He wanted to avoid a debt limit fight next year when his priorities — tax cuts and open-ended spending for mass deportations — would add to the red ink.

Translation: This home loan program is broke and no additional money has been appropriated by the Legislature because the state is bleeding red ink.

By then the company was confronting a tide of red ink.

His words, printed in red ink to resemble spilt blood, read: "If anyone has a knife and you see it... run and inform someone. Be aware – knives cost lives."

The red ink largely stemmed from the closure of its underperforming downtown store amid slowing sales as inflation-weary shoppers fled to other grocers.