Dem
51
GOP
49
Neither Donald Trump nor his (alleged) accomplice, Walt Nauta, was 5 years old when they (allegedly) pilfered classified documents. But beyond that discrepancy, the song by Jane's Addiction that we're using for the headline could practically be renamed "The Ballad of Donald Trump":
I've been caught stealing
Once when I was 5
I enjoy stealing
It's just as simple as that
Well, it's just a simple fact
When I want something,
I don't want to pay for it
I walk right through the door
Walk right through the door
Hey all right!
If I get by, it's mine
Mine all mine!
True, Perry Farrell penned that tune in 1990, well before The Donald entered politics. However, Trump was already a well-known shady dealer by then, as evidenced by the Trump roman à clef Biff Tannen in the 1989 film Back to the Future, Part II. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) would probably agree with us that the song might have been inspired by Trump, albeit for different reasons (the video shows a lot of men crossdressing as women).
More on DeSantis, and his current anti-LGBTQ jag, below. For now, we will note that Nauta has found himself an attorney, and yesterday he officially entered a plea of not guilty. That is not especially instructive at this point; if Nauta plans to fight the charges, or if he's ultimately going to cop a plea and turn on Trump, he'd plead as he did. You don't switch your plea to guilty until a deal with the feds is signed, sealed and delivered.
As to Trump, he is apparently raking it in on the fundraising front. Q2 ended last week, and so it's time for the various campaigns and PACs to file their quarterly reports. According to a press release from Team Trump, the former president brought in $35 million in the last 3 months, which is nearly double the $18.8 million he collected in Q1. The obvious explanation for this is that Trump's supporters are responding to his two indictments, and his begging for money to cover his legal fees.
DeSantis, who is Trump's (supposed) main rival for the Republican nomination, also had a brisk quarter, collecting $20 million in donations. In an effort to spin this into a major accomplishment, the Governor's campaign sent out a press release declaring that to be the "largest first-quarter filing from any non-incumbent Republican candidate in more than a decade." We assume it's also the largest first-quarter filing from any Southern governor running for president in a non-leap year while the moon is in Pisces and the entire AL East has a win percentage above .500.
Take these numbers with a few grains of salt for now, since the quarterly reports haven't yet been published to the FEC's website. Recall that a candidate can spend money in order to raise money, and that they often do so in very inefficient ways. Trump's campaign, for its part, might have decided the time was ripe to increase the marketing budget, either because the indictments created an opportunity or because they wanted to create the impression that the base remains behind the former president. DeSantis almost certainly pumped big bucks into his fundraising operation so that he could have a big figure to report. If the candidates spent tens of millions in order to "raise" $35 million/$20 million, that's rather less impressive than if they spent a couple of million. We'll check back once the reports are in, assuming that the campaigns' investments in raising cash can be discerned (sometimes they can, sometimes not). (Z)