WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE TRUMP STFU?

There's a passage in Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises in which a character named Mike is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” he answers. “Gradually, then suddenly.”

We are seeing the truth of that with Trump.

Last night, in response to being indicted in New York, Trump made an angry speech, painting a a dark vision of the country and spewing a litany of conspiracy theories, some old and familiar and some new and really strange. Cheered on by MAGA celebrities, he went after President Biden, then criticized - at length and with specifics - the various prosecutors investigating him.

So much for heeding the judge’s warning to him in court that he must refrain from personally attacking those involved in the case - and their families.

“I never thought anything like this could happen in America, never thought it could happen. The only crime I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”

He then launched into 30 minute conspiracy-filled rant so crazy even Fox cut away.

“From the beginning, the Democrats spied on my campaign. Remember that? They attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations.”

He riffed from his Greatest Hits.

Eforts to impeach him for his role inciting the violent January 6 attack on the Capitol is a “hoax.”

Withholding aid from Ukraine in an effort to extract political favors is a “hoax.”

He won the 2020 election and Biden benefitted from “millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes and all caught on government cameras.”

Biden benefitted from “collusion” between the Justice Department, FBI, and Facebook who conspired to suppress information about the “Hunter Biden laptop from hell.”

The country is “going to hell” under Biden with “raging crime statistics,” a “crippled” economy, and a military that has “now gone woke at the top levels.”

This is “the most embarrassing time in our country’s history, in my opinion,” and we are on the brink of “all-out nuclear World War III.” “We’re not very far away from it, believe it or not.”

The audience included many prominent lunatics, er, I man true believers, such as Kari Lake, Mike Lindell, and Marjorie Traitor Goon.

Lindell texted various news outlets, saying the indictment would boost Trump’s current re-election campaign. “It was great and this attack on our real President solidified him winning in 2024!” “We are getting rid of the electronic voting machines!!” “Everyone loves our real president Donald Trump … some just don’t know it yet!”

In his speech, Trump specifically went after Alvin Bragg, Jack Smith, Fani Willis, and Tish James. All of them are wildly corrupt and unfairly targeting him.

Trump started with Bragg. “He campaigned on the fact that he would get President Trump. … Before he knew anything about me. Didn’t know a thing about me. It’s an insult to our country as the world is already laughing at us for so many other reasons.”

Trump accused Fani Willis of “doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call. Nobody said, ‘Sir you shouldn’t say that.’ … or hung up in disgust.”

Trump also took aim at Jack Smith, dismissing him as “a radical left lunatic known as a bomb thrower,” suggested his name might be fake, and described the documents probe “the boxes hoax.”

He then did Smith a favor, admitting he took documents from the White House, but they were held in a “very secure storage room” and insisting he had “the right to declassify documents and the process is automatic.”

“The next thing I know, we were raided by many gun-toting FBI agents. Everybody was in shock.”

Trump also suggested Biden had similarly stowed away documents. “Joe Biden took massive amounts, more documents, even removed many boxes to Chinatown. You believe that?”

He also went on at length about New York AG Tish James, defending his business practices, and attacking James for vowing to go after him as she campaigned in 2018. “This is a persecution, not an investigation. She’s put our family through hell. It’s cost hundreds of millions of dollars to defend, but our heads are held very, very high.”

At this point, it seems clear that he wants the judge to issue a gag order so he can fundraise off “Look, I’m being oppressed!”

Prosecutors said in court they weren’t seeking a gag order in the case at this point, but asked for a protective order that would limit Trump’s ability to share evidence about his case due to recent public comments. The judge told the parties to work on such an order and come back to him.

It may not just be what happened in New York yesterday that sent Trumpty Dumpty tumbling off the wall into complete insanity. While we all paying attention to seeing him in court as a criminal defendant, there was another legal hearing in Washington D.C. that may have even greater portent.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals declined Trump’s request to intervene on an emergency basis and block the imminent grand jury testimony of former Trump administration officials in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is very important.

Trump’s lawyers were in court to convince District Judge James Boasberg, to stay former chief district judge Howell’s order while they appealed. They lost that argument, resulting in the emergency appeal that they lost on yesterday.

This involves the required testimony to the grand jury by former chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House advisers Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, and former Homeland Security acting secretary Ken Cuccinelli.

The three-judge panel that denied the emergency motion included Obama appointees Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins and Trump appointee Greg Katsas.

Early reporting indicates Trump will not appeal this ruling to the Supreme Court.

In a sign of how quickly things are moving, Cuccinelli went before the grand jury Tuesday afternoon right after the appeals court decision.

Trump has lost his most plausible executive privilege claims. He is going to be indicted in D.C. on every single charge.

What was on display last night was a man who is desperate and terrified. This is a criminal who punched a teacher when he was six, was caught throwing rocks at a toddler in a playpen in the yard next door to his home at age ten, who has been a public criminal for the past 50 years, and who has always gotten off. He believed he was invulnerable.

What happens to a narcissist whose world starts falling apart around him, who is constantly presented with the facts of his total and complete failure?

You’re looking at it.

Justice Juan Merchan explicitly told Trump to his face in court: “Please refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest ... making comments that have potential to incite violence, create civil unrest [or] jeopardize the state or well-being of any individuals.”

He also asked Trump not to engage in rhetoric that will “jeopardize the rule of law.”

Now we just need Judge Marchand to tell him to Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

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