Evelyn Reynolds

The US House of Representatives plans to vote next week to advance $17.6bn in military aid to Israel without any accompanying spending cuts or assistance for Ukraine, according to Mike Johnson, the chamber’s speaker.Johnson announced to his fellow House Republicans on Saturday that the vote would take place, while also criticizing a parallel move in the US Senate to pair funding for Israel in its military strikes in Gaza with aid for Ukraine as it fends off Russia’s invasion. The Senate measure also aims to attach a raft of tough border and asylum measures favored by rightwingers to aid for Israel.A compromise on these various aims had been sought by a bipartisan group in the Senate that hoped to find increasingly rare common ground between Republicans and Democrats. But Johnson, a hardline rightwing Republican from north-western Louisiana, has said the Senate package would not pass the House because it is not sufficiently tough on people trying to cross the US’s southern border with Mexico.“Their leadership is aware that by failing to include the House in their negotiations, they have eliminated the ability for swift consideration of any legislation,” Johnson wrote of members of the US Senate in his letter to his House Republican colleagues. “Next week, we will take up and pass a clean, standalone Israel supplemental package.”A higher priority for Johnson is the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, with a House vote expected next week. Some Republicans have expressed reluctance to find a compromise on immigration or Ukraine given how ongoing controversy on these issues could aid Donald Trump, who holds a single-minded grip over his party as he seeks another presidency in this year’s election.It’s unclear whether the Senate would advance a bill that only provides military aid to Israel to further pursue its war against Hamas, an effort that has already reduced much of Gaza to rubble and caused a humanitarian crisis among the Palestinian population.The Democratic Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, has said he would prefer to work on an overall package that aids Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression – as well as Israel and includes a set of new immigration curbs.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Joe Biden White House has signaled that it is not in favor of an Israel aid-only bill. In November, John Kirby, a spokesperson for Biden’s national security council, said that the president would veto a bill that only provides aid to Israel. More

The 2024 US presidential election campaign, lacking any defining story to tell and with a prevailing lack of enthusiasm in a rematch of candidates in their eighth and ninth decades, last week settled on Taylor Swift – and an endorsement she may or may not make – as its defining obsession.On one side, expectations emanating from the Biden re-election camp were that the 34-year-old superstar would cast her influence over tens of thousands of Swifties their way; on the other, furious Republicans who at first sought to denigrate and wrap her in conspiracy theories, and later thought better of the strategy.Rolling Stone reported that allies of Donald Trump were pledging a “holy war” against Swift if she sides with the Democrats in November. Some theorised that the National Football League is rigging games for Swift’s Kansas City Chiefs boyfriend, Travis Kelce, to sweeten the Democrats endorsement hopes.Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed that the Shake It Off hitmaker had been converted into a psychological operations asset four years ago. The Pentagon hit back, saying: “As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off.”However, not all Republicans are on board with the attacks on Swift. “I don’t know what the obsession is,” presidential candidate Nikki Haley told CNN. “Taylor Swift is allowed to have a boyfriend. Taylor Swift is a good artist. I have taken my daughter to Taylor Swift concerts. To have a conspiracy theory of all of this is bizarre. Nobody knows who she’s going to endorse, but I can’t believe that’s overtaken our national politics.”While many are preoccupied with whether Swift can cross nine time zones to make it back from an Eras Tour concert in Tokyo to see her boyfriend play in next weekend’s Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl in Las Vegas (she can), the intensity of political questions surrounding Swift mirrors the febrile nature of the election 10 months away.View image in fullscreenDoubtless, Swift could offer politicos lessons in values-based messaging, audience understanding and building genuine connections with fans or voters. Last week, Trump argued that he is more popular than her, even if the values-based narratives he presents are often more aligned with self-victimisation than self-empowerment.A survey last year by Morning Consult found 53% of American adults are Swift fans. There are almost as many men as women, almost as many Republicans as Democrats, including baby boomers, millennials, Gen Xers and young adults from Gen Z. In other words, a constituency that could make or break a national political campaign.The recent Republican primary in New Hampshire indicated Trump’s weaknesses with women, who make up much of Swift’s fanbase. But recent polling, too, has shown that Biden’s ratings and support among young voters has dropped and he’s now closely tied in the 18-34 demographic with Trump.“They’re not crazy about Biden,” says Democratic party consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “If they turn out at all, it may be to oppose Trump and with no intensity at all. But if you’re having trouble with younger people, and you need to do something, what better way to cure the problem, or at least show that you are sensitive to it, than to get Taylor Swift out?”David Allan, professor of marketing at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, who teaches a Swift-focused course, says the Republicans will have to navigate the singer.“Republicans need to be careful with Taylor because she’s extremely popular with all-demographic women and some men. You don’t want to appear to be mean because it will only rally her fans,” he says. Conversely, attacking Swift could bring its own counter-intuitive, culture/class war rewards.“You know she’s having some effect if Fox News is attacking her,” Allan says. “For Trump, having Taylor Swift against him gives him something to talk about.” A salient lesson comes from the Dixie Chicks – now the Chicks – who wrecked their careers before the Iraq war when singer Natalie Maines said from a London stage they were ashamed to be that President George Bush was from Texas.In Swift’s documentary,Miss Americana, her father fretted that an overt political position could put her in the same position as the Chicks. But Swift is now believed to be too big to be commercially vulnerable.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs the music industry newsletter Hits Daily Double put it: “Her domination of the marketplace from every conceivable angle is next-level. But she just seems to get bigger, and to rule every area she enters – the rerecorded albums, the massive tour, the blockbuster movie of the tour, the NFL games where her mere presence changes the center of gravity.”Whether or not Swift goes two-feet in with Biden, Allan adds: “It’s getting to that point in the 60s that if Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell didn’t speak out about the Vietnam war it would hurt them with their fans. If she doesn’t do something, even if just to help to get out the vote, it will hurt her authenticity.” In September, Vote.org reported more than 35,000 new political registrations, a 23% jump over last year, after Swift urged her 280 million Instagram followers to sign up.Swift, who was politically cautious until she endorsed Tennessee Democratic senate candidate Phil Bredesen in 2018 (he lost) and then Biden in 2020, has not shown any interest in being adopted by political factions. A 5,000-word New York Times essay that claimed her as more than just queer-friendly was criticised for making overreaching assumptions.View image in fullscreenBut US candidates often seek show business endorsements. “The tradition goes back at least 60 years when [John F] Kennedy brought out Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Judy Garland and others to go stump for them, and country music stars, who have come out mostly for Republicans,” Sheinkopf notes.Other musical endorsements include the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd for Jimmy Carter. But musicians including Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Lady Gaga couldn’t push Hillary Clinton over the line in 2016, and it hasn’t hurt Trump to use Village People’s gay paradise anthem YMCA as a walk-off song, which crowds greatly appreciate.Swift might not even need to formally endorse Biden, Sheinkopf adds. “Even to put it out as rumour makes Biden look less like he’s 81 years old and more like he’s listening to younger people, their subcultural desires and what they feel about things.”For Swift, he says: “She gets to become a decision-maker, and an even larger figure in American and international life. Her public persona becomes as important as her music and that means she’ll make a lot more money.” More

A New Mexico man has said he was hired by a failed Republican candidate for political office to carry out drive-by shootings targeting the homes of Democrats who would not abide by false election-rigging claims.Demetrio Trujillo, 42, indicated in federal court documents filed Friday that he had been hired for the spate of attacks by Solomon Peña, whose run for a seat in the New Mexico state legislature in November 2022 ended in defeat. Trujillo pleaded guilty to charges of election interference, criminal conspiracy and firearms-related offenses, and he could face several years in prison as he awaits a sentencing hearing that wasn’t immediately scheduled, the US attorney’s office in Albuquerque said in a statement.The case followed warnings of escalating political violence in the US, especially after Donald Trump and his supporters widely spread lies that the former president had lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud. Peña, 40, stands charged with lying about how the race he lost had been fraudulently stolen from him, which then fueled a plot to shoot up the houses of New Mexico Democrats, among them the state’s House speaker.He has pleaded not guilty and awaits a trial set for June 2024.Peña approached members of the commission that certifies election results, told them the race he had lost by nearly 50 percentage points had been rigged against him, and asked them to reject its results.The drive-by shootings unfolded in December 2022 and January 2023 shortly after officials certified Peña’s electoral loss. No one was wounded in any of the shootings, though authorities have noted that – in one instance – bullets cut through the bedroom of a state senator’s 10-year-old daughter.Trujillo later told investigators that he knew Peña through acquaintances. Peña hired him to fire bullets at three officials’ homes to intimidate them, Trujillo reported. Investigators charged Peña with carrying out the spree’s fourth drive-by shooting by himself.Ultimately, smartphone communications from Peña, including texts, tied him to the attacks, according to prosecutors. The communications not only pinpointed the targeted officials’ homes. They also purportedly spelled out allegations of election-rigging, and plans to “press the attack” and rage over how voters overwhelmingly rejected him for a seat in New Mexico’s statehouse.“We have to act. … The enemy will eventually break,” Peña is charged with saying in a text to a fellow Republican hours before the series of shooting began. He sent a separate message reading: “It is our duty … to stop the oligarchs from taking over our country.”Federal prosecutors in Albuquerque in June obtained an indictment charging Peña, Trujillo and Trujillo’s son in connection with the drive-by shootings.Jose Louise Trujillo, 22, pleaded guilty on 8 January to charges of illegally using a firearm as well as possessing fentanyl with the intent to distribute it. His sentencing is tentatively set for 8 April.Prosecutors’ statements about the Trujillos’ guilty pleas don’t comment on the case beyond its facts. But, at the time the Trujillos and Peña were indicted, Albuquerque’s US attorney, Alexander Uballez, said the prosecution aimed to demonstrate that “in America, voters pick their leaders, and would-be leaders don’t get to pick which voters they heed, which rules apply to them or which laws to follow”.Since the drive-by shootings attributed to Peña and the Trujillos, New Mexico lawmakers passed legislation that makes it a state felony to intimidate election officials. The legislation also allows some elected officials and political candidates to withhold their home addresses from public, government websites. More

Joe Biden’s closing argument on Friday to South Carolina, the state that rescued his White House dreams four years ago, was not made by Joe Biden. Instead it was Kamala Harris who strode out under a brilliant blue sky to the thunderous cadence of South Carolina State University’s drumline.It was because South Carolina’s voters showed up in the middle of a historic pandemic that Biden became president, she told a modest but enthusiastic crowd in Orangeburg, “and I am the first woman and first Black woman to be vice-president of the United States”.Harris was making her final pitch on the eve of the official kick-off of the Democratic presidential primary. At Biden’s behest, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) altered the electoral calendar so that racially diverse South Carolina holds the first nominating contest instead of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are about 90% white.It could not be described as a cliffhanger. Biden is assured of victory in the state that revived his seemingly doomed campaign in 2020. That formality was underlined by his write-in win in last month’s unsanctioned New Hampshire primary when his name did not even appear on the ballot. But Democrats are still working for a strong turnout to validate both Biden and South Carolina’s elevated status.Biden did visit the Palmetto state last weekend but it was Harris who came to Orangeburg on Friday, meeting faith leaders to discuss issues such as gun violence, prescription drug prices, student debt forgiveness and national unity. She then spoke in a balmy open-air courtyard at South Carolina’s only public historically black college and university (HBCU).The trip signalled that, despite a tenure clouded by negative headlines and approval rating that often lags behind Biden’s, Harris remains critical to the president’s re-election campaign because of her ability to galvanise Black voters and her sharp messaging on abortion rights, a potentially decisive issue. Many Democrats regard her as an asset rather than a liability.View image in fullscreenThe 59-year-old can also expect closer scrutiny than past vice-presidents because her boss is 81, the oldest commander-in-chief in American history. On Friday Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor battling Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, set up a mobile billboard at the edge of the university campus that said: “We’re going to have a woman president. It will either be Nikki Haley, or it will be Kamala Harris. Trump can’t beat Biden, and Biden won’t finish his term.”Harris spoke against the backdrop of a giant blue banner that said “First in the nation”, and checked off administration accomplishments such as job creation, increasing access to high-speed internet in rural areas, cancelling billions in student loan debt and capping insulin costs.But she became most animated when discussing reproductive freedom in the aftermath of the supreme court’s decision to end the constitutional right to abortion. And just as Biden has begun using the name “Trump” frequently as he increasingly draws a contrast, Harris did not shy away from attacking the likely Republican nominee as a profound threat to democracy.“He openly says that he is ‘proud’ that he overturned Roe v Wade,” Harris said. “‘Proud’ that he took the freedom of choice from millions of American women. For years the former president has stoked the fires of hate and bigotry and racism and xenophobia for his own power and political gain.”There were cries of “Yes!” from the audience. Harris went on: “He accused immigrants of ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ and, after neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, he said there were ‘very fine people on both sides’. The former president openly talks about his admiration for dictators and has vowed that he will be a dictator on day one.”Harris went on to summarise the threat of Trump’s authoritarianism in stark terms: “Understand what dictators do. Dictators put journalists in jail. Dictators suspend elections. Dictators take your rights and, as the great Maya Angelou once said, ‘When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.’”The speech, lasting only 14 minutes, struck a chord with Black women young and old. Morgan Mack, 22, a student at the university, said: “She was amazing and she hit on some good points that are going to affect my generation the most, so we just need to go out there and vote.”Mack added: “She’s definitely an asset to Joe Biden and an asset to not just Black women, but women everywhere and HBCU students like myself.”Laura Keith, a teacher who gave her age only as “old”, said Harris has done an “excellent job” as vice-president. “Very intelligent, expresses herself well, stepping out there among the people, speaking to people and giving them a vision of this administration.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOther spectators were similarly positive about Harris’s contribution. Shane McCravy, 23, a screenwriter, said: “She helps keep him in touch with just the minorities. She offers a voice, especially as a Black woman, not just for minority groups but she’s an inspiration for the next generation.“She’s inspiring people, the boys, the girls, whatever colour, that you can choose to do what you want to do and this helps get through that message America is for everyone, no matter who you are.”Pastor William Johnson, 64, added: “She’s part of the plan. We started out three years ago and this is just a continuation of not just making America great but bringing America back. Saving the soul of America.”Harris, herself a graduate of an HBCU – Howard University in Washington – served as the junior senator from California from 2017 to 2021. Her own campaign for president collapsed two months before the first contest but she was chosen by Biden as running mate. Critics mock her speeches as “word salads” and question her management style; defenders say she has been the victims of racism, sexism and the thanklessness of the vice-presidency.Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist based in South Carolina, insisted: “She brings the experience of being a Black woman in America who knows what it’s like to be counted out and knows what it’s like to be at the bottom when you know you have the ability to lead at the top.”Biden and Harris are also boosted by a strong economy including news that the US added 353,000 jobs in January, smashing expectations. A Quinnipiac University national poll this week found Biden with 50% support among registered voters, ahead of Trump on 44%. Yet the president faces discontent over inflation, a border crisis and his handling of the war in Gaza.View image in fullscreenSaturday’s turnout may offer some clues, although it is bound to lower in a year when an incumbent president is running without serious challengers (in 2012, President Barack Obama gained 866,000 votes in the primary here). Biden’s challengers Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson are not expected to make much impact.Seawright, a Democratic strategist based in South Carolina, said: “People feel proud to be a South Carolinian, the fact that we’re first in a nation. People feel grateful and thankful to President Biden for having the steel spine and the political will and courage to recommend South Carolina going first.“People understand the need and the urgency to display their support and unity around President Biden and Vice-President Harris, because we know that this fight ahead will be a lot different than the fight behind.”Elaine Kamarck, who as a member of the DNC voted for South Carolina to go first, thinks this year’s result will have little meaning but that will not be the case next time around. She said: “They are the most loyal base in the party and they ought to have the first say. It’s not going to be a big deal this time but in 2028 it’ll be a very big deal.” More

Joe Biden aims to build on recent momentum on Saturday, when South Carolina officially launches the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.The US president received a boost last month when he won an unsanctioned primary election in New Hampshire without even appearing on the ballot. A grassroots write-in campaign ensured that he brushed aside his challengers Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson.Biden also enters South Carolina buoyed by positive economic news. The economy added 353,000 jobs in January while average hourly earnings rose 0.6%. The unemployment rate stands at 3.7%.It was Biden’s victory here in the 2020 Democratic primary that rescued his broke and flailing campaign, convincing rivals that he was best positioned to win with Black voters and defeat the incumbent, Donald Trump.“In 2020, it was South Carolina that put President Biden and me on the path to the White House,” Vice-President Kamala Harris told an audience in Orangeburg on Friday.But buzz and turnout is sure to be lower this time, as is typical when an incumbent president is running without serious competition. Republicans do not hold their primary in South Carolina until 24 February, after nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.An Emerson College poll last month found that three in 10 South Carolina voters intend to take part in the Democratic primary. Nearly seven in 10 said they plan to vote for Biden compared with 5% for Phillips and 3% for Williamson, while 22% were undecided.Even so, with polls open from 7am to 7pm, it could be a momentous day for Democratic voters in South Carolina, as the state takes on a new role as host of the party’s first official primary election.Last year, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) – encouraged by Biden – rewrote the presidential primary process and put South Carolina first on the calendar, arguing that the state’s racial and economic diversity was more representative of the Democratic party than Iowa or New Hampshire, which are about 90% white.Speaking before a “First in the nation” banner in Orangeburg on Friday, Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, told supporters: “All eyes – not only in America but all over the world – all eyes are on South Carolina right now and I hope you are fired up!”Harrison, who hails from South Carolina himself, noted the state’s long association with slavery and that, for all 48 years of his life, Iowa and New Hampshire had always gone first in picking presidents. “But this president came to this state and he saw us, he heard us, and he said: ‘You know what, you matter.’”He added: “For too long we’ve been relegated to the back of the bus, but now we’re driving the damn bus!”Come November, however, Biden is unlikely to compete hard in South Carolina. the state last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 1976. In 2020, it went to Trump, a Republican, by nearly 12 percentage points. More

A US judge has formally postponed Donald Trump’s trial on federal charges that the former president sought to overturn the 2020 election results.The trial was due to start on 4 March in Washington before the delay ordered from the federal judge Tanya Chutkan.Trial delays in general are not unusual in court cases. The delay in Trump’s trial in particular stems from an appeal by the ex-president that claims he is immune to prosecution for actions taken while he was in the Oval Office.Chutkan had indicated in January that Trump’s original trial date – chosen last summer – would not hold because the case had been frozen by the former president’s appeal.The judge has prohibited prosecutors from filing motions while the appeal is pending and made clear that Trump’s legal team would get a full seven-month period to prepare for the trial. Any time between December and the end of the appeals process would not count against that preparation period, Chutkan has also said.Trump has been grappling with more than 90 criminal charges in various jurisdictions for subversion of the 2020 election, illegal retention of government secrets after he left the Oval Office, and hush-money payments to an adult film actor who has alleged extramarital sex with him.Separately, he has also been ordered to pay about $88m in damages to the former Elle columnist E Jean Carroll after having been found liable of sexually abusing her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s as well as defaming her.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionReuters contributed reporting More

US Central Command has said its forces conducted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.The airstrikes were carried out at 4pm eastern time on Friday, it said.It said US military forces struck more than 85 targets including “command and control operations, centers, intelligence centers, rockets, and missiles, and unmanned aired vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities” belonging to militia groups and their IRGC sponsors.The US had warned it will carry out a series of reprisal strikes launched over more than one day in response to the drone strike over the weekend.The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, did not specify the timing or precise location of strikes during Pentagon press conference on Thursday, but said:
We will have a multi-tier response and we have the ability to respond a number of times depending on the situation … We look to hold the people responsible for this accountable and we also seek to take away capability as we go forward.
Austin insisted that a lot of thought in Washington had gone into ensuring that the US response did not trigger a major escalation.The secretary of defense stressed the US was not at war with Iran and Washington did not know if Tehran was aware of the specific drone strikes on Sunday mounted by what he described as the axis of resistance.Three rounds of airstrikes targeted Iranian militia positions in parts of Deir ez-Zor in eastern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.There have been casualties as a result, NBC reported that the organisation said.The US launched an air assault on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian-backed militias, in an opening salvo of retaliation for the drone strike that killed three US service members in Jordan last weekend, officials have told Associated Press.The initial strikes by manned and unmanned aircraft were hitting command and control headquarters, ammunition storage and other facilities, according to AP.US officials have told Reuters that the strikes targeted facilities linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the militias it backs.The US has begun a wave of retaliatory airstrikes targeting militants in Iraq and Syria, according to reports, in response to a drone attack in northern Jordan which killed three American service personnel and wounded dozens more.The strikes, reported by Associated Press and Reuters, come as Joe Biden joined grieving families at Dover air force base in Delaware on Friday as they honored the three US military personnel killed in the drone attack in Jordan last weekend.The attack on Tower 22 was the first deadly strike against US troops since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October.Responsibility was claimed by the Iranian-backed umbrella group Islamic Resistance, and the US has made no attempt to disguise its belief that Iran was ultimately responsible. Tehran has insisted it had nothing to do with the attack.Biden told reporters earlier this week that he held Iran responsible “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons” to Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful member of the Islamic Resistance group. However, the president added:
I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for. More

E Jean Carroll’s attorney says Donald Trump used a coded expression to call her the C-word during a deposition before she helped the magazine columnist win an $83.3m verdict in her defamation case against the former president.Roberta Kaplan shared the anecdote during an appearance on Friday on the George Conway Explains It All podcast, saying it happened while Trump was deposed at his Mar-a-Lago resort as part of an unrelated, since-dismissed case in which he faced accusations of collaborating with a fraudulent marketing company.As Kaplan told it, at the end of the questioning, Trump’s attorneys ensured the two sides were no longer on the record before he looked at her and remarked: “See you next Tuesday.”The phrase is well-known, thinly veiled code for perhaps the most offensive misogynistic insult that can be directed at a woman, combining words that sound like the first two letters of the word – “C” and “U” – along with words that start with the letters “N” and “T”.Kaplan told Conway that she initially didn’t understand the meaning of what Trump said because the opposing sides weren’t scheduled to meet that upcoming Tuesday. “I, thank God, had no idea what that meant, so I said to him, ‘What are you talking about? I’m coming back on Wednesday,’” Kaplan remarked. “Literally, it was an honest answer. I had no idea what he’s talking about.”Colleagues of Kaplan informed her what Trump had meant by saying “see you next Tuesday” once they were all in their car driving away from Trump’s property, she said.“That is a teenage boy-level joke,” the podcast co-host Sarah Longwell said.View image in fullscreenKaplan replied: “Had I known, I for sure would have gotten angry … I looked like I was being above it all, which I wasn’t. I just did not know.”Conway – a conservative attorney formerly married to Trump’s White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway – punctuated Kaplan’s recollections by saying: “So that’s just an amazing story.”According to Kaplan, Trump had also thrown a temper tantrum that day when his legal team offered to provide lunch to Kaplan and her associates.“There was a huge pile of documents, exhibits, sitting in front of him, and he took the pile and he just threw it across the table – and stormed out of the room,” Kaplan said.That claim in particular called to mind another anecdote produced by testimony to the congressional committee that investigated the Capitol attack staged by Trump supporters after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. A former White House aide testified that Trump angrily threw a plate of food at a wall in the White House – smearing it with ketchup – after his attorney general at the time publicly denied that there had been voter fraud in the race won by Biden.Kaplan represented Carroll in a separate legal matter that saw the former Elle magazine writer sue Trump on accusations that he sexually abused her in a department store changing room in the mid-1990s. Carroll’s lawsuit asserted that Trump then defamed her as he attacked her credibility.On 26 January, a jury in federal court in New York awarded Carroll $18.3m in compensatory damages as well as $65m in punitive retribution over defamatory statements that Trump made against her. Those damages were in addition to an award of about $5m that the presumptive 2024 Republican White House nominee was ordered to pay in May after being found liable for abusing Carroll.Trump has said he intends to appeal the recent verdict awarded to Carroll, which came as he grapples with more than 90 criminal charges in various jurisdictions for subversion of the 2020 election, illegal retention of government secrets after he left the Oval Office, and hush-money payments to an adult film actor who has alleged extramarital sex with him.For her part, Kaplan appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America on Monday and expressed confidence that her team would be able to collect the judgment against Trump.“We might not get it right way,” she said. “But one way or the other, he owns a lot of real estate. It can be sold.” More