A source inside the RNC tells ABC News the party will cease paying disgraced former President Trump’s personal legal bills if and when he declares himself a candidate, a warning made public in an apparent attempt to dissuade the fat bastard from announcing the run before the Midterms, even though they have to cut him off anyway in a facade of “neutrality” whenever he does. The party earlier this year capped the total spending on the criminal degenerate at $1.6 million, though this apparently has already been exceeded as the RNC reported paying out $1.73 million from October 2021 through June 2021 on three law firms representing the Donald in the various criminal investigations he faces. This includes the one in New York State that has literally nothing whatsoever to do with his time as the Republican president or candidate.

Now, if this headline looks familiar that’s because two weeks ago I reported “Ronna Not-Romney McDaniel warns Trump the RNC will stop paying his legal bills if he announces 2024 run before midterms” which some readers took issue with because the Washington Post report it was sourced from did not actually characterize that as such, writing verbatim, that “McDaniel has told others that the party will stop paying his legal bills if he becomes the nominee.” What these readers did, mostly in good faith – except for that one fucking assclown with the yellow cartoon snake avatar – was question why I wrote it as such. My explanation was that it didn’t actually make sense for the threat to be contingent on the nomination and I had inferred that the Post had screwed it up.

Well turns out I was right, if ABC’s reporting is to be credited here, as it explicitly says the cutoff is contingent upon an announcement, not Trump winning the nomination. This hollow feeling of vindication comes amid more accusations – again in good faith – of shoddy secondary reporting on my part, that I play a little too fast and loose with filling in the gaps on certain matters of phrasing from the upstream sources and that inferences and speculation are not clearly delineated from actual reporting on my part. As I’ve said, we’re not straight news, we’re a blend of reporting, analysis, editorializing, and stupid jokes. Sometimes the lines get blurred even within the space of a single sentence. This is an experiment-heavy non-format that we’re making up as we go along.

Sometimes that means coming to what I believe is the “No shit” conclusion that the professional reporters upstream can only hint at between the lines. However, explaining myself as such is only going to do so much to patch up the breach of trust that some readers may be feeling here, and instead I should make a pledge. Here goes: From here on out I will absolutely make a better effort to highlight the speculative/”no shit” conclusions/whatever else that is not in some way or another attributable to real professionally fact-checked and edited reporting. Spartan’s honor.

Hayden Christensen is a legitimately good actor outside of Star Wars Episodes II and III. This is 100% true, I swear. I didn’t make that up. He starred in the third best journalism movie after All The President’s Men and Spotlight. Look for yourselves! He’s playing New Republic journalist Stephen Glass who was caught making shit up right here! It’s right in front of you!