Taking after 2023, 2024 had so far maintained its determination to maintain the streak of being downright awful… that is until Donald Trump joined the bandwagon with a very much possible future of going bankrupt.
Now, hearing about someone going flat broke is normally not good news. But when it’s happening to a certain individual who is paying for the disgusting actions he committed in the past, for which he was never held accountable? Can someone break out the champagne, please?
So, why is the 45th President of the United States toeing the line of bankruptcy?
While the first ex-U.S President to be indicted was busy nursing the insult of being blocked from Maine and Colorado’s 2024 ballots (with other states striving for a similar result), he has been hit with a defamation lawsuit by E. Jean Caroll, the former Elle columnist who won $5 million in damages in 2023 when the jury found Trump guilty of sexually abusing her and held him liable for his defamatory statement against her in 2019.
Evidently, his troubles are far from over as the new defamation trial, which started earlier this month, might leave him scrambling to pay $10 million more to Caroll in compensatory damages. What’s funny is that he can avert that catastrophe, but knowing Trump, it already seems like a lost battle (though stranger things have happened).
Under the defamation trial, the lawyers are seeking compensation, in “tens of millions of dollars” (per Newsweek), from Trump for loudly and consistently using terms like “whack job” against Caroll and tactlessly claiming that she is not his “type,” among other similarly insensitive and simply crass statements he uttered before and after the verdict in the case last year.
Former Department of Justice litigator Gene Rossi has pointed out that what might further encourage the jury to go ahead with awarding Caroll the compensation is “the conduct of Mr. Trump” and “the arguable antics of his lawyers.” It is hard to imagine either having the ability to rein in their proclivity for being annoying, but given how Trump managed to behave at the second hearing of the trial, maybe he will score some grace points for good behavior.
While his losing the trial and getting slapped with the obligation to pay the massive compensation might not trigger his bankrupt status, combined with potential losses in the other accusations against him, especially the New York civil fraud trial, might put that dark future for the former POTUS into motion.
So, if that does come to pass, will Trump file bankruptcy during an election year, when he has put all his eggs in the basket of hope that he will be the president of the U.S. again? No idea, but Trump tasting bankruptcy with a side of “syphilis” is giving 2024 the kick it has been missing since it began.
