That's the real deal.

A presidential candidate Moonlighting as a shoe salesman. Donald Trump introducing a new sneaker line at a shoe conference in Philly over the weekend. Those gold shoes, at $400 a pop, arrive as Trump is facing a serious threat to his cash stockpile. Just 24 hours earlier, a judge had ordered him to pay more than $350 million as punishment for his company's fraud. Now, this is hardly the first surreal product that the former President has promoted with a T inscribed on it. There was Trump ice and ice trays, vodka, coffee, steaks, a cutting board, cookies, jelly beans, red solo cup, a flask in the shape of a football, a honey dipper, urine test kits, a magazine, a board game, a speaker in the shape of Trump's body, gold-colored Air Buds, cologne, his and her luxury robes, scented candles, mattresses, pickleball paddles, a USB drive in the shape of a gold bar, mortgages, diplomas for which he was accused of fraud, NFTs, and never surrender merchandise, of course, featuring his mugshot, which the very existence of signals surrender. For more, I want to bring in Rolling Stone columnist Jay Michelson, along with Republican strategist and political commentator, Joe Pinian.

Jay, that is quite the list. I mean, is this about making money? Is this about trying to reach the demographic that attends these sneaker conventions?

What's going on here? Well, I'm happy to hear that the sneaker head response is pretty negative, a knockoff of another shoe, basically. But he does only need to sell call one million of those pairs of shoes in order to pay his legal bills.So this is your growth market.Easy peasy. Yeah, no problem.

I mean, Joe, I actually want to play some of what Trump received when he was at this convention. It was a mixed reaction. It was a little bit of booze here, a little bit of cheers from his superfans. Do you get the sense that there's any strategy at all here? Or is it just Trump liking to see his name on things?

Look, I genuinely think that it has very little to do with the trials and very much somebody in Trump world trying to appeal to a different demographic. We see that Joe Biden is eroding support with young people. We see that he is starting to lose support with certain minority groups. I think whether you think it will work or not, I think that there was a plan put in place to say, Hey, this will be unique. It'll be kitschy. Some people will hate it, some people will love it, but everybody will talk about it. We're sitting here now talking about it. Look, I think on that standpoint, it worked. As it relates to the court cases, I think the unfortunate reality of 2024 is that all of these court cases are going to come cascading into the course of everyday business along the presidential trail for President Trump, and that's going to impact this entire actual year.

Yeah, I think we can all agree on that. Do you think it worked?

Well, I think, as Joe said, I think it's bad timing by mistake. I remember in some of the Trump times we were talking before, there's a... Usually, he times one of these moves to deflect attention from something else. This backfired. It just called attention to the fact that he was just found liable for 350 million, but sneaker con is when it is. But there's not going to be a good week in 2024. Like Joe just said, there's not going to be a week where not some legal travail that's in the news. So I don't think it worked as a distraction, but I don't hold it against them. I mean, at least unlike some of these nutritional supplements that folks on the far right sell, this one isn't going to kill you.

Well, there's that. And the ties.

Don't forget the Trump ties. Those Trump ties at Macy's. They were a big hit.

How can we forget the people love the Trump ties at Macy's.

I would love the Trump ties at Macy's.

I don't know if he's going to comment.

That's why he's an expert on them.

Look, everyone had the Trump ties at Macy's. Anyone who tells they didn't is lying to you. It's just a fact.

Gentlemen, meanwhile, over late night television, Trump has really become a major... I mean, look, he's been a focus for a long time, but he's become a major focus in the last couple of weeks. Just take a listen to what's been said over the last couple of days.

This is messed up.

Look, I know I know how numb we've become, but it's not normal. No other candidate for the presidency has ever had to pause his campaign to defend himself in multiple courts. The media is covering it like it's any other political story. It's all horse race. But in this horse race, one of the horses is old. While one of the horses is old, has hoof and mouth disease, and keeps quoting horse Hitler.

Justice Thomas, we have a special offer for you tonight. We are prepared to offer you $1 million a year for the rest of your life if you simply agree to leave the Supreme Court immediately and never come back. It is that simple. Just sign this contract, resign, and the money is all yours. You have exactly 30 days from midnight to night to make your resignation effective.

Joe, what do you make of that? I mean, on some level, they're expressing the sense of urgency, but how does that play?

Look, I think the cake is fully baked for most Americans as it relates to whether they hate or love Donald Trump and whether they will support or not support Joe Biden. You're talking about a tiny sliver of persuadable Americans that I think are going to be more concerned about the ebb and flow of the world on a foreign policy level and domestically than they will be with some of this other stuff. So yes, I think perhaps it's funny to listen to John Oliver offer a Supreme Court justice a million dollars to step down. It seems like that's a bit concerning to me for people who are trying to get back to normalcy and civility in the public square, but look, to each their own.

I would just do a mix of those two clips. It's not normal to have a Supreme Court Justice who has had so many, accepted so many lavish gifts over such a long period. I would agree with Joe that that segment maybe is the indecent proposal. I don't know if that makes him Robert Redford and Justice Thomas is to me more. I don't know if I want to go there exactly, but that does show a certain disrespect for the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has earned that disrespect by failing completely to put into place mandatory ethics rules, all kinds of disclosures that other branches already have. So they're reaping what they sow. Justice Thomas should not be hearing these cases that have anything to do with January sixth because his wife was involved in the insurrection itself, and he has brought disrepute onto this court. And so those jokes are at the Supreme Court's expense, but he deserves it.

One last thing before we go, Joe. Nikki Haley is going to give a speech tomorrow, ahead of the South Carolina primary. We're just a few days away from that. Look, what we're hearing is that she's going to just make the case for her candidacy, but this could be a very consequential week in which in her home state, it looks like she's likely to lose again to Donald Trump. Where does she go from here?

All you can do is take the former ambassador at her word. She says that she wants to help bring people to the party. She says that she believes she can beat Donald Trump, and she thinks that she is hurting Trump by staying in. I would agree that she is probably hurting President Trump, not politically speaking, but I think on the financial front. Every time we're spending more dollars on a primary going nowhere, that's money that doesn't go to people running for Congress, people running for US Senate. At a time, Republicans are definitely taking-It's money that doesn't go to his legal fees, apparently. Well, look, I think President Trump certainly has a hefty legal bill, but there are broader concerns here when it comes to who is going to control the House, who's going to control the Senate. If we don't have donors who are pouring money into Nikki Haley's campaign for President that's yielding no delegates, willing to put up the same amount of dollars for those people running up and down the ballot, it's going to be a real problem for us.

That's certainly true if you think some of those donors are also on the more moderate side of the party. The Trump, the MAGA Faithful, they're already, like you said, baked in. But it is true that she's taking some of the energy away from some more moderate voices that might actually rescue the party from complete insanity.

It's unclear to me if that is still possible, if Trump ends up being the nominee. He's going to want the party to be what he wants it to be.

I think the reality is that every party has a standard bearer. Every standard bearer wants to remake the party in their own image. In the end, the issues that we're facing around the world are so pervasive. The issues that we're facing here at home are so incredibly overwhelming. I think there are a lot of people who, whatever their opinion on is, President Trump, are going to be looking for candidates in Congress, in the Senate, in those state legislatures that are going to prioritize their needs above everything else.

All right, Jay Michelson, Joe Pinion. Thank you both very much.