As it happens, that’s not the only “gross” connection between Team Trump and Big Oil. The Washington Post also reported on a recent Mar-a-Lago gathering at which the former president sat with some of the country’s top oil executives, who complained about “burdensome” environmental safeguards.

Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

According to the Post’s reporting, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, the presumptive GOP nominee told the oil executives that if they raised $1 billion to put him back in power, it’d a good “deal” for the industry because they’d end up making more than that in profits thanks to Trump’s policies on taxes and regulations......

President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign responded to the reporting with a statement that read in part, “This is Trump’s corrupt MAGA agenda in a nutshell: Trump acting as a puppet for his largest donors — giving them tax breaks and favorable policies while working families get screwed over.”

I’m mindful of the fact that the definition of the word “populist” can sometimes be amorphous, but the next time someone uses it to describe Trump, remind them of this story. An oil billionaire organized a gathering at the former president’s glorified country club, where Trump made a brazenly transactional pitch to oil executives, whom he expects to help put him in the Oval Office, at which point he’ll fulfill their anti-environmental dreams.

A “man of the people” he is not, unless the “people” in question are wealthy Big Oil elites.

GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called up a resolution to remove Republican Speaker Mike Johnson on the House floor Wednesday evening, a move that starts the clock to force a vote over ousting the Louisiana Republican from his leadership post. It's a major challenge to the speaker even though he is expected to prevail with help from Democrats.

Now that Greene has put the process in motion, the House will have to consider the issue within two legislative days. House GOP leaders are expected to quickly take up and move to kill Greene’s motion, which could happen as soon as today.

A floor vote to oust Johnson would require a majority to succeed, but a motion to table — or kill — the resolution is expected to be offered and voted on first.

In the wake of Johnson’s push to pass a major foreign aid package over the objections of hardline conservatives, House Democratic leadership announced that Democrats would help Johnson keep his job by voting to table if the issue arose.

A failed vote will give Johnson an opportunity to argue that it is time to move on from the issue. But support from Democrats will open Johnson up to even more criticism from his right flank.

There are still plenty of other GOP partisans who’ve made clear that they don’t want Trump in power — former Rep. Liz Cheney, former Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Mitt Romney, former Vice President Mike Pence, et al. — but they haven’t yet announced what they intend to do in the fall.

And then there’s the most interesting group of them all: Republicans who’ve taken the extra step of announcing their support for the Democratic incumbent. As my MSNBC colleague Ja’han Jones noted this week:

Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a frequent critic of Donald Trump’s lies about how election fraud cost him the 2020 election, endorsed President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. In an op-ed Monday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Duncan’s remarks read like a clarion call, urging sane conservatives not to align themselves with a self-centered wannabe authoritarian.

“Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass,” Duncan wrote......

I kept a close eye on this dynamic four years ago, and found quite a few GOP partisans — former Republican National Committee chairs, former Republican cabinet secretaries, former Republican governors and former Republican members of Congress — who publicly expressed support for the Biden-led Democratic ticket.

Will we see something comparable between now and Election Day 2024? Watch this space.

Soon after, the suspected felon said he would not be deterred by the prospect of jail time. In fact, as my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim explained, Trump suggested he was prepared to “sacrifice” himself on the alter of the First Amendment.

“This judge has given me a gag order and said you’re going to jail if you violate it. And frankly, you know what? Our Constitution is much more important than jail,” he told reporters outside the courtroom later that day. “It’s not even close. I’ll do that sacrifice any day.”

He did not appear to be kidding.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1787579798111322151

To be sure, the posturing wasn’t altogether new. It was just last month, for example, when Trump used his social media platform to declare that it would be a “great honor” to be jailed for violating a gag order. As part of the same boast, the former president compared himself — in apparent seriousness — to Nelson Mandela.

There are, however, two important things to keep in mind.

First, court-imposed gag orders are not unconstitutional. Trump is an accused criminal out on bond. As Judge Tanya Chutkan recently explained to one of the former president’s lawyers, the defendant is currently “under the supervision of the criminal justice system, and he must comply with the conditions of release. He does not have the right to say and do exactly as he pleases.”

Trump would have the public believe that his free speech rights have been curtailed, which has inspired him to champion the Constitution. That’s ridiculous.

Second, I can’t help but notice that the presumptive GOP nominee hasn’t exactly been eager to back up his chest-thumping with any actual, concrete steps.....

So, on the one hand, the public sees the former president presenting himself as a martyr, boasting about his eagerness to make a great “sacrifice,” and assuring Americans that it’d be a “great honor” to end up behind bars.

And on the other hand, the public also sees Trump sheepishly backing down, apparently terrified by the prospect of jail time.