It’s Official: Abraham Lincoln’s Political Party Died Today

The Republican National Committee elected a pair of new leaders on Friday and, surprise surprise, they were both hand-selected by Donald Trump. Their introduction to the higher echelons of conservative fundraising stands as a marking point: Trump’s takeover of the party is now complete.

North Carolina GOP Chairman Michael Whatley was elected to replace outgoing RNC Chair (and expired Trump favorite) Ronna McDaniel, while the former president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, was selected as co-chair.

Their introduction comes at a critical juncture for Trump, who is struggling to pay for a legal comeuppance that so far includes more than half a billion dollars in judgments and mountains of cash for his four upcoming criminal trials.

Both of the new RNC leaders are 2020 election deniers, and both also echoed Trump’s agenda in their acceptance speeches. Whatley claimed he would hire “real-time monitors” to oversee the upcoming presidential election to thwart interference (a plan that didn’t work out so well for conservatives last time), while the younger Trump “bigly” quoted some of his catchphrases.

Both also pledged that raising money would be a top priority for the caucus, which in January reported a measly $8.7 million in its coffers—nearly a third of what the DNC has on hand. Still, it’s a bit transparent why that might be so important to them. Even though the RNC typically functions to back campaigning officials all the way down the ballot, the co-chair has already sworn the RNC’s cash will help cover the presumed GOP presidential nominee’s legal woes.

“We have no time to waste,” the 41-year-old Trump said on Real America’s Voice earlier this week. “We have to ensure that every single penny of every dollar donated goes to causes that people care about. That’s part of the reason that I think I’m such a great fit for this: There’s no one more loyal to Donald Trump.”

Some members of the party are fearful of the consequences of that decision, including Nikki Haley, who warned upon bowing out of the presidential race that Trump could make the RNC his “personal piggy bank.”

“There will be zero money available for any candidates down ballot. Zero,” Liz Mair, a Republican strategist, told USA Today. “All of it will be funneled into the presidential, and despite what (Trump aide) Chris LaCivita says, I’m pretty sure as much of it as can be will actually be funneled into covering Trump lawsuit costs.”

Donald Trump raised a lot of eyebrows on Friday when he finally posted bond for E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against him, amid reports that the former president is broke.

Trump posted a $91.6 million bond, which covers the $83.3 million he was ordered to pay in damages for defaming Carroll and interest for putting off payment for so long. He had repeatedly tried to get the deadline to pay delayed or get the total ruling amount reduced, but the presiding judge struck him down every time.

But the question on everyone’s mind is, how did Trump get that money together? He appears to be struggling to post bond in his multiple lawsuits and reportedly only has about $413 million in liquid assets. That’s not nearly enough to cover everything he owes in legal fines.

It turns out that Trump may have called in a major favor: Court records filed Friday show that the bond was guaranteed by the Chubb Corporation, an insurance group. In 2018, Trump appointed Chubb’s CEO Evan Greenberg to a White House advisory committee for trade policy and negotiations.

Trump only just managed to make his deadline to post bond. He had to post and then appeal by March 11, or Carroll’s lawyers could start collecting on damages. But his financial woes are far from over.

The former president still owes Carroll $5 million for her first lawsuit, when he was found liable for sexually abusing her and defaming her when denying the attack. Trump also owes more than $466 million for committing real estate–related fraud in New York. He was initially fined $354 million, but interest adds an additional $112,000 per day.

He owes $400,000 to The New York Times and has racked up thousands more in fines and gag-order violations during his myriad lawsuits. And just Thursday, Trump was ordered to pay $382,000 in legal fees for Orbis Business Intelligence, the consulting firm owned by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.* Trump had sued Orbis over a dossier Steele compiled in 2016 that alleged Trump and members of his inner circle had been “compromised” by Russia’s security service.

* This article originally misstated the name of Christopher Steele.

Donald Trump’s legal woes continue to grow, as three more lawsuits against him were greenlit on Friday to proceed.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., has approved three lawsuits related to Trump’s role in the January 6 attack. One of the suits, Moore v. Trump, was brought by Capitol Police Officer Marcus Moore. Moore, who has been on the force for more than 10 years, accused Trump of inflicting “physical and emotional injuries” on him via his actions surrounding the insurrection.

The appellate court order listed Moore’s case and the case numbers for two other lawsuits. “These appeals raise the same question that this court recently decided in Blassingame,” the three-judge panel wrote, referring to the ruling that Trump does not have presidential immunity from prosecution.

“As a result, the merits of the parties’ positions are so clear as to warrant summary action,” the judges said, meaning they can make a decision without releasing a legal opinion.

Trump has already lost two major cases via summary order. The first was E. Jean Carroll’s second lawsuit against him for defamation. The presiding judge determined that since Trump had already been found liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her while denying it, his other comments about her were by default defamatory.

The second was when a judge ruled that there was sufficient evidence to prove Trump had committed real estate–related fraud in New York. A trial was only necessary to set damages, not to prove whether the allegations against him were true.

The D.C. appeals court ruled in early February that Trump does not have “presidential immunity.”

“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution,” the judges said in the ruling.

That ruling, however, could soon be overturned. The Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump’s appeal on immunity. The justices will hear arguments on April 25.

The former host of The Apprentice just lost a boat load of “money, money, money, money.”

On Friday, Donald Trump posted a $91.6 million bond in the second defamation case brought against him by writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump is still working to appeal the ruling, which hit him with $83.3 million in damages in January for continuing to defame Carroll, claiming he hadn’t raped her and she had made up allegations for her book, despite a prior ruling in which a jury found Trump liable for having sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s.

But, of course, it isn’t Trump’s money on the line. Instead, it appears that Trump had to cash in one of his favors to cover the multi-million expense, which was guaranteed by Federal Insurance Company, a subsidiary of the Chubb Group—whose CEO, Evan Greenberg, Trump appointed to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations in 2018.

The “grab ‘em by the pussy” former president narrowly skirted his deadline for posting bond, which was set for Monday. In a written order released Thursday, Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Trump’s efforts to delay the posting date, deciding that the appeals process should not get in the way of Trump setting aside what he rightfully owes Carroll.

And appeal he did, with his legal team filing to do so moments after posting the bond.

Trump spent his time in and out of the courtroom attacking every character involved in the defamation trial, including Kaplan, whom he decried as “abusive” and Trump-hating, while claiming the entire case was a “hoax” akin to “election interference at a level never seen before.”

But for all his complaining, Trump can only thank himself for the magnitude of the fine, which came after the court considered what an appropriate penalty would be for a self-purported billionaire who has bragged about his wealth in every format, from deposition videos to TV appearances.

That same strategy earned him another shocking fine—nearly half a billion dollars—after he was found to have committed bank fraud in New York State. Trump has until March 25 to implement a stay on that order, by which he would need to cough up the money, assets, or an appeal bond to cover the $466 million disgorgement.*

But all this, of course, has not stopped Trump from continuing to flaunt his wealth, insisting to anyone that will listen that he’s not worried about the fines that cut so deep they threaten his real estate empire. “I have a lot of money,” Trump told Fox News on Tuesday. Let’s see how that works out for him.

This article has been updated, including a correction of the amount Trump owes for committing bank fraud.

Nobody seemed to enjoy Alabama Senator Katie Britt’s melodramatic response to the State of the Union address on Thursday, least of all Republicans, who had no qualms about mocking their colleague’s breathy, overenunciated speech.

Locked in a kitchen, Britt appeared on the verge of tears for more than 17 minutes as she complained about the curtailing of rights (but didn’t refer to the reversal of Roe v. Wade), used a sexual assault anecdote from a migrant sex-trafficked by a Mexican cartel (while arguing that we should restrict asylum into the United States), and accused Biden of making the country look bad while international threats loom, like Vladimir Putin’s escalations in Ukraine (while failing to mention former President Donald Trump’s cozy relationship with the Russian dictator).

Republicans flatly panned the performance, calling the address “creepy” and “scary.”

“Well, that Katie Britt experience was … experiential,” posted Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Convention, on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The prerecorded speech quickly became a gossip item overnight with operatives connected to Trump, according to Republicans who spoke to The Daily Beast.

“Everyone’s fucking losing it,” one GOP strategist told the outlet, likening the moment to Marco Rubio’s water-break faux pas. “It’s one of our biggest disasters ever.”

One Trump adviser was so frustrated by Britt that they reached out to Rolling Stone, facetiously asking “What the hell am I watching right now?”

That’s a stark reversal and a major loss for the freshman lawmaker, who had been set on the rising-star fast track and was even being floated as a potential vice president pick for Trump, whose draft for the “most insignificant office” seems to be growing longer by the day.

Even those that liked her couldn’t bear to endure the performance.

“Katie Britt is exactly the right pick for the response, but this is hard to watch. She’s acting instead of just speaking,” conservative podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey wrote on X.

“Senator Katie Britt is a very impressive person. She ran a hell of race in [Alabama],” Alyssa Farah Griffin, The View co-host and Trump’s 2020 White House communications adviser, posted on X. “I do not understand the decision to put her in a KITCHEN for one of the most important speeches she’s ever given.”

Media commentators, meanwhile, had a field day coming up with snark worthy of throwing at Britt’s response, taking particular aim at her shoddy acting chops.

“The acting chops on display here are somewhere between porn and high school play,” wrote Puck News’s Julia Ioffe.

“There is no way that this Katie Britt address does not end up as part of the SNL cold open,” posted The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, looking ahead to Saturday Night Live.

“Gee, #KatieBritt looks like she’s doing all right. Nice kitchen! Shame she’s such a bad actress. Big smile, the cross (always), all the accouterments, even a fake catch in her voice. But she’s fake fake fake as Kari Lake,” posted actress Bette Midler, later adding her surprise upon discovering that Britt is, in fact, a senator.

“She’s been in Community Theater too long. Delivery? D-, Kitchen B, Text -2, Policies F,” Midler wrote.