person to run one?

$800K revenue for the quarter?

That's catastrophically low.

[Poopymonster]

But I thought Devin Nunes, who has never run a tech company or worked for one, was the perfect person to run one?

$800K revenue for the quarter?

That's catastrophically low.

Guess he couldn't hire undocumented workers again.

[gondrin]

Huh, so it seems the stock launched, gained a bit of value, and closed its first day slightly below its opening price. All things considered...not bad even if the opening price is very low.

Then again I didn't even know Frank was still active and thought it'd shut down ages ago due to Lindell's failure to pay even more of his obligations.

Also just a fun casual reminder that my conservative Fox News watching grandmother once bought one of his shitty pillows while she was still alive. She quickly returned it because it was, unsurprisingly, absolute shit.

I'm more curious on who was the people that purchased it other than some short sellers that are in to make a quick buck.

- - - Updated - - -

But I thought Devin Nunes, who has never run a tech company or worked for one, was the perfect person to run one?

$800K revenue for the quarter?

That's catastrophically low.

Best part of the price dropping is that it will mean Trump will have an extremely hard time offloading his shares in the company as someone has to buy them since the company has to announce they are the ones buying them back. Anyone buying them knows full well that they are there just to hold the bag of dogshit that is the stock of Trump Media.

[PhaelixWW]

Best part of the price dropping is that it will mean Trump will have an extremely hard time offloading his shares in the company...

He's extremely unlikely to even try to sell. Chances are he'll find someone stupid enough to loan him money against the "value" of the stock instead. But the more the stock drops, the harder it will be for him to sucker someone into believing that he's worth the risk and the worse terms he'd get on a potential loan.

[fwc577]

He's extremely unlikely to even try to sell. Chances are he'll find someone stupid enough to loan him money against the "value" of the stock instead. But the more the stock drops, the harder it will be for him to sucker someone into believing that he's worth the risk and the worse terms he'd get on a potential loan.

What are you talking about?

Russians need to launder more money. He doesn't need to find someone stupid at all.

[PhaelixWW]

What are you talking about?

Russians need to launder more money. He doesn't need to find someone stupid at all.

What are you talking about?

Just because they're Russian doesn't mean they're not stupid, too. And "laundering money" implies getting something of value back, which... well... Trump is quite literally the worst avenue I can imagine for that. At least unless you're inside his inner circle and skimming off the top (for however many Mooches you last), which would still be a difficult feat.

If, on the other hand, you're expecting to be paid later for the money you put up today...


...good luck with that.

[Poopymonster]

What are you talking about?

Just because they're Russian doesn't mean they're not stupid, too. And "laundering money" implies getting something of value back, which... well... Trump is quite literally the worst avenue I can imagine for that. At least unless you're inside his inner circle and skimming off the top (for however many Mooches you last), which would still be a difficult feat.

If, on the other hand, you're expecting to be paid later for the money you put up today...


...good luck with that.

Useful idiot maybe running out of usefulness.

[D Luniz]

What are you talking about?

Just because they're Russian doesn't mean they're not stupid, too. And "laundering money" implies getting something of value back, which... well... Trump is quite literally the worst avenue I can imagine for that. At least unless you're inside his inner circle and skimming off the top (for however many Mooches you last), which would still be a difficult feat.

If, on the other hand, you're expecting to be paid later for the money you put up today...


...good luck with that.

well, something is pushing it back up.

[PhaelixWW]

well, something is pushing it back up.

Eh, not really. There were several articles over the weekend about how Trump had lost $4 billion due to the stock dropping below the pre-merger price. Monday started with some buyers jumping in on the low price, then it started a fluctuating decline after that.

[fwc577]

And "laundering money" implies getting something of value back,

A complete cessation of arms shipments and funds to Ukraine is something quite valuable to a country getting their ass handed to them in the middle of a 731 day war that Putin thought would last like a week, tops, as they marched on Kyiv with little resistance.

[Breccia]

A complete cessation of arms shipments and funds to Ukraine is something quite valuable to a country getting their ass handed to them in the middle of a 731 day war that Putin thought would last like a week, tops, as they marched on Kyiv with little resistance.

This really is a source of concern. Trump has already publicly said he has a secret plan that will instantly end the war and hasn't said what it is. That's because the plan is "help Russia win". Russia has every interest in Trump regaining control and unilaterally betraying our allies.

[PhaelixWW]

A complete cessation of arms shipments and funds to Ukraine is something quite valuable to a country getting their ass handed to them in the middle of a 731 day war that Putin thought would last like a week, tops, as they marched on Kyiv with little resistance.

Hasn't Trump already indicated that he'd do this if elected? Why would Russia need to give him (more) money to do what he was already going to do?

[fwc577]

Hasn't Trump already indicated that he'd do this if elected? Why would Russia need to give him (more) money to do what he was already going to do?

He's doing that because they are paying him.