(Transactional) Love Is In the Air!

Wow. Just as the times were feeling pretty dark, it turns out love still (sort of) makes the world go round. With his usual grace, the former "president" sent his beloved wife a Valentine thanking her for not leaving him "even after every single INDICTMENT, ARREST, and WITCH HUNT," so can we please send $47 or $3,300? AKA, "Cheap-ass grifter piece of shit begging for money." Also, Nikki Haley sent valentines for him to the dictators he loves. We feel better already.

Perhaps because some MAGA supporters aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, the Bad Orange Guy's romantic if felony-themed missive explains at the top in big yellow all-caps, "THIS IS A VALENTINE'S DAY LETTER." Released by his Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, it begins subtly, sexily with, "Dear Melania, I love you!" Then, it gets even more mushy. “Even after every single (YELLOW HIGHLIGHTED) INDICTMENT, ARREST, and WITCH HUNT, you never left my side," he or one of his flunkies gushes. "I wouldn’t be the man I am today without your guidance, kindness, and warmth." He ends with, "You will always mean the world to me, Melania!", despite the times he had mushroom sex with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, raped E. Jean Carroll, and sexually assaulted at least 20 other women - those who came forward - even though he "never met these people." Having signed it, “From your husband with love, Donald J. Trump," he gets to the grifty point.

If his eloquence and devotion "inspired you to want to SEND YOUR LOVE to Melania," he or someone writes, click on one of those crass, red, screaming invites to "leave some kind words for the First Lady this Valentine’s Day!" The links go - duh - to a donation page asking if you'd like to support his latest stab at fascism with $20.24, $47, $3,300 or “other"; choose $47 "if you think Donald J. Trump is (sic) the greatest president of all time!", even though he's a sick 12-year-old. Thanks to his largesse, any amount gets you pop-up hearts. After signing it "Donald J. Trump. 45th President of the United States" because who could forget, he adds a mobster touch to any cheapskates: "WAIT, BEFORE YOU GO! No matter how many vicious lies and attacks they throw our way, President Trump will NEVER SURRENDER our great country to the Left’s tyranny!" He's "counting on YOUR support to finish what we started" - dismantling the rights and machinery of democratic governance to "SAVE AMERICA" - so fork it up.

In tribute to and perfect synchronicity with his goals, rival Nikki Haley also stepped up to celebrate the day by releasing "Love Letters from Trump," a faux campaign nod to the murderous likes of Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong-Un and China's Xi Jinping. "Over the years," she notes, Trump has professed his love for the world’s most brutal dictators and praised their strength and leadership skills." Aptly for targeting a malignant narcissist, first is a love letter to himself: “Roses are red. Violets are blue. I love dictators & they love me too." The others all quote from his own blundering words. On Kim Jong-Un's "beautiful letters" in 2018: "We fell in love." On Xi Jinping: He's "strong like granite” and rules "with an iron hand." On congratulating Putin on his "win": "Getting along with Russia is a good thing." Ending with a bang, And he praises the Taliban in 2021 as "good fighters - you have to give them credit for that." He helpfully adds, of a group founded in 1994, "They’ve been fighting for a thousand years."

Seemingly undismayed, the Trump campaign brushed off the maneuver from Haley - who served as Trump’s US ambassador to the UN and often cites her foreign policy expertise - in their customarily professional, insightful, grown-up fashion. "Nikki ‘Birdbrain’ Haley," they said, "has a minor league brain in a major league world." (Takes one to know one). Meanwhile, the "most unfit guy to run for president in all of American history" is busy tilting at improbable legal windmills in his fight against myriad criminal charges. Monday, in an emergency plea to SCOTUS to block a lower-court ruling allowing his election subversion case to proceed, he repeated his already oft-rejected argument he's immune from prosecution because otherwise "the Presidency as we know it will cease to exist" - a "very bizarre" claim one legal expert likened to "déjà vu all over again," maybe this time from Yogi Bear, not Berra. Wednesday, Jack Smith forcefully refuted the notion of a magical new "novel form of absolute immunity."

Whether or not that case moves forward, it seems unlikely Melania, who's "never left my side," will show up in court any time soon. Since 2020, she's been noticeably missing on the campaign trail and at multiple trials; it's unclear when in fact he last saw her or if, unlike that time with Marla/E. Jean, he'd recognize her if he did. A New York Times report adds an intriguing backstory to her sabbatical: New financial filings show the Trump PAC Make America Great Again, Again (LOL) was paying her to shill for him - in one case, $155,000 for what was dubbed a “speaking engagement" at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser. The fee was paid to one Designer’s Management Agency; curiously, Melania is listed as a client. Endless skullduggery, thy name is. Still, it looks like the happy couple will soon be reunited: Trump told Fox News his wife "wants to make America great again, (again) too," and will soon "play a big role” in his campaign. "I think she’s going to be very active in the sense of being active," he said, and what's not to believe?