A progressive daily ledger of Trump-world self-owns, legal pain, policy blowback, and bad-faith chaos.
July 2, 2024 edition: the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling kept paying dividends for Trump, but it also sharpened the sense that his criminal cases are now being dragged out by a system he spent years trying to break.
Trumpworld’s biggest July 2 story was not a fresh scandal so much as the ugly aftershock of Monday’s Supreme Court immunity ruling: Judge Juan Merchan delayed Trump’s hush-money sentencing until at least September, giving Trump another political reprieve after his felony conviction. The ruling also intensified criticism that the former president is effectively turning legal process into campaign fuel. It was a good day for Trump in court, but a bad day for the basic idea that a convicted ex-president should have his sentencing calendar reshaped by the high court’s new power doctrine.
The theme of the day was delay. Trump did not create the legal mess on July 2, but he was the beneficiary of it, and that is its own kind of screwup for everyone else in the system: more justice deferred, more election-year cynicism, more proof that Trump’s most reliable strategy is to keep surviving long enough for the calendar to do the dirty work.
5 stars means maximum fallout. 1 star means a smaller self-own.
A New York judge adjourned Donald Trump’s hush-money sentencing from July 11 to Sept. 18, 2024, if sentencing is still necessary, after the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling triggered new briefing. Prosecutors did not oppose the adjournment and asked for time to respond.