Molly Jong-Fast: Defendant Trump Is Not Helping Candidate Trump

The former president came off looking sad, old, and tired during his criminal trial—and it’s only just getting started.

Week one of Donald Trump’s hush money trial could have been mundane. It entailed what the legal world refers to as voir dire, during which the judge makes evidentiary judgments to determine which jurors can rule impartially on the case. Yet the first four days of the New York criminal proceedings, which continued with opening statements Monday, painted a rather surprising portrait of a man who could no longer outrun the wheels of justice. They pierced through Trump’s armor in ways both profound and absurd, shattering the public’s perception of a man who may have seemed legally invincible. I knew that this case, compared to those of the past, would prove harder for Teflon Don to repel. But even still, I didn’t think the coating would wear off quite this quickly.

Trump’s political impenetrability has always been rooted in his ability to puff himself up—much like a blowfish, covered in spikes that only the most loyal sycophants can avoid. He is notoriously allergic to apologizing, never owns up to his own mistakes, and often doubles down on the thing he’s done wrong. The one and only time Trump did deliver a proper mea culpa was shortly after the release of the Access Hollywood tape in 2016—but even then, he quickly pivoted to attacking Hillary and Bill Clinton. “I’ve said some foolish things, but there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people,” the former president said. “Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed, and intimidated his victims.”

It was an “apology” that we’d later come to understand as an example of classic Trump whataboutism. But such rhetorical games are not given any airtime in criminal court. And while the former president might not be treated like your standard defendant, there are certain rules and regulations that he simply can’t bend to his liking: In court, Trump is not allowed to drink Diet Coke; or play with his phone; or eat fast food; or control the thermostat (despite his lawyer’s plea to have it turned up “just one degree”). With Trump facing this harsh new habitat, it appears the only thing he can manage to do is fall asleep—which he did not once but multiple times last week, as Maggie Haberman wrote in The New York Times. “Nodding off is something that happens from time to time to various people in court proceedings, including jurors, but it conveys, for Mr. Trump, the kind of public vulnerability he has rigorously tried to avoid,” she reported. “The mundanity of the courtroom has all but swallowed Mr. Trump, who for decades has sought to project an image of bigness, one he rode from a reality-television studio set to the White House.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/defendant-trump-is-not-helping-candidate-trump

Stephen Markley: A Planetary Crisis Awaits the Next President

The stakes of the climate crisis render the cliché of “This is the most important election of our lifetimes” increasingly true because every four years those stakes climb precipitously alongside the toppling records of a radically new climatic regime.

Climate is not just another issue. We live in a complex and precarious world, one that our consciences are torn by a web of domestic challenges and geopolitical upheavals. But we are in denial if we do not recognize that this is the crisis that will define this century, and if we fail, the entire human future. Our fossil fuel system is driving the planet to a set of conditions that humanity has never experienced, where even the imagination of novelists will fail us.

And yet the climate crisis is also the foundation on which we can build a more just, equitable and prosperous world. Every election is precious, every ballot we cast is a moral record of what we did in this crucial historical moment. Do not sit on your hands, do not deny the stakes, do not waste that vote. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/20/opinion/trump-biden-climate-election.html

David Axelrod: What Donald Trump Fears Most

Trump would spin a potential conviction as well. He has already begun to do so: To Trump, the district attorney who brought the charges, Alvin Bragg— who is Black—is a craven politician, trying the former president on contrived charges for his own glory while he allows violent criminals to go free. Merchan, the judge—who is Hispanic—is biased and conflicted because he appears to have donated $15 to Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020, and his daughter is a Democratic consultant. Manhattan—and, by extension, the jury—is filled with Democrats and Trump-hating liberals. President Biden orchestrated the whole production.

If the jury returns a guilty verdict, we will hear it all.

Yet, as Trump sits and watches the criminal trial he hoped to avoid unfold, he must know that a potential reckoning he has spent a lifetime eluding could be coming. He has been reduced to a criminal defendant in a courtroom where someone else has absolute power and the rules very definitely apply. The weariness and vulnerability captured in those courtroom images betray a growing recognition that he could wind up as the thing his old man most reviled.

A convicted criminal?

No, worse. A loser. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/04/donald-trump-manhattan-trial-fear/678144/
 

Liz Cheney: The Supreme Court Should Rule Swiftly on Trump’s Immunity Claim

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Donald Trump’s arguments that he is immune from prosecution for his efforts to steal the 2020 presidential election. It is likely that all — or nearly all — of the justices will agree that a former president who attempted to seize power and remain in office illegally can be prosecuted. I suspect that some justices may also wish to clarify whether doctrines of presidential immunity might apply in other contexts — for example, to a president’s actions as commander in chief during a time of war. But the justices should also recognize the profoundly negative impact they may have if the court does not resolve these issues quickly and decisively.

If delay prevents this Trump case from being tried this year, the public may never hear critical and historic evidence developed before the grand jury, and our system may never hold the man most responsible for Jan. 6 to account.

Mr. Trump believes he can threaten and intimidate judges and their families, assert baseless legal defenses and thereby avoid accountability altogether. Through this conduct, he seeks to break our institutions. If Mr. Trump’s tactics prevent his Jan. 6 trial from proceeding in the ordinary course, he will also have succeeded in concealing critical evidence from the American people — evidence demonstrating his disregard for the rule of law, his cruelty on Jan. 6 and the deep flaws in character that make him unfit to serve as president. The Supreme Court should understand this reality and conclude without delay that no immunity applies here. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/opinion/trump-immunity-supreme-court.html

Eric Lutz: The MAGA Right is Flirting With Political Violence

The MAGA right exists in a perpetual state of overheated grievance. But as the November election nears, the temperature seems to be rising, getting dangerously high.

This week, following Gaza war protests that disrupted travel in major American cities Monday, Senator Tom Cotton explicitly called on Americans to “take matters into [their] own hands" to get demonstrators out of the way. Asked to clarify those comments Tuesday, Cotton stood by them, telling reporters he would “do it myself” if he were blocked in traffic by demonstrators: “It calls for getting out of your car and forcibly removing” protestors,” he said.

The right-wing senator’s comments came on the heels of Kari Lake, the GOP candidate for Senate in Arizona, suggesting supporters should arm themselves for the 2024 election season. “The next six months is going to be intense,” she said at a rally Sunday. “And we need to strap on our—let’s see, what do we want to strap on? We’re going to strap on our seat belt. We’re going to put on our helmet or your Kari Lake ballcap. We are going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us, just in case.”

And those comments came a couple weeks after Donald Trump, who regularly invokes apocalyptic and violent rhetoric, shared an image on social media depicting President Joe Biden—his political rival—hog-tied in the back of a pick-up truck. “This image from Donald Trump is the type of crap you post when you’re calling for a bloodbath or when you tell the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by,’” a Biden spokesperson told ABC News last month, referring to the former president’s dog-whistle to extremist groups during a 2020 debate and to cryptic remarks he’s made from rally stages this spring suggesting Biden’s reelection would mean a “bloodbath”—for the auto industry and for the border. This kind of thing is nothing new—not for Trump, not for his allies, and not in American history, which is what makes these flirtations with political violence all the more dangerous. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/the-maga-right-is-flirting-with-political-violence

Edward-Isaac Dovere: Kamala Harris emerges as the Biden campaign’s lead prosecutor on top issues

After years of being shunted to politically toxic and fruitless parts of the administration portfolio, such as overseeing migration negotiations with Central American leaders, or clearly junior varsity ones like chairing the National Space Council, these days are so full of plum assignments for Harris that her trip to Arizona was originally supposed to be to promote the latest round of student loan debt cancellation — only to get quickly changed when the state Supreme Court ruled that Arizona must adhere to its 1864 abortion ban.

“She has been front and center on so many of the most politically potent issues right now,” said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who was a top aide to Harris for years before becoming the Biden reelection campaign manager, calling these “new opportunities to speak to the coalitions we know she already has a deep affinity to, but on issues that are top of mind for those voters.”

“As a former prosecutor, she can prosecute the case on so much,” Rodriguez said.

It means getting to talk about gun control and reaching out to younger voters like the gym full of high schoolers in Vegas who cheered even more loudly for her than they did when Marvel actress Xochitl Gomez took the stage first. (“She’s killing it!” an excited 15-year-old in a Barbie-pink denim jacket exclaimed after pushing up to take a photo with Harris as Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” played on the speakers.) https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/21/politics/kamala-harris-campaigning-biden-2024/index.html

Bess Levin: “I’m Here…to Represent Jesus Christ”: Arizona Republicans Block Second Attempt to Repeal Civil War–Era Abortion Ban

After the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated a 1864 law banning virtually all abortions, including in cases of incest and rape, the response across the country was deafening, and not in a good way. From people who believe in reproductive rights, sure, but also from many Republicans, including Donald Trump, who fear the move will cost the party elections. It went “too far,” the man who brags about killing Roe v. Wade told reporters, adding, desperately, “I’m sure that the governor and everybody else are going to bring it back into reason.” But a week later, things have not been brought back “into reason,” because Republicans in the state are apparently intent on letting the barbaric law stand.

On Wednesday, Arizona Republicans blocked the second effort in two weeks to repeal the Civil War–era abortion ban. According to The New York Times, after GOP lawmakers initially resisted Democratic efforts to reverse the law last week, “cajoling” from Trump and Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake* looked like it was going to translate to an about-face this week, with Democrats signaling “that they were optimistic of having enough Republican support to secure a majority and send the repeal bill to the State Senate.” But after a Democratic lawmaker attempted to bring forward legislation to repeal the ban, Republicans blocked it on procedural grounds, preventing a vote on the floor. “The fact that we will not even entertain a motion to allow those who have been raped or pregnant by incest to be able to have an abortion is extremely, extremely disappointing,” state representative Alma Hernandez said Wednesday. “Why won’t these cowards allow the vote to come to the floor?” Rolande Baker, who was sitting in the gallery, asked the Times. “What are they afraid of, that it might just pass? That Arizona just might get ourselves out of the year 1864? Before the end of the Civil War? Before women had a right to vote?” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/arizona-republicans-block-second-attempt-to-repeal-civil-war-era-abortion-ban

Mark McKinnon: Trump Snags Another Top Republican: Oh No, Not You Too, Sununu

It’s hard enough to accept that we had someone who, I would argue, is a mob-boss-like madman as president of the United States. And it’s hard to swallow that almost 75 million Americans voted for the guy in 2020. But what I find most shocking and stunning of all is the number of “leaders” in the Republican Party who, in their naked pursuit of power, have been willing to abandon their principles and bend the knee to him.

Donald Trump’s rogues gallery of Klingons is full of characters like South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who once said Trump was “unfit” to be president but is now among his chief lapdogs. It also takes a special breed of groveler–such as Texas senator Ted Cruz–to endorse a man who previously slandered your father (implying he might have been some kind of accomplice in JFK’s assassination) and suggested that your wife was unattractive.

But in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos over the weekend, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu vaulted ahead of the pack to enter the Shameless Bootlickers Hall of Fame–on the first ballot.

Sununu once observed–admittedly, at the Gridiron Club’s annual dinner, where the jokes and jibes flow freely–that Trump was “f--king crazy.” He went on to clarify, “I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out.”

Well, it appears the lunatics now run the GOP asylum. And it’s not so funny now that the once reasonable, clear-eyed adult in the room, Chris Sununu, is in there with him. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/donald-trump-chris-sununu

David Frum: Trump Deflates

On aid to Ukraine, Trump got his way for 16 months. When Democrats held the majority in the House of Representatives in 2022, they approved four separate aid requests for Ukraine, totaling $74 billion. As soon as Trump’s party took control of the House, in January 2023, the aid stopped. Every Republican officeholder understood: Those who wished to show loyalty to Trump must side against Ukraine.

At the beginning of this year, Trump was able even to blow up the toughest immigration bill seen in decades—simply to deny President Joe Biden a bipartisan win. Individual Senate Republicans might grumble, but with Trump opposed, the border-security deal disintegrated.

Three months later, Trump’s party in Congress has rebelled against him—and not on a personal payoff to some oddball Trump loyalist, but on one of Trump’s most cherished issues, his siding with Russia against Ukraine. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/04/trump-republican-vote-ukraine-aid/678148/

Jonathan Chait: Trump Threatens ‘Four Years of Scorched Earth’ If Trump Retakes Power Sounds like a fun time for America.

Presidential candidates usually promise that everybody will be happy if they win. One of the historically unusual aspects of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is that he is promising to punish his political enemies in the event he gains power. “I am your warrior, I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” he vowed last year.

Trump has been persuaded to turn down the volume on the threats of vengeance, but his allies are continuing to advance this message. Lara Trump, the candidate’s daughter-in-law whom he installed as co-chair of the Republican National Committee because the incumbent merely cast doubt on the 2020 election without going so far as to conclusively say Trump won, unleashed this terrifying promise:

He showed us a whole lot that we didn’t know was going on — within the media, within Washington, D.C. He exposed a lot of people. So they have to do everything they can to keep him out of that White House ’cause they know Donald Trump gets in for four more years, the jig is up for them. The gloves are off. There are no holds barred here. He is going full-throttle. He’s not worried about winning another election. It’s four years of scorched earth when Donald Trump retakes the White House.

This is consistent with the approach Trump has consistently taken to the office. As president, Trump saw himself as the leader of a faction, rather than the entire country, openly favoring states and areas that he saw as loyal. He used policy to punish owners of independent media, and sicced special prosecutors on his “deep state” enemies.

As a candidate, he’s promising pardons for the violent offenders who assaulted police officers in a coup attempt and manically insisting presidents should be given “total immunity” to commit crimes while in office. (He’s made five posts on this theme Friday morning alone.)

Trump’s conservative apologists either ignore all this or wave it away by pointing to his first term, when Trump’s attempts to weaponize government against his enemies proved ineffectual or were thwarted by uncooperative appointees.

But this isn’t some obstacle Trump is unaware of. The candidate and his inner circle are deeply aware of his inability to crush his enemies during his first term. They are engaged in serious planning efforts to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Now, it’s possible they will fail. But to ignore their plain intention to turn the government into a weapon of vengeance against a slew of enemies, ranging from political figures to media, is to gamble with the future of the republic. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/lara-trump-four-years-of-scorched-earth-if-trump-wins.html

NY Times Editorial: Donald Trump and American Justice

While a Manhattan jury weighs the evidence of Mr. Trump’s alleged crimes, it’s the American people who will weigh the evidence of Mr. Trump’s actions. His party has allowed him to act with impunity, but voters still have the power to deliver accountability. They should consider not only the facts presented during the trial — the details about his judgment, his character and the way he conducted his life and his business — but also his disregard for the rule of law and his willingness to demean American justice when it suits his interests. Those actions render him manifestly unfit for office and would pose unique dangers to the United States during a second term. The greatest of those dangers, and the one that Americans should be most attuned to, is the damage that a second Trump presidency would inflict on the rule of law. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/opinion/donald-trump-trial.html

David Atkins: The Putin Republicans Have the Upper Hand

It may sound outlandish to normie voters, but an increasingly large number of Republicans are big fans of Putin and want America to look more like Russia, not the other way around. To the Trump right, Putin’s Russia, like Viktor Orban’s Hungary, is seen as an anti-LGBTQ, patriarchal, pro-oil, anarcho-capitalist, anti-woke, Christian nationalist state they wish America could be. The Russian strongman is their beau ideal of a leader, and Republican politicians like Ted Cruz have shared videos of macho posturing Russian military propaganda to denigrate America’s own supposedly woke armed forces. The GOP base is drowning in anti-Ukraine rhetoric. Fox News’ former star host, Tucker Carlson, actively wants Russia to win the war.

Trump himself has both corrupt and ideological incentives to help Putin and Russia. The former president’s business ties with Russian oligarchs are well documented, but they also share a worldview. Trump finds democracy messy, likes authoritarianism, and wants to be a dictator himself.

Trump would turn the United States into a right-wing authoritarian state where theocrats run social policy, oil companies dominate energy policy, and big business runs economic policy. He and Putin both want to carve up the world between America, Russia, and other far-right governments into spheres of influence. They want to destroy NATO and the liberal international order and destabilize liberal democratic leaders in favor of like-minded tyrants. Both Putin and Trump would turn their respective countries into isolationist fortresses explicitly hostile to immigration, cosmopolitanism, human rights, or the defense of vulnerable democracies such as the Baltic states.

Many old-school Republicans, like former Representative Liz Cheney, balk at this vision of the future. There are still enough Congressional Republicans to pass aid to Ukraine and Taiwan with Democratic support, but they are rapidly being eclipsed by the pro-Putin faction. Last week, House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner of Ohio, a supporter of Ukraine aid, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Russian propaganda has “absolutely” seeped into the comments of some of his GOP colleagues. Earlier this month, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul of Texas, who also favors assistance to Kyiv, told Puck’s Julia Ioffe that Russian propaganda had “infected a good chunk of my party’s base.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressly cited this divide as one of the reasons for his looming retirement from leadership at year’s end.

Should Trump be reelected, the world will be shrouded in a global axis of far-right authoritarianism. But this could not just be the struggle of a single generation. As artificial intelligence technology develops exponentially, the information ecosystem in which it grows and the values it is trained in could shape human societies around the globe for a long time to come.

Passing assistance for Ukraine quickly—and ensuring that the beleaguered European nation does not fall under Putin’s control—could determine the fate of the world for decades to come. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/04/17/the-putin-republicans-have-the-upper-hand/

Robin Givhan: Trump, hush money and the increasingly quaint notion of embarrassment

The New York charges, of which there are 34, have sometime been referred to as comprising the “runt” of the criminal cases against Trump because legal experts view them as the fuzziest and weakest. The road to Bragg’s accusation of election interference winds through a sordid field of tabloid stories, porn, payoffs and sex. Nonetheless, sitting in a courtroom as a criminal defendant is serious business and having to do so as a former president speaks to both the power of this democracy and the fragility of it. There’s nothing small about this case, it’s just that the country’s fealty to decency, respectability and honesty has retreated further and further into the distance.

The elements of the New York case occurred back before Trump’s election lies helped to spark an insurrection, before Trump saw “good people” among the white nationalists marching in Charlottesville clutching tiki torches and spewing hate, before Trump aspired to use the American military to intimidate fellow citizens exercising their right to free speech and assembly. Those things shocked the consciousness until they no longer did. Until they became mere markers on the road to … where? As the completed jury was being settled, a man tossed pamphlets filled with conspiracy theories into the air and set himself ablaze across from the courthouse. Bystanders screamed, police and civilians attempted to douse the flames, and the man was rushed to a hospital. Law enforcement made statements. Security was discussed. The trial would press on. And then, within minutes, it seemed, the horror had faded. The surprise had dissipated. We are numb.

This case isn’t marked by dire references to top-secret documents or calls to halt the peaceful transfer of power or a shady plot to find votes. It’s more human scale than that. And so, it takes us back to a time when we still — occasionally — treated each other like humans instead of adversaries, mobs, monsters and heretics. Despite all the attendant security, scrutiny and Trump’s own bluster, this is the trial that reminds the public that the former president is merely a man — not a god, not an omnipotent leader, not the bearer of Everyman’s burden. His alleged crimes are those borne out of fear and shame. This is a trial that reminds us of the smallness of Trump even as the idea of him, the myth of him has become outsize.

The former president and his lawyers have worked mightily to delay the start of this case, but now that it has launched, it’s moved more briskly than many expected. It was both heartbreaking and heartening to follow along as the jury was assembled. New Yorkers’ anxieties and fears bubbled to the surface in the cold, dingy courtroom in Lower Manhattan as they considered the pressure they would face and what it would mean if their identity were made public as members of the jury sitting in judgment of Trump. Some even wept. But as riddled with emotion as they were, they retained an earnest desire to do right by a fellow citizen even if it was one whose political beliefs they abhorred, whose personality they found savage and whose behavior they deemed foul.

The public knows little about the jurors as a matter of security. But the details that are known paint them as New Yorkers with varying political opinions and professions who are engaged with the daily news to widely different degrees. They are tasked with looking into our past and brushing the dust off old saws such as shame, shock and dignity.

They have promised to be fair, which is to say that they’ve agreed to treat the defendant with respect. That, too, is a quaint notion. Bless them for holding fast to it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/04/20/trump-hush-money-increasingly-quaint-notion-embarrassment/