Trump didn’t find the votes. He found more trouble instead.

Who needs TV legal dramas when you can watch real life? [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions, which will be greatly improved once you complete [this survey](. Today’s Agenda - Trump’s [legal woes](. - Drinking [deaths rose](. - Alexa’s hitting [new lows](. - Liquidity’s drain [grows](. Trump’s Suits I happen to be one of the [quintillion]( people [binge-watching Suits]( right now. I know, I know: Why am I spending countless hours of my life on a crusty legal drama that aired on cable in 2011? But trust me when I say that it’s so, so good. And oddly therapeutic! It takes you back to the old days of TV in a nostalgic, I-used-to-watch-White-Collar-with-my-mom sort of way. Anyhoo, last night I couldn’t help but gawk at [this little exchange]( between paralegal Rachel — played by Meghan Markle — and Donna, the secretary for hotshot lawyer Harvey Specter: As I was watching this episode, I received an iPhone alert that Donald Trump and a few of his top administration officials (some of them [lawyers](!) were indicted in Georgia over efforts to manufacture votes there in the 2020 election. Is it fate? Is it [karma](? I don’t know, but the fact that the former president’s hotshot lawyers — [Rudy Giuliani](, [Kenneth Chesebro]( and [Sidney Powell](, among others — couldn’t stop this particular chapter of the so-called Witch Hunt from weaseling its way into the history books does feel rather cosmic. Trump, in a [measly attempt]( to push back on the charges, is preparing for [a news conference]( where he will unveil what he calls a “Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT.” You would think a document like that would serve a valuable purpose in a courthouse, not a golf club, but alas. “Like any 77-year-old wandering alone and howling at the sky and storms like King Lear, Trump can say whatever he wants,” Timothy L. O’Brien [writes](, “but that doesn’t entitle him to do whatever he wants.” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has a boatload of discernible [evidence]( — including Trump’s one-hour phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, where he point-blank asked him to sabotage the vote: “I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes.” As truth would have it, fellas, he did not get those 11,000 votes. Instead, the former president now faces 91 criminal charges spanning four indictments, which could theoretically land him [hundreds of years]( in prison. In a new episode of [Crash Course](, Tim and Charlie Sykes [explain how]( this puts the US electorate in an “unprecedented position,” especially since Trump is “the clear [front-runner]( for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2024.” It’s not every day you see a presidential candidate with a [calendar]( dotted with more court dates than campaign events. “The notion that a rap sheet with multiple felonies would not be automatically disqualifying would have stunned the 44 presidents who came before him, including the Republicans,” Peter Baker [wrote]( in the New York Times. I imagine it would have stunned the producers of Suits, too, but [here we are](. Bonus DOJ Reading: The executive branch is prosecuting both the former president and the current president’s son. There has to be [a better way](. — Noah Feldman Wine O’Clock “Want to split a fifth tonight?” In college, I got asked this question more times than I’d care to admit. Having gone to a so-called party school, the act of “splitting a fifth” — a 750-mL bottle of hard alcohol — with a friend or a date at a party was as normal as sharing a bucket of popcorn with a pal at a movie theater. Nowadays, the kids prefer to bring their own [BORGs]([1](#footnote-1) to tailgates and social gatherings, but the general principle — to get absolutely obliterated — is still the same. Which brings me to [this chart]( from Lisa Jarvis: More American women are dying from alcohol than ever before — a trend that’s happening in tandem with the rise of Instagrammable [catchphrases]( engineered to appeal to women, like “rosé all day” and “ain't no laws when you're drinking [Claws](.” The thing is, there are laws — the laws of the human body. And for women, our bodies “have less water (which can dilute the alcohol), more fat (which can retain it) and lower levels of a metabolic enzyme (which breaks it down before it gets into the bloodstream),” Lisa explains. When combined, those factors put women on a fast track to experience alcoholism, liver inflammation, cardiovascular disease and even cancer. A [recent study]( found that increased alcohol consumption is occurring “among the highest levels of education, highest level of family income and occupations that are considered more prestigious.” In other words: The “quiet luxury” crowd is throwing back one too many [negroni jello]( shots. Lisa says the [normalization]( of excessive consumption has allowed the alcohol industry to capitalize on the segment of women by releasing splashy [hard seltzers](, [canned]( [cocktails]( and [summer spritzers]( that are tailor-made for #[winemoms](. The worst part is that most women don’t have the tools — or information — they need to make educated decisions when having a drink. With a little bit of learning, maybe, just maybe, we can normalize the [half-pour](. hAIkus It’s been a hot minute since I went all Emily Dickinson on you fools, so let’s get to it! The following haikus are inspired by the writings of Adrian Wooldridge, Hal Brands and Dave Lee. And before you ask, no, I did not use AI to write these … even if you think they’re bad enough to have been created by a chatbot: Fearful CEOs hear “[FASTER PLEASE](,” and worry about AI’s [reach](. “You fired [2](#footnote-2)Alexa???” No, no: Dave Limp! He [stepped down](. [ChatGPT]( wins. Hey, [Oppenheimer](! “Are nukes like AI?” This time, build it and find out. Telltale Charts You know when you’ve been working somewhere for way too long that it becomes incredibly embarrassing to ask someone a remedial question — like, where’s the printer?? Or, how do I get to the fourth floor? You should have learned these things on, like, Day 1! So you just wait around until someone else asks the stupid question you’ve been too shy to ask. Thank you, John Authers, for being that someone. Today in his [newsletter]( he asked [a question]( I have long had: “What is liquidity, and does it really matter?” In an incredibly simplified sense, John says liquidity has to do with the flow of cash through small pipes and big pipes. Sometimes there are money plumbers — the Fed — to unclog (ew, sorry) liquidity issues when they arise. But as for the “does it really matter” question, Isabelle Lee says it’s a slippery slope. When you look at the downward line on this chart, the drain in liquidity we’re experiencing looks really bad. The thing is, this drain should be impacting markets, but so far, it has not. Plus, when you zoom out, it’s not nearly as dramatic as it seems. “The supply has shrunk over the last 12 months, but that’s after the massive increase in the early months of the pandemic,” he explains. In reality, we’re still $4 trillion above where we were before the pandemic. That doesn’t seem so bad after all: Further Reading The Fed needs to keep an [open mind]( about raising rates. — Bloomberg’s editorial board The [deeply sad lawsuit]( of The Blind Side NFL player Michael Oher. — Stephen L. Carter 2018 may have been the year that [crude oil]( demand hit its peak. — David Fickling Are [cooking videos]( better than cookbooks? Cast [your vote](. — Bobby Ghosh China, a champion of socialism? That’s [a dubious claim](. — Minxin Pei British retail has been full of failure lately. [Wilko]( is more of the same. — Andrea Felsted Foxconn isn’t about to let [a good downturn]( go to waste. — Tim Culpan China’s failed “[super embassy](” in the UK is a lesson in democracy. — Matthew Brooker ICYMI America’s lost [millionaires]( (and [billionaires](). The Caspian Sea’s [ghost yachts](. The Midwest’s most expensive [ZIP code](. The tarmac is [a dangerous place](. Kickers It’s International [Apostrophe Day](! (h/t Ellen Kominers) Is going [barefoot]( better for your health? Why did everyone [look so old]( back then? Sweetgreen gets into the [chip business](. Notes: Please send cooking videos and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads](, [TikTok](, [Twitter](, [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. [1] For the uninitiated, “Black Out Rage Gallons” are customizable “party jugs” that contain a combination of [MiO](, water and hard alcohol. [2] Controversial as it may be, fired [can be]( monosyllabic. I don't make the rules!!! 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