Former President Donald Trump returns to the campaign trail on Tuesday, hitting the crucial Midwest battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin – a departure from a schedule that’s otherwise been overwhelmed by his legal challenges, which continue to grow more complicated by the day.
Overnight on Monday, Trump posted a $175 million bond to prevent the seizure of his assets while he appeals a judgment in the civil fraud case, in which a New York judge ordered him to pay $464 million after he was found guilty of inflating his net worth on financial forms in order to secure favorable loans and insurance rates he wasn’t entitled to.
Mere hours before he posted bond, a different New York judge overseeing Trump’s forthcoming criminal trial related to hush money payments to a porn star expanded the gag order on the former president. The move comes on the heels of complaints by Trump of unfairness and bias with regard to the case, the prosecutors, the legal system and even the judge’s daughter – who works for a digital media firm that represents several notable progressives. However, Trump has lodged these accusations through a series of brutal and successive social media attacks.
“It is no longer just a mere possibility or a reasonable likelihood that there exists a threat to the integrity of the judicial proceedings. The threat is very real. Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint,” Judge Juan Merchan wrote in the decision.
Trump hit back on Tuesday morning, appearing to flout the gag order in a post on his social media platform Truth Social that blasted Merchan.
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“I just was informed that another corrupt New York Judge, Juan Merchan, GAGGED me so that I can not talk about the corruption and conflicts taking place in his courtroom,” Trump wrote. “This Judge should be recused, and the case should be thrown out. There has virtually never been a more conflicted judge than this one. ELECTION INTERFERENCE at its worst!”
Meanwhile, Hope Hicks, who served as Trump’s press secretary and communications director in the 2016 campaign and was once considered one his closest confidantes, is the newest witness in a long line of former Trump aides that prosecutors plan to have testify during the trial, which is slated to start April 15.
As Trump said himself in a rant on Truth Social on Tuesday morning, his legal sagas will provide fodder for Tuesday’s rallies: “WILL BE IN THE GREAT STATES OF MICHIGAN AND WISCONSIN TODAY. PLENTY TO TALK ABOUT. MAGA2024!”
In Grand Rapids, the former president and presumed Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential contest is expected to go hard on the U.S.-Mexico border and what he views as a corrupt and politicized legal system before jetting to Green Bay, where he’ll mark the first visit to Wisconsin since he announced his bid for president.
The visits – his only two campaign stops in the last two weeks – underscore the must-win nature of the states. Along with Pennsylvania, Trump won Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 but then lost those states to Biden by narrow margins in 2020.
Trump’s 2016 victories, where he had much success in garnering support from blue-collar voters, exposed a vulnerability for Democrats in what had long been considered a blue wall of states on which they could rely. But in the time since, Republicans have failed to replicate that success – in fact, in Michigan and Wisconsin, Republicans ceded their governor’s mansions to Democrats.
While Trump’s ongoing legal challenges and continued comments about a rigged election haven’t played well in state elections and likely aren’t winning him any new support from voters, polls show a tight race, with Trump edging out Biden in both states.
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