One setback after another for Donald Trump – but does it really matter?

Let’s not count out a Trump re-election victory just yet – stranger things have happened in America, writes Phil Thomas

Despite the walls closing in, a new poll still puts the Donald ahead of his closest rival (AP)

The bad news keeps coming for Donald Trump. In the wake of some of his high-profile endorsements getting the thumbs-down from the electorate came his low-energy 2024 launch speech. Videos showed some of his own guests trying to escape as he meandered endlessly on, whining and squinnying for all he was worth. Even Fox News cut away for a while, perhaps to give their viewers a much-needed break. Absent from the speech were any high-profile supporters – including his own daughter and former aide, Ivanka.

Across the battlefield map of his legal perils, there are setbacks on one front after another. The DoJ has appointed a special counsel – a war crimes expert and seasoned corruption fighter – to oversee the investigations into Trump’s role in the January 6 riot as well as his still-unexplained hoarding of secret documents at Mar-a-Lago. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has ruled against Trump’s years-long bid to prevent Congress getting its hands on his tax records (which he kept promising to publish himself once a mysterious “audit” was over).

E Jean Carroll is expected to accuse Trump of raping her in a department store in New York in the 1990s using the new Adult Survivors Act, which allows lawsuits that would otherwise have been barred by the statute of limitations (she had previously accused him of defamation over his denial of the alleged crime). On Tuesday, a judge told the former president to lawyer up in anticipation of the move.