Trump trial today: Ex-president braces for fraud trial verdict as allies pledge ‘holy war’ against Taylor Swift

Trump’s New York civil fraud lawsuit (in which a verdict is expected imminently) has potentially blown up his decades-long narrative of business success (if you don’t count his companies filing for bankruptcy six times, that is) but the former president has managed to makee his legal challenges central to his campaign for re-election.

Here’s more from Alex Woodward.

Alex Woodward has been following the case:

Following the jury’s decision in the E Jean Carroll case, things could be about to get a whole lot worse for Donald Trump as another potentially devastating lawsuit draws to a close in New York this week, this one posing a significant threat to his vast real estate empire and meaning he could be prevented from ever doing business in his hometown again.

Joe Sommerlad looks at just how much the former president might be paying out:

What did we learn about Mr Trump’s real estate holdings during the trial? There were a lot of numbers as the attorney general’s counsel laid out its case, and a lot of hyperbole from the Trump family as the defence laid out its argument — including Donald Trump Jr taking the court through a timeline of the real estate business, praising his father for the “boundaries he pushed” and calling him an “artist with real estate” who has “incredible vision where other people don’t”.

Here’s a look at the key Trump properties that were discussed the most over the 11 weeks in court:

Alina Habba, the attorney for Donald Trump who recently defended him in the E Jean Carroll defamation trial, walked back her claim that Ms Carroll’s attorney had a “mentor type relationship” with the judge who oversaw the trial after being threatened with sanctions.

“I am in the process, along with my team, of interviewing various law firms to represent me in an Appeal of one of the most ridiculous and unfair Witch Hunts our Country has ever seen – The defamation Sham presided over by a Clinton appointed, highly partisan, Trump Hating Judge, Lewis Kaplan, who was, together with certain other Radical Left Democrat Judges, one of the most partisan and out of control activists that I have ever appeared before,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social late on Tuesday night.

President Joe Biden faces his own issues heading into a 2024 general election rematch with Donald Trump, but the former president’s criminal trials may very well spell his second political downfall, according to a new survey.

A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday gave the clearest picture yet of the dangers Mr Trump faces in the general election: More than half, 53 per cent, of all registered voters in swing states across the US would decline to support him were he to be convicted of one or more of the 91 felony counts he now faces in four jurisdictions. That figure climbs even higher when voters were asked about the possibility of Mr Trump being sent to prison.

His problems are multiplied by the fact that this deficit of support would, according to the survey, extend to his own base of Republican voters should a conviction occur. Twenty-three per cent of all Republican voters in swing states said that they would decline to support Mr Trump if he were convicted.

John Bowden takes a look at the polling:

Martha McHardy has the story…

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley sat down with the hosts of the Breakfast Club and offered some of her sharpest criticism yet of former President Donald Trump in a wide-ranging interview.

During a conversation that also touched on America’s past and present issues with racism, Ms Haley spoke primarily with fellow South Carolinian Charlamagne Tha God as she said that Donald Trump was wrong for the country’s future.

She also explained why it has taken her so long to make that argument.

Republican Rep Matt Gaetz is rounding up support for a measure that says Donald Trump did not “engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or give aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” Politico reports.

The resolution is an attempt at dissuading efforts to disqualify the former president from the presidential ballot over the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot — he already faces several challenges to his ballot eligibility based on part of the 14th Amendment that bars anyone who engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding elected office if they’ve previously taken an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States.” The measure was introduced after the Civil War.