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      The Observer view on Donald Trump: utterly unfit for office, he should quit the race for the White House

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      It was the moment America, or at least America’s politicians and media, had been waiting for. It was the day justice finally caught up with Donald Trump. The former president’s manipulation of the 2016 election, by hushing up a sex scandal that threatened his chances, and his attempts to discredit a criminal justice system intent on punishing him, was famously thwarted. It was an all-time presidential and judicial first, a historic result that transformed Teflon Don into Felon Don, thanks to a jury of 12 ordinary men and women and a brave prosecutor, Alvin Bragg.Looked at another way, however, last week’s much anticipated dramatic denouement of the criminal trial of the New York playboy, billionaire and presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate may turn out to be less pivotal than anticipated. According to the US networks, most Americans tuned out weeks ago, not least because cameras were barred from the Manhattan courtroom. One not untypical public survey found that 67% of respondents said a conviction would make no difference to how they voted this autumn. The 34 guilty verdicts were an overnight sensation. But they may not significantly shift the political dial.The consensus view, around which most Republican and Democrat politicians, pundits and commentators swiftly coalesced, is that Trump’s disgrace will dog him for the remainder of the 2024 campaign – but will not doom him. It may even galvanise support. Evidence of the latter phenomenon came quickly. His campaign said it had raised a record $53m (£41.6m) in 24 hours after the verdict. There was a time, not long ago, when a criminal conviction would have destroyed a candidate’s chances. That time has passed.How can this be? It is, objectively, an extraordinary state of affairs. One explanation may be that twice-impeached Trump, possibly the most scandal-prone US president in history, has exhausted Americans’ capacity to be shocked. So egregious has been his behaviour, on so many occasions over the years, that no one is really surprised any more. Or perhaps this apathy and passivity are less to do with Trump and more with a broader public disillusionment with politics and politicians. Whatever the cause, it appears, regrettably, that Trump will ride out this storm and keep his bid for a second presidential term on track.Another key moment looms in early July, when Judge Juan Merchan, the target of his repeated contemptuous taunts, will decide how heavy a sentence to impose. Trump may escape jail given his age, 77, and the absence of prior convictions, although he could receive up to four years. A fine and probation look more likely. In any case, Trump has already signalled his intention to appeal. That process will almost certainly extend beyond the 5 November election. The three other major criminal trials Trump faces – over the alleged theft of classified documents, his role in the 6 January 2021 coup attempt, and electoral interference in Georgia – have all been delayed past polling day. Bottom line: if he defeats Biden, Trump will probably evade punishment entirely.If this prospect seems strange, even scandalous, then consider another big anomaly exposed by this trial. No previous US president, serving or retired, has been found guilty of a crime. Yet the hallowed US constitution makes no objection to Trump running for, and holding, the country’s highest office, even from inside a prison. This is another reason, along with the antiquated electoral college system and the politicisation of a rogue supreme court, to pursue urgent constitutional reform.Positive outcomes were not entirely drowned out by Trump’s unhinged post-trial ravings about a “rigged” process and the supposed threat posed by “millions” of terrorists and mentally unwell migrants seeking to “take over our country”. Most important is the fact that, in the end, Trump was forced to face justice like any other citizen. He is not above the law. He could not hide behind bogus claims of presidential immunity. In this instance, impunity and unaccountability, the twin curses of modern governance, did not prevail.The noisy theatrics, whingeing claims of victimisation and mendacious hype that characterised Trump’s trial performance have paradoxically served to make Biden look more stable, more sensible and certainly more statesmanlike. On Memorial Day, the president delivered a dignified speech at Arlington National Cemetery, ahead of this week’s anniversary of the 1944 D-day landings. While he was paying solemn tribute to America’s war dead, Trump was viciously ranting about “human scum” trying to “destroy” the country.Does Trump have any idea how bad this crude conduct makes him look, how diminished, mean and twisted? It’s a stark contrast with Biden, 81, always dapper and upbeat, if somewhat shaky on his feet. It is hard to imagine a less appealing pitch to the young first-time voters, independents and minorities who, pollsters say, could make all the difference in November’s half-dozen crucial swing states.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe margin of victory is predicted to be wafer thin again this autumn. Trump holds a tiny national lead, and has the edge in most of the battlegrounds. There is evidently all to play for. And while Biden remains a problematic candidate, Trump, on the forensic evidence of recent days, has proved again that he is a truly terrible one – and an unrepentant criminal to boot. He is unfit for office. He should stand down.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk More

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      Minnesota Democrat Dean Phillips calls on New York governor to pardon Trump

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      The outgoing Democratic US representative who failed in his presidential primary challenge against Joe Biden called on the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, to pardon Donald Trump over his criminal conviction for hush-money payments to influence the 2016 election “for the good of the country”.Minnesota representative Dean Phillips, who was the first Democrat to call on fellow party member Henry Cuellar to resign following bribery charges against the Texas representative, urged for the pardon on Friday in a post on X.“Donald Trump is a serial liar, cheater, and philanderer, a six-time declarer of corporate bankruptcy, an instigator of insurrection, and a convicted felon who thrives on portraying himself as a victim,” wrote Phillips, who was first elected to Congress to represent a wealthier suburban area outside Minneapolis in 2019 but gave up seeking re-election to his seat in November to pursue his unsuccessful primary challenge to Biden.Hochul, Phillips added, “should pardon [Trump] for the good of the country”.In another X post on Saturday morning, Phillips doubled down on his call for leniency for the former Republican president.“You think pardoning is stupid? Making him a martyr over a payment to a porn star is stupid. (Election charges are entirely different),” he wrote. Referring to Trump’s claims that he has seen a spike in donations after his conviction, Phillips added: “It’s energizing his base, generating record sums of campaign cash, and will likely result in an electoral boost.”The chances of Hochul pardoning Trump seem slim. The Democratic governor’s statements after Trump’s conviction touted the rule of law, a principle under which “all persons, institutions and entities are accountable” to laws.“Today’s verdict reaffirms that no one is above the law,” Hochul said in a statement after a jury found Trump guilty on Thursday of 34 counts of felony falsification of business records.Hochul also said in a National Public Radio interview “Justice was served” – suggesting potential opposition to a pardon – continuing:“In the state of New York, if you commit a crime, and there’s evidence to demonstrate that you have met the standards of being arrested and brought to a trial and a jury of your peers considers all the evidence, then their verdict must hold.“And that’s exactly how the rule of law has always prevailed in our country. And this is no different. So I just want to make sure everyone knows our rule is no one is above the law.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s campaign claimed on Friday that he had raised $53m following the verdict – breaking GOP records, according to the New York Times. The newspaper notes that Trump’s predominant fundraising entity took in $58m over the second half of 2023, demonstrating the immensity of this windfall.Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who testified that he carried out the hush-money payment in 2016 while Trump successfully ran for the White House, expressed concern about Thursday’s conviction leading to prison time for the former president.Cohen’s remarks seemingly alluded to how Trump, in a separate criminal case pending against him, is charged with improperly retaining classified materials after his presidency and keeping them in areas that weren’t secure.“My concern is in a prison situation … He’s willing to give away the secrets, as I always say, for beggar tuna or a book of stamps, and he will do it because he doesn’t care,” Cohen said on MSNBC’s The Weekend. More

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      Kansas supreme court rules state constitution does not provide the right to vote

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      In a bizarre mixed ruling combining several challenges to a 2021 election law, Kansas’s supreme court has ruled that its residents have no right to vote enshrined in the state’s constitution.The opinion centering on a ballot signature-verification measure elicited fiery dissent from three of the court’s seven justices. But the majority held that the court failed to identify a “fundamental right to vote” within the state.The measure in question requires election officials to match the signatures on advance mail ballots to a person’s voter registration record. The state supreme court reversed a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit that challenged that. The majority of justices on the state supreme court then rejected arguments from voting rights groups that the measure violates state constitutional voting rights.In fact, writing for the majority, Justice Caleb Stegall said that the dissenting justices wrongly accused the majority of ignoring past precedent, holding that the “fundamental right to vote” within the state constitution “simply is not there”.That finding is contrary to the US constitution, which dedicates large portions of itself to the right to vote for citizens.Justice Eric Rosen, one of the three who dissented, wrote: “It staggers my imagination to conclude Kansas citizens have no fundamental right to vote under their state constitution.“I cannot and will not condone this betrayal of our constitutional duty to safeguard the foundational rights of Kansans.”Conversely, the high court unanimously sided with the challengers of a different provision that makes it a crime for someone to give the appearance of being an election official. Voting rights groups, including the Kansas League of Women Voters and the non-profit Loud Light, argued the measure suppresses free speech and their ability to register voters as some might wrongly assume volunteers are election workers, putting them at risk of criminal prosecution.A Shawnee county district court judge had earlier rejected the groups’ request for an emergency injunction, saying that impersonation of a public official is not protected speech.But the high court faulted the new law, noting that it doesn’t include any requirement that prosecutors show intent by a voter registration volunteer to misrepresent or deceive people into believing they’re an election official, and it thus “criminalizes honest speech” where “occasional misunderstandings” are bound to occur, Stegall wrote in the majority opinion.“As such, it sweeps up protected speech in its net,” Stegall said.Because the lawsuit over the false impersonation law’s constitutionality is likely to succeed, the state supreme court ordered the lower court to reconsider issuing an emergency injunction against it.“For three years now, Kansas League of Women Voters volunteers have been forced to severely limit their assistance of voters due to this ambiguous and threatening law,” said the state chapter’s president, Martha Pint. “The league’s critical voter assistance work is not a crime, and we are confident this provision will be quickly blocked when the case returns to the district court.”Loud Light’s executive director, Davis Hammet, said he hopes the lower court “will stop the irreparable harm caused daily by the law and allow us to resume voter registration before the general election”.Neither the Kansas secretary of state, Scott Schwab, nor the state’s attorney general, Kris Kobach, responded to requests for comment on that portion of the high court’s ruling.Instead, in a joint statement, Schwab and Kobach focus on the high court’s language bolstering the signature-verification law and its upholding of a provision that says individuals may collect no more than 10 advance ballots to submit to election officials.“This ruling allows us to preserve reasonable election security laws in Kansas,” Schwab said.Supporters have argued the ballot collection restriction combats “ballot harvesting” and limits voter fraud. The Republican-led legislature passed it over a veto by Kansas’s Democratic governor, Laura Kelly.Critics have said it’s a Republican reaction to baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump, was not valid, prompting a wave of misinformation and voter suppression laws across the country. More

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      Donald Trump had lots of negative opinions about felons. Now he is one.

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      Donald Trump has spent years complaining that American police and the criminal legal system should be “very much tougher”, arguing that some criminals should not be protected by civil liberties, police should rough up suspects and a much wider range of people should face the death penalty for breaking the law.Now that the former president has been convicted on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records, Trump is arguing that the US legal system is out of control. “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” he said on Friday.Here’s a recap of some of Trump’s notable comments about “felons” and “criminals” – and a look at how the convict himself has actually been treated.Trump’s opinion: police officers should rough up suspects as they’re arresting themAddressing an audience of law enforcement officers on Long Island in July 2017, Trump told officers, “Please don’t be too nice”, and he mocked the idea of police making an effort to protect suspects’ heads as they’re put in the back of a police vehicle.“When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over [their head],” Trump said, pantomiming the gesture. “Like: ‘Don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head.’ I said: ‘You can take the hand away, OK?’”How Trump has been treated:On his way to his arraignment in the New York hush-money case last April, Trump was not getting roughed up by officers. He was instead posting angrily on his own social media platform about his feelings about his case. “Heading to Lower Manhattan, the Courthouse,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Seems so SURREAL – WOW, they are going to ARREST ME.” Trump arrived to be fingerprinted and processed via his own eight-car motorcade.Trump also did not get roughed up on his way to jail last August in Fulton county, Georgia, where he faces criminal charges in a separate case related to interference of the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden. Instead, his lawyers reportedly arranged for him to surrender at the Fulton county jail during prime-time cable television viewing hours.View image in fullscreenAfter flying to Atlanta on a private plane, and being processed in an unusually fast 20 minutes, Trump did have to take a mug shot at the jail, which he later said was “not a comfortable feeling – especially when you’ve done nothing wrong”.Trump’s opinion: allowing defendants to be released before their trials is dangerousIn 2010, 16-year-old Khalief Browder was arrested on suspicion of stealing a backpack. The New York teen maintained his innocence, but his family could not afford the $3,000 it cost to bail him out of jail while he awaited trial.Browder ultimately spent three years incarcerated on Rikers Island before facing trial. Suffering from delays, physical abuse and solitary confinement, Browder attempted suicide multiple times. His horrific story would galvanize calls to end cash bail in New York state and nationwide.But Trump has stridently opposed abolishing cash bail. And when New York state embraced cash bail reforms designed to keep more people out of jail while presumed innocent and awaiting trial, Trump criticised the move as dangerous.“So sad to see what is happening in New York where Governor Cuomo and Mayor DeBlasio are letting out 900 Criminals some hardened and bad onto the sidewalks of our rapidly declining because of them city,” Trump tweeted in 2019. “The Radical Left Dems are killing our cities.”How Trump has been treated:The former president had enough money to keep himself out of jail (and continue running for a second presidency) while awaiting his criminal trial in Georgia, though a judge there set his bail at $200,000. (Working through bail bond companies, as Trump did, defendants there typically pay about 10% of the total bail amount upfront.)Trump’s opinion: criminals should be denied civil liberty protectionsIn 1989, after a white woman was raped and bludgeoned while jogging in Central Park, five Black and Hispanic teenagers were falsely accused of the crime, and they said they were coerced into confessing their purported guilt during police interrogations. Trump took out full-page ads in multiple newspapers calling for the city to “unshackle” police from “the constant chants of police brutality” and suggesting the juveniles should be executed for the heinous crime.“BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY,” the advertisements read. “Criminals must be told that their CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS.”Yusef Salaam, who was 15 years old at the time, later said that Trump’s advertisements had left the accused boys and their families frightened: “I knew that this famous person calling for us to die was very serious.”View image in fullscreen“I want to hate these muggers and murderers,” Trump had written in the ad. “They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence.”Even after the Central Park Five were completely exonerated, and the city eventually paid them a multimillion-dollar settlement for taking years of their lives through imprisonment, Trump refused to apologize for his high-profile comments – or to consider the men as innocent.“Why did they all sign confessions and how many people did they mugg [sic] that night in the Park?” he tweeted in 2013. “What about their criminal records?”How Trump has been treated:When Trump was arraigned in New York in the hush-money case in April, Salaam – one of the Central Park Five defendants – published his own advertisement on social media.Salaam argued that Trump’s response to his multiple legal cases had been to warn of “potential death and destruction”, and to repeatedly threaten judges, prosecutors, court staff and others – actions that certainly represented, in Trump’s own words, “an attack on our safety”.Even so, Salaam said, he did not believe Trump’s civil liberties should be suspended.“I am putting my faith in the judicial system to seek out the truth,” the wrongly incarcerated man wrote. “I hope that you exercise your civil liberties to the fullest, and that you get what the Exonerated 5 did not get – a presumption of innocence, and a fair trial.”Salaam added that he hoped, if convicted, Trump would endure his punishment with “strength and dignity”, which his teenage cohort did while serving time for a crime the group did not commit.Other commenters have noted that Trump was in a relatively privileged position to even have his New York criminal case go to trial before a jury. More than 90% of felony convictions at both the state and federal levels are the result of plea bargains – not jury trials. Trials are expensive and time-consuming, and those who cannot afford to pay for a lawyer (which is most people) must rely on overburdened public defenders, who are typically struggling with unmanageably large caseloads.Trump’s team of private attorneys is already preparing to appeal his conviction.Trump’s opinion: criminal penalties should be harsher and more violentIn the decades since his newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, Trump has repeatedly endorsed harsher penalties for a wide range of crimes, including threatening 10-year prison terms for anyone vandalizing a statue or other federal monument, suggesting that people who sell illegal drugs should be executed, and praising the president of the Philippines for his approach to drugs, which included the extrajudicial killings of thousands of suspected drug dealers by both police and vigilantes.View image in fullscreenTrump publicly suggested that soldiers could shoot at people at US borders who throw rocks at them, reportedly suggested in private in 2019 that soldiers shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down, and reportedly made a similar comment about shooting protesters in the legs during the height of the social justice demonstrations prompted by a Minneapolis police officer’s murder of George Floyd in 2020.And it wasn’t just talk: the Trump administration ordered federal prosecutors to pursue the heaviest possible sentences, resumed executing prisoners after 17 years of an informal moratorium on the death penalty at the federal level, pulled the justice department back from investigating local police departments for civil rights violations, and blocked small-business owners with criminal records from receiving federal relief during the coronavirus pandemic.“Criminals only understand strength!” the president tweeted in 2020, criticising Portland’s mayor for his insufficiently tough treatment of local protesters demonstrating against police violence.How Trump will be treated:While Trump falsely claimed he is facing “187 years” in prison after his felony convictions this week, the maximum penalty in his case is actually four years. Legal experts say that, as a first-time offender convicted of a nonviolent crime, Trump is unlikely to face any prison time at all. Instead, his punishment is likely to be some combination of fines, probation and community service.Trump’s opinion: repeated critical statements about felons votingTrump made multiple false claims about thousands of felons illegally voting in Georgia and tipping the 2020 election results against him, according to the Washington Post’s database of 30,573 false or misleading claims that he made as president.When a news report revealed that billionaire Michael Bloomberg had raised $16m in 2020 to support a Florida non-profit’s efforts to restore the voting rights of people with felony convictions, Trump denounced the effort as a crime and accused Bloomberg of trying to buy votes for Biden by “bribing ex-prisoners to go out and vote”. Top Republican officials in Florida announced an investigation into whether Bloomberg had violated the law, and they eventually decided he had not.How Trump will be treated:Despite his felony conviction, Trump is likely to be able to vote in November’s presidential election due to voting rights restoration rules in Florida and New York. If difficulties emerge, he could ask Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, who has endorsed him in the 2024 presidential race, for personal assistance restoring his voting rights. Regardless of whether he can legally cast a vote, his felony conviction does not stop him from running for president. More

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      Lawless and disorderly: Republicans line up behind Trump after conviction

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      A shameful day in American history. A sham show trial. A kangaroo court. A total witch-hunt. Worthy of a banana republic.These were the reactions from senior elected Republicans, who once claimed the mantle of the party of law and order, to the news that Donald Trump had become the first former US president convicted of a crime.It soon became clear that one of America’s two major political parties was determined to undermine faith in the US judicial system with expressions of rage and demands for revenge, creating an alternative view of the US in which Joe Biden is a clear and present danger to US democracy.Experts warned that by sowing distrust in institutions and the rule of law Trump, his supporters and his Republican allies were creating a political tinderbox ahead of November’s presidential election. In the coming months – especially as Trump faces sentencing in June – that sense of dread and fear of political unrest is likely to only increase dramatically.“We’ve entered new political & legal territory as a Nation,” historian Tim Naftali wrote on the social media platform X. “Donald Trump will now force every GOP candidate to trash our judicial system. There will be a chorus of poison likely worse than what we heard before Jan. 6th. Should he win, he’d have a more toxic mandate than in ’17.”On Thursday a jury in New York pronounced Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He will be sentenced on 11 July, four days before the Republican national convention in Milwaukee.While Democrats hailed the verdict as proof that America’s system of checks and balances remains robust, able to hold political leaders to account, the ex-president claimed the trial was “rigged” and a “disgrace”, adding: “The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people.”His campaign fired off a flurry of fundraising appeals. One text message called him a “political prisoner”, even though he has not yet found out whether he will be sentenced to prison and most experts see it as highly unlikely. The campaign also began selling black “Make America Great Again” caps to reflect a “dark day in history”.Trump campaign aides reported an immediate rush of contributions so intense that WinRed, a platform the campaign uses for fundraising, crashed.Republicans rallied around Trump with both uniformity and ferocity, seeking to cast the justice system as biased and broken. Mike Johnson, who as speaker of the House of Representatives is the third most senior elected official in the country, called the trial a “purely political exercise, not a legal one”, and accused Joe Biden’s administration of participating in “the weaponisation of our justice system”.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said: “Absolute injustice. This erodes our justice system. Hear me clearly: you cannot silence the American people.” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina implied that Trump’s conviction set a dangerous precedent of prosecuting former presidents: “Two can play this game.” Alongside a fundraising link, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida posted on X: “Don’t just get angry about this travesty, get even!”The hyperpartisan response illuminated a very different America from the 1970s when the supreme court ruled that President Richard Nixon must hand over tapes of Oval Office conversations that ultimately led to his resignation; Nixon complied rather than complaining of a kangaroo court or seeking to undermine the system.But in 2024 America is on a collision course between partisan politics and the rule of law. Analysts warned that the Republican backlash could tear at the social fabric in an already volatile election year.Tara Setmayer, a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “That is the bigger crime here in the long term. The Republican party has now facilitated the continued onslaught against our democratic institutions.“The long-term consequences of the idea that our justice system or the rule of law is somehow corrupted because Donald Trump says so are immeasurable. We’re seeing that now where even in a court of law where the evidence is clear it’s not good enough. It’s the world turned upside down and the Republican party has enabled it.”Just as Trump has told his supporters “I am your retribution”, so his allies in rightwing media, who have spent months conditioning their audience to distrust the court’s verdict, deployed the language of vengeance. Some argued that, if Trump regains power, he should go after Democrats, prosecutors and journalists.Setmayer added: “If you look on social media platforms and the rightwing ecosystem, the reaction to the verdict was one of hysteria and threats against anyone who was in support of the verdict, particularly in the media. ‘Add them to the list. Buy guns and ammo. Get ready, gear up.’“The language is mobilising and violent and that is something that we should all be concerned about. Many of us who’ve been paying attention have warned about this. This is part of Trumpism. The violence and the retribution is the point and he’s laying the foundation for his followers to rationalise a violent response.”No presumptive party nominee has ever faced a felony conviction or the prospect of prison time, and Trump is expected to keep his legal troubles central to his campaign. He has long argued without evidence that the four indictments against him were orchestrated by Biden to try to keep him out of the White House.In the next two months Trump is set to have his first debate with Biden, announce a running mate and formally accept his party’s nomination at the Republican national convention. On 11 July he could face penalties ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison. Both he and his political allies seem sure to continue exploiting America’s political polarisation and alternate realities.After Republicans gained narrow control of the House last year they set up a panel, chaired by the Trump loyalist Jim Jordan, to investigate “the weaponization of the federal government” and examine what they allege is the politicisation of the justice department and FBI against conservatives. Some have called for the impeachment of the attorney general, Merrick Garland.Nicole Wallace, a former communications chief for President George W Bush, said on the MSNBC network: “I think what is important is for us not to look away from what is broken. And what is broken is that one of the two parties does not respect the rule of law, not because they didn’t like what they saw, not because they saw something different in Judge Juan Merchan than we saw, but because they don’t like the result. And that is a flashing red light for our country.”Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, added in a phone interview: “The process of delegitimising our institutions is very far advanced and here you don’t have to speculate. All you need to do is look at the surveys of trust in institutions and just about everything is at rock bottom.“Certainly the judiciary, for various reasons, is no exception. As the judiciary has gotten pulled into what many people see as partisan battles, trust has declined on both sides of the aisle. But the uniform Republican response to the outcome of this trial, which is likely to be sustained over many months, will have even more pernicious effects.” More

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      What Donald Trump’s fiery reaction to his conviction says about this moment in US politics

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      In the week leading up to the conviction delivered in a Manhattan courtroom on Friday, right-wing media was focused on Donald Trump’s innocence. Hosts of the popular podcast “Timcast IRL”, which scored an exclusive, 17-minute interview with the former president before his speech at the Libertarian National Convention, discussed the case at length.

      Their guest, Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official, argued that he had watched Michael Cohen – Trump’s former lawyer and the star witness in the criminal case against the former president – “implode the prosecution’s case”. Host Tim Pool agreed that “there is nothing here” and the case was “absurdity and insanity”.

      The three hosts and their guest had all been watching the case very closely; they were deep in the weeds. And they were utterly convinced it was bogus, that only a “rigged system” would find him guilty.

      On Friday, a jury of his peers did find Trump guilty of falsifying business records in relation to hush money payments intended to cover up his affair with an adult movie star. Trump, who was found guilty on all 34 felony counts he faced, is now the first president in American history to be convicted of a crime.

      Much about Trump is unprecedented. This moment is history-making.

      Is America more polarised than ever?

      Many Trump supporters, like Pool and his friends, had suspected this was coming. The guilty verdict only reinforced their certainty that the system is “rigged” against Trump – and by extension, anyone who supports him or even just some of his politics.

      In the right-wing media universe, that is the only logical conclusion.

      Trump has successfully deployed this narrative in the right-wing media for years now, and it has stuck. A day after the verdict was handed down, Trump told his supporters – as he has many times before – that “if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.”

      Outside of the right-wing media universe, however, comments like these are reported on with a mixture of incredulity and concern. Mainstream media outlets note the significant threat this kind of rhetoric – and the increasing normalisation of political violence – pose to the institutions of American democracy.

      This increasing divide in American politics, culture and society is often described as “polarisation” – a phenomenon where two entirely separate political universes (one right-wing, the other left) move further away from each other and into the extreme.

      Protesters argue across the street from the Manhattan district attorney’s office in New York on Tuesday, April 4.
      Stefan Jeremiah/FR171756 AP

      But the notion that polarisation is getting worse or is the biggest problem in American politics today suggests there was, at some point, a golden age of political consensus in the US. It also assumes there is a constant political centre to return to, and that there is a similar level of extremism on both sides of the political divide.

      This plays into a very Trumpian framing that labels US President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party as extremists – or, in Trump’s words, “socialists” and “Marxists” – when they are nothing of the sort.

      The reality of American politics today is not a simple question of polarisation that can somehow be reversed. Rather, the stark division between the two camps – and their world views – is, for the moment at least, irreconcilable.

      That division has a long history. The wildly different reactions to the conviction are emblematic of a fundamental truth: the United States has never been one country. Trump did not create that situation, but he is better than anyone at exploiting it. He is already turning a criminal conviction into a winning campaign strategy.

      Read more:
      1968 was an inflection point for the US. Is another one coming in 2024?

      The new normal

      Those with enduring faith in the strength of American democracy and its institutions will argue this division is not necessarily all-encompassing. They might point to polling which has fairly consistently shown that Trump supporters outside of his core base might be shifted by a criminal conviction. This is particularly true of Democrats and independents who had previously voted for Trump – the voters Biden was able to attract back into the fold in the 2020 presidential election and needs to keep onside come November.

      But even that is changing; recent polling suggests it might be prison time over a criminal conviction that would be decisive for voters – an unlikely outcome. Some polling suggests a criminal conviction may not matter at all.

      Trump is masterful at shifting the political ground. And voters have known who he is for a long time. His ability to avoid accountability – to defy the “rigged” system – is something many of them admire.

      Many things about his presidency and his political career are unprecedented. It is now entirely possible Trump will be the first former president to win an election despite – or perhaps even because of – multiple criminal convictions. More

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      Marian Shields Robinson, mother of Michelle Obama, dies at 86

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      Marian Shields Robinson, the mother of Michelle Obama, who moved with the first family to the White House when son-in-law Barack Obama was elected president, has died. She was 86.Robinson’s death was announced in an online tribute by Michelle Obama, and included details of the time Robinson spent living in the White House, as an informal first grandmother to the Obama children.“There was and will be only one Marian Robinson,” the statement said. “In our sadness, we are lifted up by the extraordinary gift of her life.”She was a widow and lifelong Chicago resident when she moved to the executive mansion in 2009 to help care for granddaughters Malia and Sasha. In her early 70s, Robinson initially resisted the idea of starting over in Washington, and Michelle Obama had to enlist her brother, Craig, to help persuade their mother to move.“There were many good and valid reasons that Michelle raised with me, not the least of which was the opportunity to continue spending time with my granddaughters, Malia and Sasha, and to assist in giving them a sense of normalcy that is a priority for both of their parents, as has been from the time Barack began his political career,” Robinson wrote in the foreword to A Game of Character, a memoir by her son, formerly the head men’s basketball coach at Oregon State University.“My feeling, however, was that I could visit periodically without actually moving in and still be there for the girls,” she said.Robinson wrote that her son understood why she wanted to stay in Chicago but still used a line of reasoning on her that she often used on him and his sister. He asked her to see the move as a chance to grow and try something new. As a compromise, she agreed to move, at least temporarily.Granddaughters Malia and Sasha were just 10 and seven when the White House became home in 2009. In Chicago, Robinson had become almost a surrogate parent to the girls during the 2008 presidential campaign. She retired from her job as a bank secretary to help shuttle them around.At the White House, Robinson provided a reassuring presence for the girls as their parents settled into their new roles, and her lack of Secret Service protection made it possible for her to accompany them to and from school daily without fanfare.“I would not be who I am today without the steady hand and unconditional love of my mother, Marian Shields Robinson,” Michelle Obama wrote in her 2018 memoir, Becoming.Robinson gave a few media interviews but never to White House press. Aides guarded her privacy, and, as a result, she enjoyed a level of anonymity openly envied by the president and first lady.View image in fullscreenThe Obama family reflected on Robinson’s time living at the White House in their tribute to her: “The trappings and glamour of the White House were never a great fit for Marian Robinson. ‘Just show me how to work the washing machine and I’m good,’ she’d say. Rather than hobnobbing with Oscar winners or Nobel laureates, she preferred spending her time upstairs with a TV tray, in the room outside her bedroom with big windows that looked out at the Washington Monument. The only guest she made a point of asking to meet was the Pope. Over those eight years, she made great friends with the ushers and butlers, the folks who make the White House a home. She’d often sneak outside the gates to buy greeting cards at CVS, and sometimes another customer might recognize her. ‘You look like Michelle’s mother,’ they’d say. She’d smile and reply, ‘Oh, I get that a lot.’”White House residency also opened up the world to Robinson, who had been a widow for nearly 20 years when she moved to a room on the third floor, one floor above the first family. She had never traveled outside the US until she moved to Washington.Her first flight out of the country was aboard Air Force One in 2009 when the Obamas visited France. She joined the Obamas on a trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana later that year, during which she got to meet Pope Benedict, tour Rome’s ancient Colosseum and view a former slave-holding compound on the African coast. She also accompanied her daughter and granddaughters on two overseas trips without the president: to South Africa and Botswana in 2011, and China in 2014.Craig Robinson wrote in the memoir that he and his parents had doubted whether his sister’s relationship with Barack Obama would last, though Fraser Robinson III and his wife thought the young lawyer was a worthy suitor for their daughter, also a lawyer. Without explanation, Craig Robinson said his mother gave the relationship six months.Barack and Michelle Obama were married on 3 October 1992.One of seven children, Marian Lois Shields Robinson was born in Chicago on 30 July 1937. She attended two years of teaching college, married in 1960 and, as a stay-at-home mom, stressed the importance of education to her children. Both were educated at Ivy League schools, each with a bachelor’s degree from Princeton. Michelle Obama also has a law degree from Harvard.Fraser Robinson was a pump operator for the Chicago Water Department. He died in 1991.Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      Trump’s verdict speech fact-checked: what he said and whether it’s true

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      Donald Trump delivered a rambling, incoherent speech laden with falsehoods and conspiracy theories from the atrium of Trump Tower, a day after the former president was convicted of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush-money criminal trial.Here is a fact check of some of the things he said on Friday – and why they weren’t true.Trump claims the Joe Biden White House was behind his prosecutionDonald Trump claimed that the judge presiding over his hush-money case, Juan Merchan, and the court was in “total conjunction with the White House and the DoJ [Department of Justice]”. There is no evidence whatsoever supporting this claim.“This is all done by Biden and his people,” the former president said during a speech on Friday at Trump Tower.The accusation that Biden was behind the prosecution does not line up with the case’s facts.The elected district attorney of Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, brought the case against Trump. Bragg is a state official who does not report to the federal government.Biden does not have any authority over Bragg or his office – and there is no evidence that the Biden administration had anything to do with the case.Trump rails against ‘nasty gag order’ he claims no one else has facedTrump claimed he is under a “nasty gag order, which nobody has ever been under”. He also said he has had to pay thousands of dollars in penalties – and that he was threatened with jail.Under Judge Merchan’s order designed to protect trial participants from Trump’s abuse, the former president is barred from making – or directing others to make – public statements about witnesses concerning their roles in the investigation and at trial. It also covers prosecutors, other staffers of Bragg, and members of the court staff. However, Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants about Merchan and Bragg.Trump has been fined $10,000 for 10 violations of the gag order for posts on his Truth Social platform and campaign website. Merchan has warned Trump that he would “impose an incarceratory punishment” for “continued willful violations” of the order.Trump claims he wasn’t allowed to testifyTrump claimed that he wanted to testify “but the theory is that you don’t testify because … they’ll get you on something you said slightly wrong, and then they sue you for perjury”.Trump has previously railed about being silenced and falsely claimed he was not allowed to testify at the trial. But ultimately he made the personal choice to not take the stand in his own defense.Merchan earlier this month addressed the ex-president’s claims, saying: “I want to stress, Mr Trump, that you have an absolute right to testify at trial.” Merchan added that the gag order preventing Trump from verbally attacking witnesses did not affect his right to take the stand.Trump claims prosecutors were not allowed to look into alleged federal campaign violationsTrump claimed that prosecutors who charged him were not allowed to look into alleged federal campaign finance violations.In fact, Manhattan prosecutors did not charge him with federal violations but instead listed the allegations as one of three “unlawful acts” that jurors were asked to consider.Prosecutors said the other crime for which Trump was charged was a violation of a state election law barring conspiracies to promote or prevent an election by unlawful means.Trump claims he faces 187-year prison sentenceDonald Trump claimed the crime for which he was convicted meant that “I’m supposed to go to jail for 187 years”.The former president was found guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree in furtherance of another crime, a class E felony in New York. That is the least serious category and is punishable by up to four years in prison.But as a first-time, non-violent offender, it is unlikely that Trump will face a long sentence. Experts say he is unlikely to receive prison time at all.Trump claims polling shows him ahead after convictionTrump claimed that a Daily Mail poll taken after his guilty verdict showed that he was “up by six points”.The poll he was referring to was an online survey of 400 likely voters that measured his favorability ratings – and not voting intention.Of those who said the 34 guilty counts had changed their view of Trump, 22% said they had a more favorable rating compared with 16% who said they viewed him more negatively.In contrast, a YouGov poll showed that 27% of voters said the conviction made them less likely to vote for Trump, compared with 26% who said they were more likely to vote for him and 39% who said the verdict “makes no difference” in how they’ll vote.Trump claims defense wasn’t allowed to use its election expertTrump claimed that the judge did not allow his defense team “to use our election expert under any circumstances”.Merchan did not bar the defense’s campaign finance expert, Bradley A Smith, from testifying in the trial. Smith was permitted to testify.Instead, Trump’s lawyers decided not to call on Smith after Merchan declined to broaden the scope of questioning the defense could pursue. More