US Politics

When former President Bill Clinton showed up at the White House in early 2023, he was there to join President Joe Biden to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act. It was hard to avoid the fact that it had been three decades since Clinton was in office – yet at 77, he’s somehow three years younger than Biden.

Biden, now 80 years old, is the first octogenarian to occupy the Oval Office – and his main rival, former President Donald Trump, is 77. A Monmouth University poll taken in October 2023 showed that roughly three-quarters of voters think Biden is too old for office, and nearly half of voters think Trump is too old to serve.

My former boss, President George H.W. Bush, happily chose not to challenge Clinton again in the 1996 election. If he had run and won, he would have been 72 at the 1997 inauguration. Instead, he enjoyed a great second act filled with humanitarian causes, skydiving and grandchildren. Bush’s post-presidential life, and American ideals of retirement in general, raise the question of why these two men, Biden and Trump – who are more than a decade and a half beyond the average American retirement age – are stepping forward again for one of the hardest jobs in the world.

A trend toward older people

Trump and Biden are two of the three oldest men to ever serve as president. For 140 years, William Henry Harrison held the record as the oldest person ever elected president, until Ronald Reagan came along. Harrison was a relatively spry 68 when he took office in 1841, and Reagan was 69 at his first inauguration in 1981.

When Reagan left office at age 77, he was the oldest person ever to have served as president. Trump left office at age 74, making him the third-oldest to hold the office, behind Reagan and Biden.

According to the Census Bureau, the median age in America is 38.9 years old. But with the average ages in the House and Senate at 58 and 64, respectively, a word often used to describe the nation’s governing class is “gerontocracy.”

Teen Vogue, which recently published a story explaining the word to younger voters, defines the term as “government by the elderly.” Gerontocracies are more common among religious leadership such as the Vatican or the ayatollahs in Iran. They were also common in communist ruling committees such as the Soviet Politburo during the Cold War. In democracies, elderly leaders are less common.

Beyond the White House

Biden and Trump aren’t the only aging leaders in the U.S. It’s a bipartisan trend: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, is 72, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, is 81. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley was just reelected and has turned 90, with no plans to retire. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is 81 and hasn’t mentioned retirement at all.

In the House, California Democrat and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at age 83, just announced she’s running for reelection for her 19th full term in office. Bill Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, and Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who serves as the nonvoting delegate from Washington, D.C., are both 86. Kentucky Republican Harold Rogers and California Democrat Maxine Waters are both 85. Maryland Democrat Steny Hoyer is 84. The list goes on, and none of these politicians has indicated they’re retiring.

A local pharmacist on Capitol Hill made headlines a few years ago when he revealed that he was filling Alzheimer’s medication prescriptions for members of Congress. Every one of the 20 oldest members of Congress is at least 80, and this is the third-oldest House and Senate since 1789.

In July 2023, Sen. Mitch McConnell appeared to freeze while speaking with the media, raising questions about his age and health.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Delayed retirement

What’s going on here?

Most baby boomers who delay retirement do so because they can’t afford to stop working, due to inflation or lack of savings. But all of these political leaders have plenty of money in the bank – many are millionaires. If they retired, they would enjoy government pensions and health care benefits in addition to Medicare. So for them, it’s not likely financial.

One theory is that it’s denial. No one likes to be reminded of their own mortality. I know people who equate retirement with death, often because of others they know who have passed away just after stepping down — which may explain why both Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stayed so long on the job, dying while still in office at age 90 and 87, respectively.

For others, it’s identity-driven. Many of the senior leaders I’ve seen have worked so hard for so long that their entire identity is tied to their jobs. Plus, years of hard work means they don’t have hobbies to enjoy in their remaining years.

Another theory is ego. Some lawmakers think they’re indispensable – that they’re the only ones who can possibly do the job. They’re not exactly humble.

In the political world, their interest is often about power as well. These are the types who think: Why wouldn’t I want to keep casting deciding votes in a closely divided House or Senate, or keep giving speeches and flying around on Air Force One as president, or telling myself I’m saving democracy?

It’s easy to see why so few of them want to walk away.

Age limits?

There have been calls to impose age limits for federal elected office. After all, federal law enforcement officers have mandatory retirement at 57. So do national park rangers. Yet the most stressful job in the world has no upper age limit.

For those who think mandatory retirement is ageist and arbitrary, there are other options: Republican candidate Nikki Haley has called for compulsory mental competency tests for elected leaders who are 75 and older, though she has said passing wouldn’t be a required qualification for office, and failing wouldn’t be cause for removal. A September 2023 poll shows huge majorities of Americans support competency testing. That way, the public would know who was sharp and who was not. Sounds like a fine idea to me.

So does having the generosity to step aside and think of others. And having the wisdom to realize that life is short and about more than just going to work. And having the grace to do what John F. Kennedy, the nation’s second-youngest president, once said: to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans.

My colleague professor Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, puts it well: “I’m 70, so I have great sympathy for these people: 80 is looking a lot younger than it used to, as far as I’m concerned. But no, it’s ridiculous. We’ve got to get back to electing people in their 50s and early 60s.” And the polling shows that most Americans would say, “Amen, brother.” More

At least 15 other people are running for president in 2024, but none of them look like Brooklyn’s Paperboy Love Prince. When the artist, rapper and non-binary activist filed to run in the New Hampshire primary last month, they showed up wearing a voluminous brocade jacket, gold pantaloons and MSCHF’s Big Red Boots, Super Mario-esque shoes made by the designers behind Lil Nas X’s Satan sneakers.They looked like a cartoon character. It’s all part of the act.“The folks who are in office have been in there more than many kings, queens and monarchs,” Paperboy says. “At that point, they become so out-of-touch with what it’s like to be an everyday American. My focus now is to highlight that by not blending in with them.”Blending in has never been an issue for Paperboy. They achieved local recognition during a 2021 New York mayoral run with a platform that included canceling rent, abolishing the police and legalizing psychedelics. Paperboy Prince is also a rapper, releasing topical songs such as Futuristic Schools, a rallying cry to improve public education. (Sample lyrics: “We need to raise the IQ of our nation / See the future of schools like That’s So Raven”).Working out of their Love Gallery, a community space in Brooklyn’s rapidly gentrifying Bushwick neighborhood, Paperboy sells merch, distributes food, clothing and books, and holds a 24/7 Twitch live stream. Outside sits the Love Bus, painted pink, green and rainbow cheetah print; during an impromptu photoshoot Paperboy jumps on top and starts waving to drivers passing by.Love is all around Paperboy, who has made it the center of their campaign. “I’m fighting for centering this country around love, putting it first, being anti-war, and pro-love, and creating love centers around the country,” they say. Think of these as town halls where people can gather, meet friends, learn new skills, or, in Paperboy’s words, “create a love connection”.Running against candidates who espouse racist and transphobic rhetoric only validates Paperboy’s campaign of compassion, they say. “If you’re going to choose love, confidently choose love, because the people who are choosing hate right now are confidently choosing hate.”Paperboy does not give their age – they believe reporters place too much focus on it. Ask where they’re from, and they’ll say “the African side of the moon”. They don’t like to claim heritage in any one place. “That’s what gets us to start separating ourselves from other people,” they explain. “I’m all about bringing us together.”Paperboy was born on Earth, though, growing up between New York and Maryland, with a Pentecostal bishop grandfather and equally devout parents. Paperboy counts their father as one of their biggest inspirations, alongside Kid Cudi and Bob Marley. (During an interview, Paperboy blasted the reggae icon’s music from a nearby speaker.)“When I was a kid, I watched my dad working with people who were homeless, or unhoused, or incarcerated, along with mothers and students,” they say. “He created programs for the youth, using whatever resources he had, to better the lives of people around him. That’s what inspires me to do the same.”Paperboy got into politics through rapping, taking an interest in Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign and promise of universal basic income.They were also fed up with parking tickets: while working as a TaskRabbit, Paperboy got so many parking tickets (“like, $1,000 worth”) that traffic cops booted their car. They needed their car for work and called their local representative for help getting it back. They didn’t hear back.“I realized [politicians] don’t actually care about us,” Paperboy said. “There’s not enough compassion, so I decided to run on love.” Paperboy likes to campaign outside New York City’s department of finance, where people go to pay parking tickets. “It’s still one of my biggest areas for recruitment into my campaign,” they said.As someone who wears a Game Boy around their neck and who advocates for building underwater cities and mandating recess for all, Paperboy’s used to getting treated like a joke by mainstream politicians.They’ve made friends with Vermin Supreme, a longtime satirical candidate in New Hampshire primaries, known for wearing a boot as a hat and promising a free pony for every American. But Paperboy’s dead serious about their platform and feels their antics bring attention to the ridiculous nature of modern politics.“Right now, the folks who are running for president are basically the mouthpieces for major corporations that have bought out political parties,” they said. “These people are way less genuine than any character; Mickey Mouse has more soul than these folks. So, yeah, I’m a character, but I’m the character that’s here to wake people up.” More

‘The whole secret of politics is knowing who hates who,” Kevin Phillips told the journalist Garry Wills during the 1968 US presidential campaign.Phillips, who has died aged 82, was the political analyst behind Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy”, aimed at exploiting racial tensions to draw to the Republican side the more conservative voters in the south, where the Democrats had dominated since the American civil war primarily because Abraham Lincoln had been a Republican.Although both he and Nixon later played down his direct influence, Phillips’ keen perception of the changing antipathies of the American electorate, detailed in his 1969 book The Emerging Republican Majority, lay at the heart of Nixon’s victory.Phillips’s analysis was not limited to the south. He realised that traditional working-class Democrats were becoming alienated not just by the party’s embrace of civil rights, but were also sympathetic to conservative positions against the Vietnam war, protest, federal spending and the 1960s “cultural revolution”.Though he predicted their drift rightward to the Republicans, he could not foresee the long-term effect of this political tsunami, stoked by culture wars, and he eventually disavowed the division his work had sowed, becoming, by the George W Bush presidency, a leading voice of apostate Republicanism.Phillips’ analysis echoed a century of US political history. After John F Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965) through Congress. Johnson was a master of political compromise, but when he signed the latter bill, he supposedly told an aide, “there goes the south”.The so-called “solid south” always voted Democrat, but these naturally conservative “Dixiecrats” were at odds with the rest of their party, which primarily represented working people in the north.Similarly, the Republicans were traditionally a party of big business, led by industrial magnates whose sense of noblesse oblige rendered them relatively liberal on social issues. But they also harboured a fierce right wing committed to undoing Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and opposed to any hint of government regulation.These factional divisions facilitated legislative compromise, but Johnson’s prediction soon proved true, as Dixiecrats deserted to the Republicans. Starting with Nixon’s re-election in 1972, Republicans swept the south five times in nine presidential elections, stymied only by the southerners Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.Phillips was born in New York City, where his father, William, was chairman of the New York State Liquor Authority, and his mother, Dorothy (nee Price), was a homemaker. He graduated from Bronx high school of science at 16, by which time he had already begun studying the political makeup of his city, discerning an antagonism towards the black and Hispanic community by the white working-class children of an older generation of immigrants.Already a loyal Republican, after graduation he headed the Bronx’s youth committee supporting the re-election of Dwight D Eisenhower. He earned his BA in political science from Colgate University in 1961, having spent a year at Edinburgh University studying economic history, and took a law degree from Harvard in 1964.His political career began as an aide to the Republican congressman Paul Fino, from the Bronx, where he realised that despite Fino’s relatively liberal domestic positions Republicans could not depend on minority voters.Phillips lent his prodigious research into the breakdown of the nation’s congressional districts to the Nixon campaign, and after the election he became a special assistant to the attorney general John Mitchell, Nixon’s campaign manager, who would be jailed in the fallout from the Watergate scandal.He left Mitchell in 1970, becoming a commentator, with a syndicated newspaper column, his own newsletter and regular appearances as a broadcasting pundit. Phillips later traced Republican failures back to Watergate, although ironically it was his tip to the Nixon aide Jeb Magruder about the damaging information that might be in the Democratic party chairman Larry O’Brien’s Watergate office that precipitated the fatal burglary.Phillips coined the terms “sun belt” for the fast-growing areas of the southern and south-western states, and “new right” to distinguish the populist politics of Ronald Reagan from those of “elitists” such as Nelson Rockefeller. But as the white working-class shrank, along with its jobs, the politics of resentment grew more divisive. Dog-whistles to racists, from Reagan’s “welfare queens” to George HW Bush’s Willie Horton ads portraying a black murderer, culminated in the 1994 “Republican revolution” which captured Congress and proceeded to shut down the government.What Phillips had not foreseen was the impossibility of political compromise now that all the different reactionaries were in the same Republican boat. Watching the growing economic inequality which sprang from the Reagan years, he began to have second thoughts. His belief in his party as a stable, serious preserver of the status quo began to fall apart.Starting with Wealth and Democracy (2002), Phillips produced a series of books excoriating what he saw as George W Bush’s plutocratic revolution, recalling the robber barons of the 19th-century Gilded Age. He warned of an instinct toward authoritarianism under the guise of fighting so-called liberal permissiveness.Phillips castigated the Bushes further in American Dynasty (2004) for aiding already rich investors, especially in the sun belt’s energy and defence industries, at the whim of the Pentagon and CIA. American Theocracy (2006) recognised the growing influence of fundamentalist Christians in the Republican party, a dystopian vision of ideological extremism mixed with greed-driven fiscal irresponsibility.His 2008 book Bad Money focused on what he called “bad capitalism”, relying on financial services instead of industrial production. After the 2008 financial crash, he wrote a sequel, After The Fall (2009). By now he was a regular in such centrist outlets as National Public Radio or the Atlantic, where he found himself explaining how his analysis of the changing American electorate led, with some inevitability, to the polarised society that elected the authoritarian Donald Trump.Among his 15 books, Phillips also produced a biography of the US president William McKinley (2003) and 1775: A Good Year for Revolution (2012), about the circumstances which precipitated that war.He is survived by his wife, Martha (nee Henderson), whom he married in 1968, and their three children, Betsy, Andrew and Alec. More

Despite facing multiple criminal charges, Donald Trump remains the frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But in South Carolina, a traditionally conservative southern state, a split is opening up between Trump loyalists and more moderate Republicans who are fearful of what their party has become. The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone investigate More

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said on Sunday that the party has “its work cut out for us” in response to new polling that shows President Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump in five of six swing states.The survey by the New York Times and Siena College of voters in six battleground states, was released with 365 days to go until the 2024 presidential election.Biden is ahead in Wisconsin, but Trump topped the survey in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The margins ranged from three to 10 percentage points, and reflected an erosion of support among the fragile, multiracial coalition that elected Biden over Trump in 2020.Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, Blumenthal of Connecticut, said: “I was concerned before these polls, and I’m concerned now. These presidential races over the last couple of terms have been very tight. No one is going to have a runaway election here. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, concentration, resources. And so we have our work cut out for us.”However, Blumenthal praised Biden’s record, pointing to his diplomacy on the Israel-Hamas war – which has dismayed some on the progressive side of the party – saying the president’s leadership “has been critical … where he’s forged a bipartisan consensus in favor of a peaceful outcome with a Palestinian state as the goal.”Dr Don Levy, director of Siena College Research Institute, said the states in the poll would be crucial in 2024: “While Biden has a narrow three-point lead in Wisconsin, Trump leads by 11 points in Nevada, seven points in Georgia, five points in Arizona and three points in both Michigan and Pennsylvania.“If the 2024 matchup featured a Democrat other than Biden running against Trump, the ‘generic’ Democrat would be ahead by seven to 12 points in five of the states and ahead by three points in Nevada,” Levy said.Across the six battleground states, 59% disapprove of the Job Biden is doing as president and 71% said he was too old, while only 38% said Trump was too old. Biden is aged 80 and Trump is 77.Asked about the survey, the Biden campaign said there was a long way to go before election day. “Predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. Don’t take our word for it: Gallup predicted an 8 point loss for President Obama only for him to win handedly a year later,” Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said in a statement, referring to Democrat Barack Obama’s 2012 victory over Republican Mitt Romney.Munoz added that Biden’s campaign “is hard at work reaching and mobilizing our diverse, winning coalition of voters one year out on the choice between our winning, popular agenda and Maga (Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan) Republicans’ unpopular extremism. We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll.”Biden’s multiracial and multigenerational coalition appears to be fraying, the polls showed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVoters under age 30 favor Biden by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and his advantage in urban areas is half of Trump’s edge in rural regions, the polls showed.Black voters – a core Biden demographic – are now registering 22% support in these states for Trump, a level the New York Times reported was unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times.
Reuters contributed to this report More

Bernie Sanders has stepped up his calls for a humanitarian pause in Gaza, demanding an immediate stop to Israeli bombing and an end to the killing of thousands of “innocent men, women and children” in the enclave.In some of his strongest words in the 30-day war, the independent US senator from Vermont decried the 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel. He labelled Hamas as an “awful terrorist organization” that had “slaughtered 1,400 people in cold blood”, reiterating his belief that Israel had the right to defend itself.But speaking on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Sanders said the death of civilians had to stop. “What Israel does not, in my view, have a right to do is to kill thousands of thousands of innocent men, women and children who had nothing to do with that attack,” he said.The senator added: “There’s not enough food, there’s not enough water, medicine, fuel. You’ve got a humanitarian disaster, it has to be dealt with right now.”Sanders continues to be influential on the progressive flank of US politics at a time of deepening rifts on the left over the response to the war. He walks a fine line, condemning the civilian death toll caused by Israeli air strikes while resisting calls for a full-on ceasefire.“I don’t know how you could have a permanent ceasefire with an organization like Hamas which is dedicated to destroying the state of Israel … and has got to go,” he told CNN.Several members of the progressive wing of the Democratic party have gone further, demanding an immediate ceasefire and challenging the Biden administration’s plans to send emergency military aid package to Israel. In a newly-released video, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib, accused Joe Biden of supporting “genocide” and demanded he back a “ceasefire now”.Sanders declined CNN’s invitation to condemn Tlaib, saying: “We don’t have to quibble about words … Rashida is a friend of mine, her family comes from Palestine, I think she’s been shaken, as all of us are, about what is going on right now.”Republicans in the US House last week passed a $14.3bn military aid package for Israel. Democrats have indicated they are likely to oppose any similar bill that reaches the upper chamber given its inclusion of spending cuts for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).Sanders said that he would judge any aid package when it reaches the Senate, but said it should be made contingent on ending civilian deaths. “It’s terribly important that, as we debate that, to say to Israel, ‘You want this money, you got to change your military strategy’.”Sanders’ call for an end to the bombing to allow humanitarian aid to reach desperate Palestinians came as the US secretary of state Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to the West Bank on Sunday. Blinken met the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and, according to read-outs of the conversation, expressed Washington’s desire that the Palestinian Authority, which Abbas heads, should be central in the running of any post-Hamas Gaza.The Biden administration continues to press for a humanitarian pause in the bombardment, both to allow humanitarian aid in and to assist with the release of the more than 240 hostages captured by Hamas on 7 October. Speaking on CBS News’s Face the Nation, the deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer said that while the Biden administration supported Israel’s mission “to go after Hamas” it was also urging more care by the Israeli military to spare the lives of civilians.The current death toll, as released by the Hamas-run ministry of health, is more than 9,770 Palestinians.Finer said that the US had had “many direct conversations” with the Israeli government emphasising “their obligation to distinguish between civilians and fighters … Some of the images and events that we’ve seen transpire in Gaza have been heartbreaking for all of us.”So far the US call for a reduction in the civilian death toll has failed to sway Israeli military thinking. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has dismissed the idea of a temporary ceasefire until all of the hostages are released.Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, ruled out any humanitarian pause on Sunday. Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, he said such a break in the air strikes and ground incursion would allow Hamas to “rearm and regroup and prevent us from achieving our goal to destroy Hamas’s terrorist capabilities”.Erdan claimed “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza”. He also insisted that Israel “never intentionally targets civilians. We do everything that is possible to minimize and mitigate civilian casualties.”Fears that the Gaza fighting will spill over into a wider regional war are also roiling political debate in the US. On Monday, a bi-partisan resolution will be presented in the US senate warning Iran not to unleash further fighting on Israel’s northern border through the powerful Iranian-backed militia, Hezbollah.The Republican senator who has co-authored the resolution, Lindsey Graham, told CNN that the resolution threatens Iran with a US military response should it open up a second front against Israel. “The resolution puts Iran on notice that all this military force in the region will be coming after you if you expand this way by activating Hezbollah or killing Americans through your proxies in Syria and Iraq,” he said.Richard Blumenthal, Graham’s Democratic partner behind the resolution, called the non-binding motion “aggressive but absolutely necessary”. “The key word here is deterrence – the purpose of the resolution is to deter Iran by showing we’re going to be behind the president as he seeks to stop the war from widening or escalating.” More

Donald Trump has appeared at times angrily under siege as he stews over his predicament in the New York civil fraud case, according to people close to the former president, particularly furious in recent weeks with the witness testimony that could result in the end of the Trump Organization empire.The rulings from the presiding New York state supreme court justice Arthur Engoron, who found that Trump and co-defendants were liable for fraud and ordered all of Trump’s adult children to testify at the ongoing trial, for instance, have taken a toll.“So sad to see my sons being PERSECUTED in a political Witch Hunt by this out of control, publicity seeking, New York State Judge, on a case that should have NEVER been brought,” Trump partially wrote in one Truth Social post. “Legal Scholars Scream Disgrace!”And Trump was furious when the judge imposed a gag order against him in the New York case, as well as when the judge enforced $15,000 in fines last week after deciding that Trump violated its prohibitions by assailing the judge’s law clerk.But Trump appears to have been otherwise content with his legal situation, including with the multiple criminal cases that are marching towards trial, the people said – an observation that the playbook he reverts to when feeling threatened, to attack and delay, has lately been successful.That strategy has not always worked out for Trump. In fact, it has sometimes created more serious problems, such as when he attacked the prosecutors investigating his retention of classified documents – only to have his comments used against him in the subsequent indictment.But the well-worn legal playbook of attacking and distracting in recent weeks has brought Trump victories in court that have actually buoyed and emboldened him, the people said, despite the mounting legal peril he stares down from his multiple pending civil and criminal cases and a series of key fellow defendants in the Georgia election interference case taking plea deals.That playbook was on display in the New York civil fraud case on Friday, when Trump’s lawyer Chris Kise repeatedly fired missiles during the trial, sparring with the judge over notes he was being passed by the same law clerk that Trump had been fined for disparaging.It was unclear whether it came at Trump’s direction or whether it was his lawyer’s initiative, but the attacks had an effect: the prosecutor from the New York attorney general’s team complained it affected his presentation, and it also served to distract from Eric Trump’s sometimes shaky testimony.Trump has been particularly jubilant at how the playbook has given him wins in the federal criminal cases, the people said, starting with the judge in the classified documents case appearing inclined to push back key deadlines that could result in delaying the start of the trial.The former president has made it no secret that his overarching legal strategy in his criminal cases is to seek delay, ideally beyond the 2024 election in November, in the hopes that winning re-election could enable him to potentially pardon himself or direct his attorney general to drop the charges.The prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith had explicitly complained that Trump’s requests to postpone some deadlines – because the trail dates being so close together could cause them to “collide” – amounted to a request to delay the trial.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut encouraged by Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche, who in an audacious moment blamed prosecutors for the hectic trial schedule because they had the gall to charge him with crimes in Florida in Washington, the judge suggested she would make adjustments as requested by Trump’s team.Trump has also expressed satisfaction with his lawyers pushing back in the 2020 election subversion case, the people said, including with the lawyers who asked the DC circuit on Friday to temporarily pause the gag order prohibiting him from assailing prosecutors and potential trial witnesses.In that matter, however, the playbook showed its penchant for biting him long-term: Trump had the gag order temporarily lifted pending appeal, but drew a massively unfavorable panel of judges nominated by Democratic presidents, who are almost certain to ultimately rule against him. More

The new speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, faces the tough task of uniting a fractured Republican party, and preventing a quick-approaching government shutdown. Jonathan Freedland and Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post discuss what we have learned about his approach to the job from his first week with the gavel.
Plus, as we prepare for next week’s off-year elections, Jonathan speaks to Carter Sherman about Virginia – the last remaining southern state without extensive abortion restrictions. They look at why results there could prove pivotal for Republican chances in 2024

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