Donald Trump just gave away why he’s going to lose it all

Over the weekend Donald Trump declared on social media that his New York civil fraud trial couldn’t take place because the court of appeals had ruled against it. Then, after the trial began as expected on Monday, Trump declared that he was going to win because 80% of the charges against him have been thrown out by the court of appeals.

To be clear, none of what Trump is saying is true. The court of appeals actually ruled last week that the trial should take place as planned. And while there is some back and forth as to whether some fraction of Trump’s fraudulent transactions might be outside the statute of limitations, it won’t matter. Trump has already been found liable in this trial, and that – along with the financial penalties that are forthcoming – would still remain intact even if only some of the transactions are counted.

So Trump is speaking nonsense. But there’s a clear pattern here. Trump is an increasingly senile and pliable man who’s clearly at an impressionable stage where just believes whatever he’s told to believe by the people around him on any given day (many of us have known people who have reached this stage). And the people around Trump just keep feeding him one fish story after another about why he’s going to somehow magically win this trial.

First Trump’s people convinced him that there wasn’t going to be a trial. Then once the trial started they convinced him that the trial verdict won’t count. Once Trump’s assets start being seized, Trump’s people will still convince him that it’s something other than what it is. We’ve already seen Trump making recent social media posts about how he’s supposedly getting fantastic buyout offers for his properties. It’s clear that Trump’s handlers have already planted the seed for convincing Trump that the forced liquidation of his properties will instead be some genius business move.

Donald Trump is a senile lost cause who’s pretty clearly being played by his own people. Instead of breaking it to him that this is going horribly for him and that his life is being dismantled, they’re pacifying him by letting him think it’s all going fine. In fairness to Trump’s attorneys and babysitters, there’s nothing they can do to save him anyway, so perhaps pacifying him is the wisest play. After all, Trump is senile enough to believe whatever new ridiculous story they feed him each day about why his worsening losses are instead wins.