Trump’s Truth Social soars on Wall Street debut as he resorts to selling Bibles: Live

Officials in Arizona have subpoenaed Mike Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia racketeering case, as part of a criminal investigation focused into the alleged plot to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 win in their state.

Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, is overseeing the probe and is nearing a decision on whether to bring charges, according to CNN.

Mayes has principally centered her investigation on the 11 fake pro-Trump electors from Arizona and the organisers of the effort to instal them with a view to overturning the election result, although she has also reportedly been looking into individuals tied to Trump’s national campaign.

“It’s robust. It’s a serious matter,” she told CNN last year.

“We’re going to make sure that we do it on our timetable, applying the resources that it requires to make sure that justice is done, for not only Arizonans, but for the entire country.”

Just prior to the gag order being issued by Judge Merchan yesterday, Trump had taken to Truth Social to attack the justice himself and his daughter.

Here’s more on what Trump had to say – and why he said it.

In case you missed this one yesterday, Trump was hit with another gag order in his hush money criminal trial, which is due to begin jury selection on 15 April.

Judge Juan Merchan granted the request from Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, which prohibits the former president from talking about anyone involved in the case or their families.

Fox News host Sean Hannity hysterically insisted on his show last night that Trump was being prevented from defending himself against political attacks and that his right to free speech was being restricted so here’s a closer look at the order itself to lay that one to rest.

Over on Trump’s now-lucrative Twitter knockoff, he’s been having a crack at the independent presidential candidate and at the ex-chair of the Republican National Committee, who was once so loyal she even changed her name for him.

Trump effectively excommunicates her from MAGA there, banishing her to “a very strange place, it’s called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it’s not a place you want to be” before lashing out at “Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd” after he and his fellow “sick degenerates” had the “weakness & stupidity” to hire her in the first place.

Here’s Gustaf Kilander and Andrew Feinberg on RFK Jr’s shambolic unveiling of Nicole Shanahan as his running mate yesterday.

Fresh from the near-miraculous New York appeals court ruling that slashed the $464m bond he owed from the fraud judgement against his company down to just $175m, the ever-cynical Donald Trump is already slinging Bibles on Truth Social at low, low prices in order to make ends meet until he can realise his new tech riches is six months’ time.

The former president — who shamelessly compared himself to Jesus Christ earlier this week — has lent his shoddy brand to the “God Bless the USA” Bible, a special version of the Good Book inspired by Lee Greenwood‘s saccharine patriotic anthem of the same name, a favourite at Trump rallies.

Trump held up the brown leather tome — this time, right-side up — in an ad he shared on his Truth Social account on Tuesday.

His old enemy Liz Cheney was one of many to pour scorn of this latest grift, which at least this time has a classic ring to it and might perhaps put you in mind of Peter Bogdanovich’s charming film Paper Moon (1973).

Donald Trump’s Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company behind his Truth Social platform, made its Wall Street debut on Tuesday, its shares appearing on the Nasdaq exchange for the first time under the ticker “DJT” and priced at $78.

Their value fluctuated throughout the day before stabilising at around $70 and finishing on $57.99 as the closing bell sounded.

The day’s trading meant Trump has entered the ranks of the world’s 500 richest people, with his majority stake in the company now worth $5.5bn (£4.3bn), taking his estimated net worth to more than $8bn.

Gustaf Kilander and Alex Woodward have more.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, DC:

President Joe Biden is erasing his polling deficit with his likely Republican election opponent in a number of key states that will decide the outcome of this year’s presidential contest, according to a new survey by Bloomberg and Morning Consult.

The survey of 4,392 registered voters, which took place from 8 March to 15 March, found that Mr Biden either tightened his margin against Donald Trump or overtook the ex-president in six of seven states, with the largest polling shift coming in Wisconsin, where Badger State respondents gave the 46th president a one-point lead, 46 per cent to Mr Trump’s 45 per cent.

The president’s slim advantage over the man he defeated four years ago comes just one month after a similar survey showed Mr Trump leading Mr Biden by four per cent.

Read on for more details on the latest polling:

Watch out Joe “BUDEN”, someone wants to Make America “GREST” Again.

Here’s Donald Trump’s latest Truth Social rant:

I’m not running to terminate the ACA, AS CROOKED JOE BUDEN DISINFORMATES AND MISINFORMATES ALL THE TIME, I’m running to CLOSE THE BORDER, STOP INFLATION, MAKE OUR ECONOMY GREAT, STRENGTHEN OUR MILITARY, AND MAKE THE ACA, or OBAMACARE, AS IT IS KNOWN, MUCH BETTER, STRONGER, AND FAR LESS EXPENSIVE. IN OTHER WORDS, MAKE THE ACA MUCH, MUCH, MUCH BETTER FOR FAR LESS MONEY (OR COST) TO OUR GREST AMERICAN CITIZENS, WHO HAVE BEEN DECIMATED BY BIDEN, HIS RECORD INFLATION, BAD ECONOMY, AFGHANISTAN CATASTROPHE, AND JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE. CROOKED JOE BIDEN IS, BY FAR, THE WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES! MAGA2024

And here’s the Biden campaign’s response: “A feeble and confused Trump posts a typo-riddled all-caps rant misspelling ‘Biden,’ ‘disinforms,’ ‘misinforms,’ and other basic words.”

Days later, facing an imminent deadline to post an appeals bond of nearly half a billion dollars to block enforcement of civil fraud judgment against him, the former president suggested he had “a similar amount in my bank account” and he “intended to use much of that hard earned money on running for President.”

In the hush-money case gag order, Donald Trump is prohibited from:

“Making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding;

“Making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the District Attorney, (2) Members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or (3) the family members of any counsel or staff members, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staff’s work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is likely to result and;

“Making or directing others to make public statements about any perspective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding.”

It is worth noting that it was only on Tuesday morning that the former president attacked Judge Juan Merchan, and his daughter, in a Truth Social post: