Former Trump assistant Hope Hicks was called today by the prosecution as its ninth witness. Her testimony will likely be important. She also did not want to testify and is credible. News from the folks inside the courtroom state that Donald is glaring at her. Her first words into the mic were “I’m really nervous.”
Another week, another contempt-of-court hearing for former President Donald Trump — and this one was a doozy.
On Thursday morning, prosecutors at Trump’s Manhattan hush-money trial argued that he violated his gag order last week when he made four on-camera statements attacking witnesses and the jury.
Things got weird when his defense attorney Todd Blanche complained that Trump must remain silent about witnesses and jurors while his opponents get to say “anything they want.”
That’s when President Joe Biden and Donald “Von ShitzInPants” made their bizarre cameo appearances on the official trial record.
“Donald has had a few tough days lately. You might call it stormy weather,” Biden quipped in a very apparent reference to Stormy Daniels, the porn star at the center of the hush-money trial.
“President Trump can’t respond to that” by criticizing Daniels, Blanche said Thursday to the judge, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.
Likewise, Trump’s personal attorney turned nemesis, Michael Cohen, can take whatever potshot he chooses, Blanche told the judge.
But Trump must remain silent, Blanche added, even when Cohen mocks him as Donald “Von ShitzInPantz,” a favorite insult on Cohen’s podcast and his account on the social-media site X.
Blanche proceeded to read that colorfully worded, offending post into the record as Trump sat listening at the defense table.
“This one says, oh my, ShitzInPantz,” Blanche recited as he entered a screenshot of the post into the court record as Exhibit 64 — without any objection from prosecutors.
The official court stenographer duly followed along, typing the phrase into the court record as “shits in pants.”
I’m going to skip to the next part but you really should read the entire article. It’s just more surreality that surrounds Donald. Donald can dish it out but cannot take it.
The judge showed skepticism toward Blanche’s argument that Trump “can’t say anything.”
“You’re saying he can’t respond to what President Biden said?” the judge asked Blanche at one point, his voice sounding incredulous.
“There’s nothing in the gag order that says he can’t,” the judge told Trump’s lawyer.
But the judge also appeared sympathetic to Blanche’s complaints that Cohen and Daniels enjoyed the protection of a gag order while having carte blanche to attack Trump — and continue to do so.
“They’re not defendants in this case,” Merchan said. “I can’t extend a gag order to them. I just don’t have the authority.”
Merchan can, however, remove Cohen from the gag order’s protection, something the judge suggested last week he would consider.
“They’re all similar,” Blanche said of Cohen’s relentless jabs at Trump. “They’re over the top about his character, about his candidacy.”
The lawyer added of Cohen: “This is not a man that needs protection from the gag order.”
When a lawyer who is presenting a case at trial bumps into a colleague outside of court, a common question is, “How’s the case coming in?” This query reflects that planning a trial is one thing — but how well the evidence, especially testimony given by the witnesses, actually “comes in” before the judge and jury is another.
In Donald Trump’s Manhattan election interference trial, the case is coming in better than expected, and that is ominous for the former president.
Although Davidson is just a supporting actor in this drama, his role innegotiating the alleged payment to Daniels makes him an important witness to lay down the basic facts of the alleged “catch and kill” plot — and to corroborate the details that former American Media, Inc. CEO and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker established and Cohen will ultimately testify about.
Perhaps the most dramatic moment of Davidson’s morning testimony came when he was asked about an election night 2016 text message exchange with Dylan Howard —aformer editor of the National Enquirer who helped broker the negotiations for the story. The prosecution asked Davidson to explain the meaning of a text he had sent to Howard that evening. As the election was about to be called for Trump, Davidson sent a text to Howard asking, “What have we done?”
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Davidson what the meaning of those words were. He answered that it meant “our efforts may have in some way — strike that — our activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.”
When Davidson said those words, the normal hush of the courtroom was suddenly punctuated by the audible clattering of the keyboards of more than 60 journalists seated in the pew-like benches. Why? After all, prosecutors need not prove the alleged secret payment to Daniels actually swung the election, and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said as much in the DA’s opening statement: “We will never know.”
Hope Hicks says she reported to Donald Trump directly in her role as press secretary during his campaign.
Asked how often she would speak to Trump during the campaign, Hicks says she spoke with Trump every day by telephone and in person.
The prosecution asked how involved Trump was involved in the media responses during his campaign. Hicks replies: “Very involved”. Asked how involved he was in the overall messaging during the campaign, Trump said:
“Mr Trump was responsible for it. He knew what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it and we were all just following his lead. He deserves the credit.”
Here’s a discussion between Eissen and CNN reporter Paula Newton
Hope Hicks was a critical witness when we investigated Trump's alleged election interference in his first impeachment
& DA Bragg's team is about to ask her the same questions I did then
If you want to read a blow-by-blow of the questions and testimony follow Inner City Press.
Hicks: Mr. Trump said it might be Pulitzer Prize worthy. Then there was the story about Ted Cruz' father and Lee Harvey Oswald. Prosecutor: Did you become aware of the Access Hollywood tape? Hicks: I got an email from the Washington Post. I was on the 14th floor
I’m sure more will be out this afternoon. I’ll try to keep posting down the thread.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I was in a street car yesterday trying to get home when Mick and the guys rolled towards the JazzFest up the tracks going the other directions with NOPD motorcycles and a long line of limos and black SUVs. I used to live to work sound at the fest but it’s just gotten out of hand. I don’t even go anymore. But here’s a treat with a cute anecdote reported by a friend of mine. Our new governor is worse than DeSantis and Abbott and probably the Puppy Murderer too.
The fun thing about their performance they brought out New Orleans musicians to perform with them. Their first hit, Time is on My Side, was first performed by New Orleans’s own Irma Thomas. Watch and listen!
#JazzFest headliner The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger, who called out Louisiana's new governor Jeff Landry for wanting to "take us back to the stone age." Landry was there, so the zing landed. pic.twitter.com/g094oVZ8Ia
Time has some new reporting from interviews with Trump and his inner circle that you're going to want to read about, and more importantly, learn what you can do about it. https://t.co/Av3JIuhSFvpic.twitter.com/d8OYetgiId
Yesterday, Time Magazine published an interview with Donald Trump. Why did he choose Time to reveal his plans for rescinding the Constitution if he is elected in November? I’d guess it’s because he wanted another Time cover to add to his collection. He’s a demented old man who doesn’t realize that Time long ago became fairly irrelevant. But they certainly got the attention of the the political world yesterday. Trump spelled out his plans for 2025 and beyond and they are horrifying.
I agree with this tweet that Aaron Rupar posted after reading the article:
I increasingly believe this election will be a referendum on whether anything matters anymore. There’s no rational case for Trump, but there’s a loud contingent on the left that just wants to burn it down. Combine that with low information voters and Republicans circling the wagons around their guy, and you have the outlines of a calamity. Hopefully people wake up.
Here’s the Time interview, followed by commentary from other publications. I’ve cut out the author’s cutesy commentary and just included Trump’s plans.
Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial. I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words.
What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.
Trump remains the same guy, with the same goals and grievances. But in person, if anything, he appears more assertive and confident. “When I first got to Washington, I knew very few people,” he says. “I had to rely on people.” Now he is in charge. The arranged marriage with the timorous Republican Party stalwarts is over; the old guard is vanquished, and the people who remain are his people. Trump would enter a second term backed by a slew of policy shops staffed by loyalists who have drawn up detailed plans in service of his agenda, which would concentrate the powers of the state in the hands of a man whose appetite for power appears all but insatiable. “I don’t think it’s a big mystery what his agenda would be,” says his close adviser Kellyanne Conway. “But I think people will be surprised at the alacrity with which he will take action.” [….]
In a second term, Trump’s influence on American democracy would extend far beyond pardoning powers. Allies are laying the groundwork to restructure the presidency in line with a doctrine called the unitary executive theory, which holds that many of the constraints imposed on the White House by legislators and the courts should be swept away in favor of a more powerful Commander in Chief.
TV Man, by Michael Vincent Manalo
Nowhere would that power be more momentous than at the Department of Justice. Since the nation’s earliest days, Presidents have generally kept a respectful distance from Senate-confirmed law-enforcement officials to avoid exploiting for personal ends their enormous ability to curtail Americans’ freedoms. But Trump, burned in his first term by multiple investigations directed by his own appointees, is ever more vocal about imposing his will directly on the department and its far-flung investigators and prosecutors.
In our Mar-a-Lago interview, Trump says he might fire U.S. Attorneys who refuse his orders to prosecute someone: “It would depend on the situation.” He’s told supporters he would seek retribution against his enemies in a second term. Would that include Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney who charged him with election interference, or Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA in the Stormy Daniels case, who Trump has previously said should be prosecuted? Trump demurs but offers no promises. “No, I don’t want to do that,” he says, before adding, “We’re gonna look at a lot of things. What they’ve done is a terrible thing.”
Trump has also vowed to appoint a “real special prosecutor” to go after Biden. “I wouldn’t want to hurt Biden,” he tells me. “I have too much respect for the office.” Seconds later, though, he suggests Biden’s fate may be tied to an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on whether Presidents can face criminal prosecution for acts committed in office. “If they said that a President doesn’t get immunity,” says Trump, “then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes.” (Biden has not been charged with any, and a House Republican effort to impeach him has failed to unearth evidence of any crimes or misdemeanors, high or low.)
On his goal of mass deportation of immigrants:
Trump’s radical designs for presidential power would be felt throughout the country. A main focus is the southern border. Trump says he plans to sign orders to reinstall many of the same policies from his first term, such as the Remain in Mexico program, which requires that non-Mexican asylum seekers be sent south of the border until their court dates, and Title 42, which allows border officials to expel migrants without letting them apply for asylum. Advisers say he plans to cite record border crossings and fentanyl- and child-trafficking as justification for reimposing the emergency measures. He would direct federal funding to resume construction of the border wall, likely by allocating money from the military budget without congressional approval. The capstone of this program, advisers say, would be a massive deportation operation that would target millions of people. Trump made similar pledges in his first term, but says he plans to be more aggressive in a second. “People need to be deported,” says Tom Homan, a top Trump adviser and former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “No one should be off the table.”
For an operation of that scale, Trump says he would rely mostly on the National Guard to round up and remove undocumented migrants throughout the country. “If they weren’t able to, then I’d use [other parts of] the military,” he says. When I ask if that means he would override the Posse Comitatus Act—an 1878 law that prohibits the use of military force on civilians—Trump seems unmoved by the weight of the statute. “Well, these aren’t civilians,” he says. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country.” He would also seek help from local police and says he would deny funding for jurisdictions that decline to adopt his policies. “There’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate,” Trump says, “and they won’t partake in the riches.”
Helen Lundeberg, Biological Fantasy, 1946
On Abortion:
As President, Trump nominated three Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he claims credit for his role in ending a constitutional right to an abortion. At the same time, he has sought to defuse a potent campaign issue for the Democrats by saying he wouldn’t sign a federal ban. In our interview at Mar-a-Lago, he declines to commit to vetoing any additional federal restrictions if they came to his desk. More than 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, and Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women’s pregnancies. “I think they might do that,” he says. When I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit, he says, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.” President Biden has said he would fight state anti-abortion measures in court and with regulation.
Trump’s allies don’t plan to be passive on abortion if he returns to power. The Heritage Foundation has called for enforcement of a 19th century statute that would outlaw the mailing of abortion pills. The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes more than 80% of the House GOP conference, included in its 2025 budget proposal the Life at Conception Act, which says the right to life extends to “the moment of fertilization.” I ask Trump if he would veto that bill if it came to his desk. “I don’t have to do anything about vetoes,” Trump says, “because we now have it back in the states.”
Donald Trump hasn’t quite let go of the possibility of utilizing mob violence if he loses the next election.
In a sprawling interview for Time magazine, Trump hinted that leveraging political violence to achieve his end goals was still on the table.
“If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he told Time. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.”
And from Trump’s perspective, that’s winning rhetoric. According to him, his incendiary comments supporting a mob mentality, his early warnings of forthcoming abuses of power, and his threats to be a dictator on “day one” are only inching him closer to the White House. “I think a lot of people like it,” Trump told Time….
Meanwhile, the trial that will determine Trump’s level of involvement on the day that his followers actually attempted to overthrow Congress’s certification of the 2020 vote has been indefinitely waylaid by the former president’s claim of presidential immunity. The Supreme Court heard arguments for that case last week. It is currently unclear how the justices will decide the case, though they are expected to issue an opinion sometime between the end of June and early July.
If you ask Donald Trump, the election could determine the fate of the United States itself.
“If we don’t win on November 5, I think our country is going to cease to exist. It could be the last election we ever have. I actually mean that,” the former president said at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday.
JeeYoung Lee, Panic Room, 2010
In fact, looking at Trump’s plans for a potential second term, it’s more likely that the opposite is true. He has claimed that he wants to be a dictator, but only on “day one,” and plans to install his legal allies at all levels of government. And his Cabinet? It’s sure to be full of ideologues, immigration hard-liners, and outright fascists. Even conservative judges claim he’ll shred the legal system.
But Trump’s remarks could also be a veiled threat that he should win, or else. The far right, from Trump down to militias, hate groups, and grassroots MAGA supporters, could react violently if the election doesn’t go in their favor.
As Brynn Tannehill wrote for The New Republic in March, “The election cycle either ends in chaos and violence, balkanization, or a descent into a modern theocratic fascist dystopia.” It might not be a stretch to suggest that Trump could plan another January 6–type event if he loses. After all, only months prior to the Capitol insurrection, he urged the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” on a debate stage.
On April 12, former President Donald Trump sat for an interview with Time. That interview, which ran with some follow-up questions from this past Saturday, was published on Tuesday, and it included a number of alarming tidbits from Trump, many of which reaffirmed his earlier extreme positions or took them further.
But perhaps the most shocking response dealt with a hypothetical posed by the reporter, Eric Cortellessa. Relatively early in the conversation, Cortellessa pushed Trump to take a stance on a federal abortion ban. Trump refused, insisting that his views on abortion did not matter—that he was leaving it up to the states to decide, and that was that. Even as Cortellessa insisted that it was “important to voters” to know where he stands, Trump didn’t budge, even when asked how he felt about women being punished for having abortions. Cortellessa then raised the prospect of a surveillance state keeping tabs on women and their reproductive systems:
Cortellessa:Do you think states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion after the ban?
Trump:I think they might do that. Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states. Look, Roe v. Wade was all about bringing it back to the states.
Trump’s refusal to take a stance on such a sinister possibility shows he remains just as concerned about disappointing his white evangelical base as he is about alienating more moderate voters. But he may have underestimated just how radical this nonstance really was, and just how unsettling it may seem to voters.
That ended up being a theme of the more than hourlong interview: Trump dodged so many questions by railing about his victimhood, boasting about his victories, or just straight-out lying, but when he did give a direct response, it showed a man who had learned no lessons from his 2020 loss or his ongoing legal challenges. The Trump of the interview was just as extreme as ever.
Donald Trump has warned that Joe Biden and his family could face multiple criminal prosecutions once he leaves office unless the US supreme court awards Trump immunity in his own legal battles with the criminal justice system.
In a sweeping interview with Time magazine, Trump painted a startling picture of his second term, from how he would wield the justice department to hinting he may let states monitor pregnant women to enforce abortion laws….
Portrait of the Late Mrs. Partridge, by Leonora Carrington
Trump made a direct connection between his threat to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bidens should he win re-election in November with the case currently before the supreme court over his own presidential immunity.
Asked whether he intends to “go after” the Bidens should he gain a second term in the White House, Trump replied: “It depends what happens with the supreme court.”
If the nine justices on the top court – three of whom were appointed by Trump – fail to award him immunity from prosecution, Trump said, “then Biden I am sure will be prosecuted for all of his crimes, because he’s committed many crimes”.
Trump and his Republican backers have long attempted to link Biden to criminal wrongdoing relating to the business affairs of his son Hunter Biden, without unearthing any substantial evidence. Last June, in remarks made at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump threatened to appoint a special prosecutor were he re-elected “to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family”. [….]
Several of Trump’s comments in the Time interview will ring alarm bells among those concerned with the former president’s increasingly totalitarian bent.
Trump’s remarks raise the specter that, were he granted a second presidential term, he would weaponize the justice department to seek revenge against the Democratic rival who defeated him in 2020.
Despite the violence that erupted on 6 January 2021 at the US Capitol after he refused to accept defeat in the 2020 election, which is the subject of one of two federal prosecutions he is fighting, Trump also declined to promise a peaceful transfer of power should he lose again in November.
Asked by Cortellessa whether there would be political violence should Trump fail to win, he replied: “If we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
Pouring yet more gasoline on to the fire, Trump not only repeated his falsehood that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, but said he would be unlikely to appoint anyone to a second Trump administration who believed Biden had legitimately prevailed four years ago. “I wouldn’t feel good about it, because I think anybody that doesn’t see that that election was stolen – you look at the proof,” he said.
The cover story of Time magazine is presented as definitive.
“If he wins,” it states over a picture of former president Donald Trump sitting on a stool. The story from reporter Eric Cortellessa bears the headline, “How far Trump would go,” and interweaves quotes from a lengthy interview Trump granted Cortellessa with the reporter’s assessments of what it tells us about a potential second Trump term.
Max Ernst, The Barbarians
But as is often the case, a lot of what Trump is reported as planning to do is constructed from murky, noncommittal answers Trump offered to specific questions. The interview is very revealing about Trump’s approach to the position in that it strongly suggests he hasn’t thought much about important issues, and makes clear how relentlessly he relies on rhetoric to derail questions.
The interview is not revealing about what Trump is firmly committed to doing. But that’s revealing in its own way: It makes it obvious that a second term, like the first, would see policy and executive actions driven by whomever is around Trump. And Trump is clearly committed to having around him only people who share his political worldview.
Before we list the firm policy commitments Trump offered to Cortellessa, which won’t take long, it’s useful to point out all the revealing comments Trump made simply by being given the space to talk.
For example, when asked whether he would use the military to help deport immigrants despite prohibitions against deploying the military against civilians, Trump told Cortellessa that “these aren’t civilians.” He claimed they were, instead, part of an “invasion,” rhetoric he’s used before. This is false — but revealing about Trump’s potential willingness to use force as part of a deportation effort.
I don’t know about this. I thought Trump made his plans pretty clear–especially because we can base our interpretations on what he has already done. But you can read more at the WaPo link.
The Biden campaign is mounting a concerted push to attack former President Donald J. Trump over statements he made to Time magazine in a wide-ranging interview published Tuesday morning, particularly on abortion.
In the interview, Mr. Trump refused to commit to vetoing a national abortion ban and said he would allow states to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violated abortion restrictions.
“This is reprehensible,” President Biden wrote on X. “Donald Trump doesn’t trust women. I do.”
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, said in a statement that Mr. Trump would “sign a national abortion ban, allow women who have an abortion to be prosecuted and punished, allow the government to invade women’s privacy to monitor their pregnancies and put I.V.F. and contraception in jeopardy nationwide.”
Abortion has become a winning issue for Democrats, and Mr. Biden has argued that Mr. Trump and Republicans will continue to erode abortion rights. He and Vice President Kamala Harris have campaigned heavily on the issue in battleground states, and Democrats hope that state ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights will help their candidates for president, Congress and state offices. Their messaging has sought to pin state abortion bans directly on Mr. Trump, whose appointees to the Supreme Court helped overturn Roe v. Wade….
The former president also told Time that he would deploy the U.S. military to detain and deport migrants, and did not dismiss the possibility of political violence should he lose the election.
Democrats highlighted some of those statements as well.
“Donald Trump’s repeated threats of political violence are as horrifying and dangerous as they are un-American,” said Alex Floyd, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. “Trump is hellbent on threatening our democracy, win or lose.”
Hillary Clinton urged her followers on X to read about Mr. Trump’s plans for a second term and “take them seriously.”
That’s all I have today. I truly believe that our democracy is hanging in the balance. Whatever you think of Joe Biden, he has generally been a good president. Trump was a disaster last time, and if he wins again, it will be be far worse–beyond anything we can imagine.
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Fartman arrives at the Manhattan Courthouse for another week of heroics battling the Deep State. John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
What a rainy Monday this has become! At least April is consistent, and we’re getting plenty of spring flowers here! I hear the frogs and green anoles chirp. Frogs are wonderful! They can also whistle, croak, ribbit, peep, cluck, bark, and grunt. He has today off, but we will undoubtedly hear more weird sounds from Donald as he is once more confined to a cold courtroom with its hard chairs and people ruining his branding once again!
This is from Public Notice. The analysis is provided by Lisa Needham. “Trump’s criminal trial is off to a bad start for him. He’s low energy both inside and outside the courtroom.” The Correspondent’s Dinner didn’t help his mood any either. We’ll get to that. I promise.
Thanks to New York’s relatively strict laws regarding media access to courtrooms, Trump’s trial has what is, for Trump, the precisely wrong level of exposure. New York doesn’t allow cameras or live audio, and it’s only because of the extraordinary nature of the proceedings that the court administration decided to make daily transcripts of the trial available for free on the court’s official website. Transcripts can run to thousands of dollars for a single day and are not usually turned around within 24 hours.
So, with the proceedings not entirely behind closed doors, Trump can’t outright lie about what transpired. But the lack of cameras and real-time coverage also means Trump can’t turn things into a circus by engaging in ridiculous behavior to distract media attention from the trial’s substance. When you combine this with the fact that the judge, not Trump, is wholly in control of the order of proceedings each day, this has to be one of the most maddening and humiliating experiences imaginable for him.
Trump can slake his thirst for attention and deploy his clumsy attempts to derail the narrative only a few times per day, when he is swarmed by media entering or exiting the courtroom. On those occasions, he goes on brief, highly repetitive rants that generate nothing but negative headlines for him.
Perhaps worst of all for Trump, even his most die-hard supporters don’t seem all that interested in trekking to Lower Manhattan. Trump is self-soothing over this, spinning an easily disprovable yarn that the courthouse is an “armed camp to keep people away” and that officials are turning around thousands of his supporters. Instead, CNN journalists attending the trial have said there have been days where the teeming number of MAGA faithful can be measured in single digits.
In all, after only two weeks Donald Trump has, in short order, basically been reduced to being a mere mortal while in Judge Merchan’s courtroom. This reality is the opposite of the titan or God king messiah he presents himself as to his MAGA followers and the public more generally.
In an attempt to make better sense of the second week of Donald Trump’s hush-money trial, its implications for the 2024 Election and the larger democracy crisis, and what may happen next, I recently spoke with a range of experts.
I want to highlight this one. There are more at the link.
Dr. John Gartner is a prominent psychologist and contributor to the bestselling book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.”
Trump’s trial in Manhattan is providing more evidence of his apparent cognitive decline. Trump fell asleep 4 out of 6 days of his own trial. Falling asleep is not in and of itself particularly specific to dementia. I fall asleep at dinner parties, because I’m old and work too hard. Bill Clinton was famous for it. But can you remember a criminal defendant repeatedly unable to stay awake at his own trial? I can’t. It’s obviously very rare. Most people are pumped full of adrenaline when they’re in the dock. Some have argued Trump’s just tired, or perhaps deprived of his stimulants. But lots of defendants are tired, and either on drugs, or missing their drugs, while in court, but they don’t repeatedly pass out at their own trials.
However, dementia patients frequently pass out during the day. And come to think of it, this may be the first criminal trial I’ve been aware of where the defendant appears, in my opinion, to have dementia. Is it a coincidence that it’s also the only one I’ve ever known where the defendant can’t remain awake most days? Trump appears to be losing control of his basic biological functions. One is sleep-wake. The other may be excretion. Twitter blew up when both Ben Meiselas and George Conway reported they had heard from multiple credible sources in the courtroom that Trump was loudly passing gas, and the smell was overpowering. This was judged by Snopes to be unconfirmed. But, personally, I happen to trust the people who reported it. I don’t believe they would make that up. There have been unconfirmed reports of Trump using adult diapers.
Normally, this would be a personal matter, but America really needs to know if Trump is incontinent. His apparent disease is progressing rapidly before our eyes and yet we’re being gaslit that this is “Trump being Trump.” That’s true, but it is also Trump appears to be dementing, and the mainstream media doesn’t seem to want to report on that story.
The trial is really a form of psychological torture for a malignant narcissist who needs to appear powerful. Instead, he appears small, confused, and helpless. Jenifer Rubin wrote in her Washington Post column: “Trump day by day has become smaller, more decrepit, and frankly, somewhat pathetic.” Thankfully, the Biden campaign is amplifying this winning message. Biden-Harris HQ, who describe themselves as “the official rapid response of the Biden-Harris campaign” on X/Twitter, wrote: “A feeble and tired Donald Trump once again falls asleep in court.” To fight back Trump must act out. He is defying Merchan’s gag order repeatedly, flagrantly and at a manic pace with no thought of the consequences—in lobby of the courthouse on a lunch break, on Newsmax in the evening, and then dozens of times at 3 AM on Truth Social.
Judge Juan Merchan will be unable to escape a show-down with Trump who will compulsively push him to the limit, and beyond, forcing an inevitable confrontation. Only one will emerge as dominant, and my money is on the judge, but that’s not a foregone conclusion. If Donald Trump is jailed, he’ll wear his incarceration like a martyr, like he’s Nelson Mandela or Alexei Navalny. While Fox News and his base will stoke right-wing outrage, I think sane people still like presidents who don’t get jailed.
There’s still much tea-reading on Donald’s case before the Supreme Court. This is from Business Insider. “A 15-year-old law review by Brett Kavanaugh offers a clue at how the Supreme Court Justice could rule in Trump’s immunity case.” The analysis by Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert.
But one clue, hidden in a 2009 legal review written by Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh, could indicate how the conservative judge may decide in this case. And as Kavanaugh is relatively moderate compared to the court’s other right-leaning justices, his 15-year-old analysis may offer insight into how the other Republican-appointed justices are looking at the matter before them.
In his article, published in the Minnesota Law Review in 2009, when he was working as a US Circuit Judge,Kavanaugh argues that the public grossly underestimates the difficulty of the President’s job and that anyone elected to hold the office should “be able to focus on his never-ending tasks with as few distractions as possible.”
“The point is not to put the President above the law or to eliminate checks on the President, but simply to defer litigation and investigations until the President is out of office,” Kavanaugh wrote, arguing in favor of deferring criminal and civil prosecutions against sitting presidents accused of wrongdoing to ensure they can efficiently carry out the responsibilities of office.
One might contend that the country needs a check against a bad-behaving or law-breaking president, Kavanaugh acknowledges, but “the Constitution already provides that check.”
“If the President does something dastardly, the impeachment process is available. No single prosecutor, judge, or jury should be able to accomplish what the Constitution assigns to the Congress,” Kavanaugh wrote.”Moreover, an impeached and removed President is still subject to criminal prosecution afterwards.”
We hear this from retired Judge Lusttig speaking on MSNBC. “Judge Luttig blasts SCOTUS for avoiding ‘key question’ at the heart of Trump immunity case.” This interview is with Ali Velshi. You may watch the interview at the link.
Former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig joins Ali Velshi to discuss his takeaways from this week’s Supreme Court oral arguments on former President Donald Trump’s presidential immunity claim, which many believe will lead to more delays in Trump’s federal criminal cases, and potentially impact the future of the presidency itself. “That this absurd argument is even being made before the Supreme Court is an embarrassment to the Constitution and to our country,” Judge Luttig says. Judge Luttig also criticizes the Supreme Court for avoiding the “straightforward, key question” about the case itself, and explains what decision he believes the justices are most likely to make.
We need to ensure discussions on the Supreme Court’s arguments for this case and the abortion case in Idaho do not go into the darkness with time. This group likes to drag their feet along with their knuckles.
Senator Fetterman changed his attire just a bit but glitzy isn’t his thing.
The Correspondent’s Dinner really got to the Donald, who was likely flinging ketchup and farting poo while watching. This, however, was Biden’s night. This is from The Hill, as reported by Cate Martel. “12:30 Report — Glitzy Correspondent’s Dinner highlights. Nerd prom weekend!”
“Saturday Night Live” (“SNL”) comedian Colin Jost hosted the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner over the weekend.
Meanwhile, here are a few clips out there on the X site. There were several moments of protest also. Protestors unfurled a Palestinian flag out of the window of the Washington Hilton. That was the location of the event.
Joe Biden had some great jokes and delivery. Example: ““My wife Jill was worried how I’d do. I told her, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just like riding a bike.’ She said, ‘that’s what I’m worried about.’” Talk about the ability to laugh at yourself.
My favorite joke by Josh was this one. “”Can we just acknowledge how refreshing it is to see a President of the United States at an event that doesn’t begin with a bailiff saying, ‘All rise?'”
Guess who is still rage watching reruns of the Colin Jost & Biden hosted WHCD White House Correspondents Dinner, fuming, pulling up diapers & chest high pants, throwing ketchup, slamming hamberders, swigging Diet Cokes… with grandpa Trump?
BREAKING: Colin Jost tells President Biden at the White House Correspondents Dinner how his late grandfather voted for Biden because he was a decent man. Retweet so all Americans see this heartwarming moment. pic.twitter.com/UcA1Sq4hRF
President Biden’s message to the press: The defeated former president has made no secret of his attack on our democracy. He said he wants to be a dictator on day one, promised a ‘bloodbath’ when he loses again, and so much more. Eight years ago, you could have written it off as… pic.twitter.com/hcqoYa5ARM
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
I’m going to skip to the next part but you really should read the entire article. It’s just more surreality that surrounds Donald. Donald can dish it out but cannot take it.
The Judge has not announced his decision on the gag violation orders in front of him today. Norman Eisen’s take on the substance of yesterday’s hearing is an important read at CNN today. 
We’re beginning to get some reporting from the Hick’s testimony today. This is from 
Needham says, “Trump is itching to get back on the campaign trail.” I’m not sure he has enough energy for the golf course, even with his little cart. Maybe all that anger and outrage will get him off the sofa. Chauncey Devega, writing for Salon, has this take on this day of peace and silence for everyone not on Truth Social. “
There’s still much tea-reading on Donald’s case before the Supreme Court. This is from 
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