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      Top House Democrat demands answers on Trump dinner with oil executives – as it happened

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      The top Democrat on the House oversight committee is demanding answers after a report emerged that Donald Trump promised oil executives he would repeal regulations intended to lower climate emissions if they each contributed $1bn to his campaign.In a letter to the executives of nine major petroleum companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, Jamie Raskin cited a Washington Post article from last week that said Trump promised to rescind a Biden administration moratorium on permits for liquified natural gas exports and allow more drillings in the Alaskan Arctic and Gulf of Mexico, among other policies.In response, Raskin wrote in letters to nine oil industry executives:
      I write to request any information you may have about quid pro quo financial agreements related to US energy policy that were reportedly proposed at a recent campaign fundraising dinner with ex-president Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club that you appear to have attended. Media reports raise significant potential ethical, campaign finance, and legal issues that would flow from the effective sale of American energy and regulatory policy to commercial interests in return for large campaign contributions.
      House speaker Mike Johnson traveled to New York to appear alongside Donald Trump at his ongoing business fraud trial, which Johnson called a “disgrace” in a press conference outside the courthouse. An array of other Republican politicians were also on the scene, all of whom have one thing in common: they are said to be potential running mates for Trump or, as the Democrats have dubbed them, “emotional support”. Back in Washington DC, the Republican-led House oversight committee released a report saying that attorney general Merrick Garland should be held in contempt for not handing over recordings of interviews with Joe Biden and his ghostwriter conducted by a special counsel. The committee’s top Democrat, Jamie Raskin, was also busy, demanding answers from petroleum industry executives over Trump’s reported promise to roll back all sorts of environmental regulations if they each raise $1bn for his campaign.Here’s what else happened today:
      Johnson’s appearance in New York comes as the House GOP plans to shift into “campaign mode” before the 5 November election.
      Federal prosecutors asked a judge to send far-right strategist Steve Bannon to jail after an appeals court rejected overturning his conviction for contempt of Congress. Bannon has until Thursday to respond.
      Biden announced new tariffs against China, and took shots at Trump’s trade policies.
      Maryland is traditionally a Democratic stronghold, but this year’s Senate race is shaping up to be surprisingly competitive. The state’s voters are choosing their candidates in today’s primary.
      Why are Biden’s approval ratings so stubbornly low? Here’s what White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had to say, when asked at her briefing today.
      At her daily briefing today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, and why they have not moved much for years.The question from a Fox News reporter came a day after the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College released polling showing the president trailing Donald Trump in five of six key swing states. Here’s what Jean-Pierre had to say:The reporter who posed the question, Peter Doocy, is the conservative network’s main man in the White House, and something of a thorn in its side. Two years ago, Biden appeared to insult Doocy by name, then later reportedly called him to “clear the air”:Earlier today, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson condemned the prosecution of Donald Trump outside the New York courthouse where Trump’s business fraud trial is taking place.That drew a strong rebuke from Democratic representative and Trump foe Jamie Raskin, who aired his grievances in a statement to the Daily Beast:Federal judge Carl J Nichols has given far-right strategist Steve Bannon until Thursday to respond to a request by justice department prosecutors that he report to jail to serve his four-month sentence after being convicted of contempt of Congress.Nichols’ order came after an appeals court rejected Bannon’s appeal of his July 2022 conviction for ignoring a subpoena and an order to appear for a deposition from the January 6 committee. Here’s more on that:The traditionally blue state of Maryland suddenly finds itself in an unfamiliar role: political battleground.Whoever wins the race for its open Senate seat, vacated by retiring Democrat Ben Cardin, could decide control of the chamber. On the Democratic side, representative David Trone is locked in a competitive primary with Prince George’s County executive Angela Alsobrooks. Whoever wins the primary will almost certainly face Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor whose high-profile clashes with Donald Trump made him a household name.The Democratic primary contest to succeed Trone features as many as a dozen candidates. The field is led by former Biden official April McClain Delaney and state delegate Joe Vogel.The Guardian caught up with Vogel shortly after he cast his ballot in Gaithersburg on Tuesday morning. At 27, Vogel is among a handful of gen Z candidates running for federal office this year.Vogel said he is appealing to voters of all ages by channeling his generation’s urgency to address the most pressing problems of our time.“The experience that I have is not only the experience as a legislator, but the lived experience of sitting in a classroom with the doors locked and the windows down in the dark in a school-shooting drill. I have the experience of fearing what the climate crisis is going to hold for our generation,” he said.“What we need are people with the lived experiences to bring urgency to all of these issues.”The sixth district, a seat that spans the diverse suburbs of Montgomery county to conservative western Maryland, is expected to remain in Democratic hands but is still the most competitive open House seat in the state.If elected, Vogel, born in Uruguay, would be the first Latino and first openly LGBTQ+ member of Congress from Maryland.An election to watch is taking place today in Maryland, where Democratic voters will select a candidate to face off against Republican former governor Larry Hogan for its open Senate seat. The Guardian’s Joan E Greve reports on how the race in the heavily Democratic state has become surprisingly competitive:Republicans have a rare opportunity to flip a Senate seat in Maryland in November, and the outcome of that race could determine control of the upper chamber. The high stakes of the Maryland Senate election have put intense scrutiny on the state’s primaries this Tuesday.Maryland primary voters will cast ballots in the presidential race as well as congressional elections, and leaders of both parties will be closely watching the results of the Senate contests. The retirement of Senator Ben Cardin has created an opening for Republicans to potentially capture a seat in a reliably Democratic state, thanks to former governor Larry Hogan’s late entry into the race. A Hogan victory would mark the first time that a Republican has won a Maryland Senate election since 1980, and it could erase Democrats’ narrow majority in the chamber.Ten Democrats will compete for the party’s Senate nomination, but two candidates have become the clear frontrunners: Congressman Dave Trone and the Prince George’s county executive Angela Alsobrooks. The race has historic implications, as Alsobrooks would become the first Black person elected to represent Maryland in the Senate and just the third Black woman to ever serve in the chamber.The battery of tariff increases on China Joe Biden announced is a symbolic move intended to head off the possibility that Beijing one day steps up its exports of vehicles and other technologies to stimulate its economy. The policy is also not quite as different from that of the Trump administration as the White House would have you think, the Guardian’s Larry Elliott reports:The US president, Joe Biden, has announced a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles as part of a package of measures designed to protect US manufacturers from cheap imports.In a move that is likely to inflame trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, the White House said it was imposing more stringent curbs on Chinese goods worth $18bn.Sources said the move followed a four-year review and was a preventive measure designed to stop cheap, subsidised Chinese goods flooding the US market and stifling the growth of the American green-technology sector.As well as a tariff increase from 25% to 100% on EVs, levies will rise from 7.5% to 25% on lithium batteries, from zero to 25% on critical minerals, from 25% to 50% on solar cells, and from 25% to 50% on semiconductors.Tariffs on steel, aluminium and personal protective equipment – which range from zero to 7.5% – will rise to 25%.Despite the risks of retaliation from Beijing, Biden said the increased levies were a proportionate response to China’s overcapacity in the EV sector. Sources said China was producing 30m EVs a year but could sell only 22m-23m domestically.Biden’s car tariffs are largely symbolic because Chinese EVs were virtually locked out of the US by tariffs imposed by Donald Trump during his presidency. However, lobby groups have suggested there is a future threat as Beijing seeks to use exports to compensate for the weakness of its domestic economy.Top Republicans traveled to New York to appear alongside Donald Trump at his ongoing business fraud trial, which House speaker Mike Johnson called a “disgrace”. Also on the scene were an array of politicians who share one thing in common: they are all said to be potential running mates for Trump, or, as the Democrats dubbed them “emotional support”. Back in Washington DC, the Republican-led House oversight committee released a report saying that attorney general Merrick Garland should be held in contempt for not handing over recordings of interviews conducted by a special counsel and Joe Biden. The committee’s top Democrat Jamie Raskin was also busy, demanding answers from petroleum industry executives over Trump’s reported promise to roll back all sorts of environmental regulations if they each raise $1bn for his campaign.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Johnson’s appearance in New York comes as the House GOP plans to shift into “campaign mode” as the 5 November election draws ever nearer.
      Federal prosecutors asked a judge to send far-right strategist Steve Bannon to jail after an appeals court rejected the appeal of his conviction for contempt of Congress.
      Biden announced new tariffs against China, and took shots at Trump’s own trade policies.
      The top Democrat on the House oversight committee is demanding answers after a report emerged that Donald Trump promised oil executives he would repeal regulations intended to lower climate emissions if they each contributed $1bn to his campaign.In a letter to the executives of nine major petroleum companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, Jamie Raskin cited a Washington Post article from last week that said Trump promised to rescind a Biden administration moratorium on permits for liquified natural gas exports and allow more drillings in the Alaskan Arctic and Gulf of Mexico, among other policies.In response, Raskin wrote in letters to nine oil industry executives:
      I write to request any information you may have about quid pro quo financial agreements related to US energy policy that were reportedly proposed at a recent campaign fundraising dinner with ex-president Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club that you appear to have attended. Media reports raise significant potential ethical, campaign finance, and legal issues that would flow from the effective sale of American energy and regulatory policy to commercial interests in return for large campaign contributions.
      In a White House address where he announced his administration’s moves to counter Chinese industries, including by imposing a 100% tariff on electric car imports, Joe Biden took a number of shots at Donald Trump and his policies.“My administration is combining investments in America with tariffs that are strategic and targeted,” Biden said. “Compare that to what the prior administration did. My predecessor promised to increase American exports and boost manufacturing. But he did neither, he failed. He signed a trade deal with China. They’re supposed to buy $200bn more in American goods. Instead, China imports from America barely budged.”He also said that Trump has proposed “across-the-board tariffs on all imports from all countries if re-elected”, and accused the former president of wanting to drive up prices. “He simply doesn’t get it,” Biden said.Asked later by a reporter about Trump’s comments that China has been eating America’s lunch, Biden responded, “He’s been feeding them a long time.” More

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      Mike Johnson skips vital US House session to support Trump in New York

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      The US House was in session on Tuesday with vital business to complete but its speaker, Mike Johnson, was 200 miles north, attending another day in the criminal trial of Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee charged over hush-money payments to an adult film star who claimed an affair.“President Trump is innocent of these charges,” Johnson said outside court in Manhattan, where Trump faces the first 34 of 88 criminal counts.Michael Cohen, who as Trump’s lawyer and fixer made the payments to Stormy Daniels, was on the witness stand.Trump has used his trial as a loyalty test for supporters and vice-presidential hopefuls, both at the courthouse and on social media and TV. On Tuesday, Johnson was joined by the governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, the Florida representatives Byron Donalds and Cory Mills, and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who ran for the Republican presidential nomination.Before proceedings began, as Johnson and other supporters stood behind him, Trump spoke to reporters.“I do have a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully,” he said. “They come from all over Washington, and they’re highly respected and they think this is the biggest scam they’ve ever seen.”Regarding such surrogates’ ability to comment on the trial unencumbered by a gag order over which Trump has been fined and threatened with incarceration, Trump told reporters: “You ask me questions that I’m not allowed to answer.”Complaining about the courtroom, Trump said: “I’ve been here for nearly four weeks in the ice box.”The charges against Trump cast the hush-money payments, made around the 2016 election, as a form of election subversion.Trump also faces four federal and 10 Georgia state charges arising from his attempts to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, and 40 federal charges concerning his retention of classified information.He has also been hit with multimillion-dollar civil penalties, over his business practices and a defamation suit arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Nonetheless, the devoutly Christian (and porn-monitoring) Johnson rushed to Trump’s side as Trump’s affair with Daniels, the star of films including Dirty Deeds and Right Amount of Wrong, was once more examined in court.One of Johnson’s former Republican colleagues, the anti-Trump conservative Liz Cheney, jibed: “Have to admit I’m surprised that Speaker Johnson wants to be in the ‘I cheated on my wife with a porn star’ club. I guess he’s not that concerned with teaching morality to our young people after all.”Back on Capitol Hill, the House was due to consider final passage of the Federal Aviation Authority Reauthorization Act. House Democrats were also set to face a series of messaging bills, proposed legislation designed not to pass but to ensnare the other party in difficult political choices.“Otherwise,” Politico reported, “Speaker Mike Johnson is ready to move squarely into campaign mode.”View image in fullscreenIn Manhattan, Johnson – the only member of Trump’s cheer squad not to wear a distinctly Trumpian red tie – spoke to reporters. He said: “President Trump is innocent of these charges.“It’s impossible for anybody to deny, that looks at this objectively, that the judicial system in our country has been weaponised against President Trump. The system is using all the tools at its disposal right now to punish one president to provide cover for another.“These are politically motivated trials and they are a disgrace. It is election interference, and they show how desperate the opposition that President Trump is, how desperate they truly are.”Johnson said he was making the appearance “on my own, to support President Trump, because I am one of hundreds of millions of people and one citizen who is deeply concerned about this”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJohnson and his fellow visitors were not the first. On Monday the Ohio senator JD Vance gave his impressions of proceedings.Vance posted: “Michael Cohen admitting he secretly recorded his employer. Just totally normal conduct, right? The best part is he said he did it only once and only for Trump’s benefit. A stand-up guy!”Vance also called the trial “election interference”, because the gag order constrained Trump’s speech, representing “a violation of the constitution and an insult to the American people”.Before court on Tuesday, Ramaswamy claimed a “sham trial” and a “politically motivated assault on the leading candidate for US president, greenlit by his political opponent, Joe Biden, and carried out at the highest levels of the White House and Department of Justice”.Ramaswamy also attacked the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg; the prosecutor Matthew Colangelo; and the judge, Juan Merchan.“The American people will deliver the ultimate verdict in November,” Ramaswamy said. “Say NO to the weaponisation of justice.”Other surrogates also complained. Donalds, who as a young man had a marijuana charge dismissed and a bribery charge expunged, said proceedings against Trump represented “a tragedy for the American justice system”.For Johnson, staying close to Trump has paid off, particularly as the speaker has overseen passage of government funding and military aid to Ukraine, neither favoured by Trump and his supporters on the far right of a far-right Republican party.Last week, with support from Democrats, Johnson defeated an attempt to remove him mounted by Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia extremist who has touted herself as a Trump running mate.In a statement on Tuesday, Alex Floyd, rapid response director for the Democratic National Committee, mocked Trump’s need for “emotional support” from Johnson and others, and took a shot at the speaker for absenting himself from the House.“Donald Trump is convening the saddest posse of Maga loyalists … desperate for emotional support and political cover as he spends another week tending to his personal affairs rather than talking to actual voters,” Floyd said.“Trump’s pathetic band … seemingly have nothing better to do than echo Trump’s lies and nod approvingly in the background – because they certainly aren’t doing their day jobs of serving their constituents or running a functional political operation.” More

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      Trump’s hush-money case has proven he’s a low-life. Can it prove he’s a criminal? | Margaret Sullivan

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      When you set out to explore Donald Trump’s personal life and business practices, you don’t expect to meet any paragons of virtue.Sleazy media figures who buy and “kill” damaging stories? Yes. An adult film actor ready to tell all to make a buck? Certainly. A parade of spokespeople and staffers who compromised their own integrity during his presidential administration? No doubt.A conman, philanderer and grifter himself, the ex-president always has surrounded himself with dicey characters. That’s how he rolls. So it’s hardly surprising that Michael Cohen, the star prosecution witness in the so-called “hush-money” case unfolding in New York City, fits right in.The former Trump lawyer and fixer pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign-finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud. He pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. He went to jail. And he was disbarred.That’s why it would be funny – if it weren’t so cringe-inducing – to hear the way Cohen is being praised by some commentators in the endless talk loop of cable-news trial coverage.“Michael’s one of the good guys,” was the assessment of CNN guest-talker Anthony Scaramucci, who memorably lasted less than two weeks as Trump’s communications director and who is now vehemently opposed to Trump winning a second term.I’m all for redemption, but I wouldn’t go that far. I certainly wouldn’t hold up Michael Cohen as an example of a great American.But, against the odds, Cohen’s testimony does ring true. (Not that one can hear it directly; unfortunately, the trial is not being televised or even recorded for audio only.)His words, and the description of his demeanor from those inside the courtroom, make a kind of consistent and logical sense. What’s more, much of it has been “pre-corroborated” by testimony and evidence earlier in the trial.We’ve heard from people such as David Pecker, who ran the National Enquirer, where he caused damaging stories to be given the “catch-and-kill” treatment to help Trump gain the presidency in 2016. We’ve seen supporting text messages and emails and documents.On the stand on Monday, Cohen didn’t spare himself. He admits he lied and falsified in protecting his boss. He even admitted to secretly recording Trump during a one-on-one meeting and, because the audio has gone public, we can hear the two of them hashing out one of their seedy arrangements; respectable lawyers don’t do that to or with their clients.And he certainly didn’t spare Trump, instead portraying him as the equivalent of a mob boss, as well as someone intimately involved with every decision in keeping his tawdry relationships secret as he sought the presidency in 2016.What the New York district attorney must prove, though, is criminality, not low-life behavior.Will a jury decide that Trump’s behavior amounted to criminal election interference? That will require a lot of connecting the dots – that Stormy Daniels not only was paid off to keep quiet about the time she claims to have had sex with Trump, but that the payment was then recorded falsely in a way that violates campaign finance law.If those dots are going to be connected, it’s Cohen who must connect them.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt’s not an airtight case. Rather, it is “the least muscular and existentially threatening of the four criminal prosecutions Trump faces”, wrote the Trump biographer Tim O’Brien this week.But it’s likely to be the only case that’s going to come to trial before the election. For those who want a shred of accountability for Trump’s endless misdeeds, this is the one they’ve got. And, given that, Cohen is essential.Can jurors find him credible, given his checkered past? Even if they do, is it possible to make the leap to criminal violations of campaign-finance law? And could every one of them then agree to convict?That’s an Everest-high mountain to climb. Trump’s lawyers are sure to bombard Cohen with his foibles during cross-examination later this week.My take is that Michael Cohen is – finally – telling the truth. He’ll hold up well under the hostile questioning. Jurors will believe him and will buy most of his story, given his consistency and the corroborating evidence and earlier testimony.Finally, Michael Cohen will come off like an honest broker.As for a jury then connecting that credibility to criminal election-law interference? And then, unanimously, deciding to convict the former president?That’s a big stretch.I can believe Michael Cohen’s testimony, but – at least right now – I can’t believe in that outcome.
      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Trump’s strategy to delay cases before the election is working

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      Despite some dismal days spent in the courtroom, Donald Trump earned two significant legal victories this week with separate decisions that make it all but certain two of the pending criminal trials against him will take place after the 2024 election.As had been expected for months, Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday scrapped a 20 May trial date that had been set in south Florida over the former president’s handling of classified documents. The delay was almost entirely the doing of Cannon, a Trump appointee, who allowed far-fetched legal arguments into the case and let preliminary legal matters pile up on her docket to the point where a May trial was not a possibility.On Thursday, the Georgia court of appeals announced it would hear a request from Trump to consider whether Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, should be removed from the election interference case against him because of a relationship with another prosecutor. The decision means both that Trump will continue to undermine Willis’s credibility and draw out the case. “There will be no trial until 2025,” tweeted Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University who has been closely following the case.The third pending case against Trump, a federal election interference case in Washington, also appears unlikely to go to trial before the election. The US supreme court heard oral arguments on whether Trump has immunity from prosecution last month and seemed unlikely to resolve it quickly enough to allow the case to move forward ahead of the election.The decisions mean that voters will not get a chance to see Trump held accountable for possible criminal conduct during his last term in office before they decide whether to give him another term in office. (Trump is currently in the middle of a criminal trial in Manhattan that centers around allegations he falsified business records to cover up hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, but it happened before his presidency, during the 2016 campaign.)The developments vindicate a pillar of Trump’s legal strategy. Facing four separate criminal cases, his lawyers have sought to use every opportunity they can to delay the cases, hoping that he wins the election in November. Were he to return to the White House, he would make the two federal cases against him go away (he has said he would appoint an attorney general who would fire Jack Smith, the justice department’s special prosecutor). It’s unclear if Fani Willis, the Fulton county DA, could proceed with a criminal case against a sitting president.“In all likelihood, Trump’s election would pause the proceedings against him in Georgia. There is a large consensus among legal academics that a sitting president cannot be tried for crimes. That, however, is an untested constitutional theory, which Fani Willis will probably challenge,” Kreis said. “If I had to hedge a bet, should Trump win in November, his Fulton county co-defendants will be tried mid-2025 and Trump would stand trial alone after his second term ends.”While Trump may have successfully secured delays in three of the cases against him, prosecutors in Manhattan continued to move ahead this week in laying out evidence for why he should be found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Testimony from key accounting employees at the Trump Organization helped connect Trump to the monies that were paid out to Michael Cohen. Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006, also testified in detail about the incident, irritating Trump, and bringing one of the most embarrassing episodes back to the center of the public discourse.Trump’s lawyers objected to the testimony and requested a mistrial, saying the lurid details Daniels disclosed had prejudiced jurors against defendants. Judge Juan Merchan rejected that request, but still conceded jurors had heard information they should not have.While Trump is likely to use the episode in any potential appeal, experts doubted whether he would succeed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Skirmishes like this happen all the time, and defense attorneys call for mistrials in many, if not most, criminal trials. I don’t think this was even close to cause for a mistrial and don’t think it would end up being a major issue on appeal,” said Rebecca Roiphe, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office who now teaches at New York Law School.“The details of the sexual encounter are relevant because they go to why Trump would want to suppress her story. The judge tried to limit any prejudicial effect by asking the witness to be less colorful in her description. She didn’t abide by this until warned a few times, but this hardly seems like a cause for concern on appeal.” More

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      Trump has yet to decide his VP pick – and it’s turning into a pageant of its own

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      Hello there, and welcome to the Guardian’s brand new US election newsletter. I hope you’re having a nice week.It’s less than six months until election day, and Donald Trump, when he’s not in court or looking at racing cars, is spending time weighing his vice-presidential pick. It’s becoming quite the spectacle.But first, some of the happenings in US politics.Here’s what you need to know …1. I don’t feel so goodDonald Trump’s trial over hush-money payments to an adult film star saw Stormy Daniels recall her sexual encounter with the president in front of a presumably nauseous Manhattan courtroom. Will this trial – and the three others he faces – torpedo Trump’s election chances? One poll this week found that it will depend on whether he is convicted. About 80% of Trump’s supporters would definitely stick with him if he becomes a felon, while 16% would “reconsider” their support. Just 4% say they would definitely ditch him.2. Biden gives antisemitism speechIn a speech on Tuesday at a Holocaust remembrance event, Joe Biden condemned what he called the “ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world”, amid widespread student protests over American support for Israel’s war on Gaza. Thousands of students have been arrested around the US, during a frequently militaristic police response. Republicans have tried to use the unrest to paint Biden as weak and sow division among Democratic voters.3. TikTok hits back after US government crackdownTikTok and its parent company are suing the US government after Biden signed bipartisan legislation which could potentially ban the app from the US if it is not sold to another owner. It comes as Russian state-affiliated accounts have used TikTok to draw attention to Biden’s age and immigration policies. Critics have said ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based parent company, could also collect sensitive information about Americans. But others – including TikTok – say the US is unfairly singling out the social media platform, potentially hurting free speech and independent content makers. The debacle is fraught in an election year when many young people get news from TikTok, and Biden himself has a campaign account.Eeny, meeny, miny, moeView image in fullscreenThe election is in November, and Donald Trump has yet to decide on his vice-presidential candidate. That’s not unusual – assuming he’s not in prison by then, he’s got plenty of time – but what is kind of new is the very public auditioning for the role.Trump summoned several of the candidates to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend, where he forced them to parade around on stage, in what sounds like a version of the Miss Universe competition he used to haunt.But the contenders, who range from long-time sycophants to more recent converts, have been doing some parading of their own.Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who ran for president against Trump in 2016 (Trump dubbed him “Little Marco”, Rubio suggested Trump had a small penis, but the two have since made up) has been near-ever present on TV in recent weeks, as has Elise Stefanik, a New York congresswoman who was once seen as a sober legislator, but has since evolved into a Trump disciple.Doug Burgum – recently dubbed “less interesting than a wooden post” – and Tim Scott, who both ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination this year, have also been showing up on TV shows to defend Trump’s legal entanglements and threats to undermine the election.There’s also JD Vance, a big-faced beardy man who once believed Trump to be an “idiot” but has since changed his mind, and Byron Donalds, who with Scott is one of the five Black Republicans in Congress.One thing appears to be certain: it will not be Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor who has dominated headlines after admitting that she shot and killed her dog in a gravel pit.Will the identity of Trump’s running mate really make a difference?In 2016, Trump was viewed with suspicion by some evangelical voters – voters he needed to come out in droves for him to defeat Hillary Clinton. That’s why he chose Mike Pence, a devout Christian who just released a book that is literally called So Help Me God.But religious Republicans have pretty much made their peace with Trump since then – largely because the supreme court he appointed overturned the federal right to abortion.Reports indicate that what Trump is really looking for is an uber-loyal attack dog, someone who can tear into Trump’s critics on air, before coming back to the White House to quietly snuggle at his feet.It would be easy to see a vice-president as inconsequential. But since the US became a thing, nine vice-presidents have stepped into the top job: eight times because the sitting president died, and once because the president – Richard Nixon – resigned. Without wanting to be too macabre, Donald Trump is quite old, and is not known as a healthy eater. (In the name of Journalism I once lived like Trump for a week. I genuinely think it took years off my life.)Anyway: some of these people might fancy their chances of ascending to the throne.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn the roadView image in fullscreenA dispatch from our Washington bureau chief, David Smith:Is it a bird? Is it a plane? OK, it’s a plane, with “TRUMP” written in giant gold letters on the side. I watched the Boeing 757 dubbed “Trump Force One” fly into Freeland, Michigan, last week, accompanied by the booming soundtrack of Tom Cruise’s Top Gun.It reminded me that the Trump Show has always been about reality versus fantasy. Reality for Trump right now is hour after hour sitting in a cold, dingy New York courtroom. Fantasy is stepping out of his private jet into afternoon sunshine and the warm glow of a campaign rally where the crowd chants his name.The demographics were telling: overwhelmingly white and dominated by retirees. Every Trump supporter I interviewed is convinced that the trial in New York is a witch-hunt designed to hobble his election chances. When I asked about his dictatorial ambitions, they brushed the question aside and preferred the word “leader”.Who had the worst week?View image in fullscreenOn Monday Judge Juan Merchan, handling Trump’s hush-money payments trial, said he “will have to consider a jail sanction” if Trump doesn’t stop publicly criticizing witnesses and the jury. But if Monday was bad for Trump, Tuesday was worse.“I had my clothes and my shoes off, I believe my bra, however, was still on. We were in the missionary position …” so went the testimony of Stormy Daniels, who was allegedly paid $130,000 to remain quiet about the claimed encounter, which she says took place in 2006, a year after Trump married his wife Melania. (Trump denies having sex with Daniels.)Daniels said that Trump told her she reminded him of Ivanka Trump, his daughter, before the two became intimate. Asked by the prosecution whether the encounter with Trump was “brief”, Daniels said: “Yes.”‘It’s my favorite book’View image in fullscreenI spent no short amount of time last week reading the God Bless the USA Bible, a special version of the holy text Trump is hawking online. If you enjoy the Bible, but feel like it is missing images of American flags and bald eagles, then this is the book for you.If, however, you want a Bible without sticky pages, which hasn’t been dubbed “blasphemous”, and which doesn’t cost $60, then maybe give it a pass.Read the full story here.Elsewhere in US politicsView image in fullscreen Milwaukee is replacing its top election official, Sam Levine and Alice Herman write, which means “there will be a new head of elections in one of the most critical cities in a key battleground state”. Biden won Wisconsin by just 20,000 votes in 2020. Bernie Sanders won more than 13m votes in the 2016 presidential primary, as his brand of democratic socialism inspired young people across the country. He didn’t win, of course, but Martin Pengelly reports that Sanders plans to run for re-election to the Senate. More

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      Stormy Daniels takes the stand in Trump trial – podcast

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      It was the moment Donald Trump was dreading. The former president could only sit and watch as the adult film actor Stormy Daniels told her version of events from an alleged sexual encounter they had in 2006. Prosecutors say that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen shuttled a $130,000 hush-money payment to Daniels less than two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, to keep her from talking to anyone about her alleged encounter with Trump.
      So how bad was Daniels’ testimony for the presumptive GOP candidate? Jonathan Freedland and the political commentator Molly Jong-Fast discuss an extraordinary day in a Manhattan courtroom

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Trump’s scattershot attacks on justice system are causing real damage

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      Donald Trump’s verbal assaults on judges, prosecutors, witnesses, jurors and the broader US justice system, are undermining the rule of law and American democracy while fueling threats and potential violence against individuals involved with the legal cases against him and egging on his extremist allies, former federal prosecutors and judges say.In his campaign to win the presidency again, and in the midst of various criminal and civil trials, Trump has launched multiple attacks on the American legal system on his Truth Social platform to counter the 88 federal and state criminal charges he faces.Trump, the all but certain Republican presidential nominee for 2024, has accelerated glorifying the insurgents who attacked the Capitol on 6 January 2021. He has called them “patriots” and “hostages”, while promising that if he wins, he will free those convicted of crimes as one of his “first acts” in office.Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the electoral system. He has refused to say he will accept the results of the 2024 elections, a ploy similar to what he did in 2020 before falsely claiming the election was rigged – a claim he still maintains.“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results,” Trump told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”Darkly, Trump has also warned that if he loses the election there will be “bedlam” and a “bloodbath for the country”. These words referred, in part, to the fallout Trump predicted for the auto industry, but have distinct echoes of his false charges that he lost to Joe Biden in 2020 due to fraud.At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on 13 April, right before his first criminal trial in New York began, Trump repeated his bogus claims about his 2020 defeat: “The election was rigged. Pure and simple, 2020 was rigged. We could never let it happen again.”At the same rally he blasted Juan Merchan, the very judge who oversees his trial in Manhattan. In that case, Trump faces 34 counts for altering company records in 2016 to hide $130,000 in hush-money payments that his fixer Michael Cohen made to the porn star Stormy Daniels, who alleged an affair with him.“I have a crooked judge,” Trump raged at Merchan, adding that he was “fully gagged before a highly conflicted and corrupt judge, who suffers from TDS … Trump Derangement Syndrome”.Trump’s multiple attacks on witnesses and jurors, who he had been told were off limits and could spur a contempt citation, have prompted Merchan twice to fine Trump a total of $10,000 for violating a gag order against such attacks.“The court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders,” the judge has said, warning that Trump could face jail time if he made similar attacks.Trump insists without evidence that the more than seven dozen federal and state criminal charges he faces in four jurisdictions are “election interference”, and says he has done nothing illegal.Former prosecutors and judges say Trump’s incendiary rhetoric is catnip to his Maga allies and could spur violence in 2024.“At its core, the promise of pardons by Trump signals to anyone prone to insurrectionist behavior that they can expect a get out of jail card free,” said former federal judge John Jones, who is now president of Dickinson College.View image in fullscreen“My fear is that we will have civil unrest that will impede the election. My concern is that you can have vigilante groups under the guise of ‘stop the steal’, patrolling polling places and intimidating voters.”Jones stressed that “every one of the Jan 6 defendants has had appropriate due process”.“They have either been convicted or pled guilty to substantial federal crimes,” he said. “Promising them pardons in the face of that is against every principle in our system of justice.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRegarding Trump’s ongoing claims that the 2020 election was rigged and that the country will see a “bloodbath” if he loses again, Jones said: “The word ‘bloodbath’ is not ambiguous. The last time Trump fomented this kind of post-election destructiveness, people lost their lives.”Ex-federal prosecutors raise similar concerns.“To the extent President Trump is dangling pardons of the J6 defendants he is, in effect, trying to eliminate the deterrent effect of criminal prosecutions with the anticipated result of making violence on his own behalf more likely,” former prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig said.“From a legal perspective, deterrence is critical. The threats of violence in 2024 can only be mitigated by strong, consistent prosecution for violent acts in 2020.”Concerns about the potentially dangerous fallout from Trump’s attacks on the electoral and legal systems are underscored by a Brennan Center study in late April, which showed 38% of over 925 local election officials surveyed had experienced “threats, harassment or abuse”.The Brennan survey, conducted in February and March, also found that 54% of those surveyed were worried about the safety of fellow workers, and 62% were concerned about political leaders trying to interfere with how they do their jobs.On a related track, the DC judge Tanya Chutkan, who has handled a number of cases involving January 6 insurrectionists, has warned starkly about the dangers of more violence this year. Chutkan, who is slated to oversee Trump’s trial on charges by the special counsel Jack Smith that he sought to subvert the 2020 election, echoed Rosenzweig’s warning that more violence is less likely to happen if those convicted or who have pleaded guilty for the January 6 attack receive appropriate sentences.Last month, Chutkan issued a stiff sentence of 66 months for one insurgent who attacked the Capitol and has called the Jan 6 violent Capitol attack by Trump allies that led to injuries of 140 police officers “as serious a crisis as this nation has ever faced”.Notably, Chutkan has stressed that “extremism is alive and well in this country. Threats of violence continue unabated.”Ex-prosecutors also say that Trump’s attacks on the legal system are alarming.“Trump’s persistent denigration of the legal system is surely as divisive as everything else he does because he’s lying,” said the former justice department official Ty Cobb, who worked as a White House counsel for part of the Trump administration. “Trump’s lies in this area seem to have been embraced by his followers as truth.”Cobb stressed that “Trump has not been unfairly targeted by the justice department or the Biden administration, but charged only with serious crimes he has committed. The two state cases in which Trump stands criminally indicted have nothing to do with the Biden administration.” More

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      in US Politics

      How the Trump trial is playing in Maga world: sublime indifference, collective shrug

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      In one America, he cuts a diminished, humbled figure during coverage that runs from morn till night. “He seems considerably older and he seems annoyed, resigned, maybe angry,” said broadcaster Rachel Maddow after seeing Donald Trump up close in court. “He seems like a man who is miserable to be here.”But in the other America – that of Fox News, far-right podcasts and the Make America Great Again (Maga) base – the trial of the former president over a case involving a hush-money payment to an adult film performer is playing out very differently.Here, anger at what is seen as political persecution meets with another emotion: sublime indifference. Barely a handful of Trump supporters bother to protest each day outside the court in New York, a Democratic stronghold. The trial receives less prominence in conservative media, which prefers to devote airtime to other national news including protests on university campuses against the war in Gaza.The divergence ensures that, with TV cameras not permitted in court, two rival narratives are forming around the first criminal trial of an ex-US president. In one telling, Trump is a philander who falsified business records to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election. In the other, he is the victim of a justice department conspiracy designed to rob the Republican nominee of victory in 2024.Michael Steele, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, said: “The minds in those orbits are already made up. If you’re listening to [far-right podcaster] Steve Bannon, you’re not going to be convinced by any other outcome except not guilty. If you are hyperventilating over coverage that speaks to Donald Trump’s guilt, then you’re not going to be happy unless he’s found guilty.”The trial, which began in earnest this week with prosecution and defence arguments, would already be devastating for any conventional politician. The former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified about his tabloid’s efforts to protect Trump from stories that could hurt his electoral chances using a “catch-and-kill” scheme. The capricious defendant is also awaiting a ruling on whether he will be held in contempt for violating a gag order, an offence he has been accused of 14 times.View image in fullscreenThe trial has dominated cable news networks such as CNN and MSNBC to the extent that they have faced criticism for obsessing over details such as Trump’s daily commute to court and his demeanour once inside. But in the Maga universe, there is a collective shrug.Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at the watchdog Media Matters for America, said: “The rightwing media very much does not want to be talking about this week. You see both CNN and MSNBC covering the trial pretty much throughout as it plays out, whereas over on Fox it’s one of many stories that they’re covering and not a particularly prominent one at that.”Fox News, America’s most watched cable television network, has similarly played down past Trump dramas such as the impeachment trials and the congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack, Gertz noted. “You see a similar situation where news outlets are providing constant coverage of big breaking news events and Fox News is feeding its audience its typical culture war mix and avoiding talking about what is quite clearly bad news for their candidate of choice.”When Trump-friendly networks do turn to the trial, they give viewers an alternative narrative from the one dominating CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post. After a hearing has wrapped for the day, Fox News regularly carries live coverage of Trump’s diatribes against the judge, Biden and the cold temperature of the courtroom.It has also amplified his narrative of martyrdom. Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, told Fox News: “This is literally like some of the civil rights workers in Mississippi in the 1960s.” Jesse Watters, a co-host on The Five on the same network, worried that it is unfair to make a man who is almost 80 sit for hour after hour. “It’s not healthy,” he said. “He needs sunlight. He needs activity. He needs to be walking around. He needs action. It is really cruel and unusual punishment to make a man do that, and any time he moves, they threaten to throw him in prison.”They have even defended Trump – who regularly mocks Biden as “Sleepy Joe” – for falling asleep in court. Sean Hannity, a Fox News host, said on his radio show: “By the way, I think I’d fall asleep if I was there.” His colleague Laura Ingraham added: “I’d be falling asleep at that trial, too.”Gertz observed: “They’re basically making the case that actually it’s good to be unable to not nod off in the middle of your own trial. These are people who have spent the last several years attacking Joe Biden for supposedly being too old, too enfeebled to be president. They understand that their viewers, to the extent that they are interested in the trial at all, want to hear full-throated support for Donald Trump, and so they are finding ways to provide that.”The trial has provoked fury on the far right and vows of retribution. Mike Davis, a lawyer and Trump ally, told Bannon’s War Room podcast that Democrats are “running a criminal conspiracy to violate the civil rights of President Trump” and promised to “rain hell on these Biden Democrats”. Davis warned: “I would say to these guys, lawyer up.”View image in fullscreenInterviews with longstanding Trump supporters found the media-coverage split screen translates to one’s view of the trial. There is no sign that the airing of the charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up a hush-money payment is shifting opinions.Steve Robinson, 75, an engineer and contractor from Leesburg, Virginia, is following the trial via the rightwing channels One America News Network and Newsmax and, occasionally, Fox News. “No CNN,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRobinson commented: “The charges are made up and it’s a travesty of justice. It’s embarrassing for us as a country that’s happening when there is no evidence and there is no damage to anyone and it’s obviously a political witch-hunt. The leftists are enjoying it.”Lynette Kennedy McQuain, 63, an insurance salesperson from Lost Creek, West Virginia, said: “New York should spend their tax dollars on criminal behaviour, things that are going on in the city rather than trying to take down a former president. It’s not illegal to pay money to quiet something if you want to.”The current trial is seen as potentially the least serious of the four criminal cases against Trump but is likely to be the only one completed before the election. McQuain added: “It’s gotten to the place now where there’s so many trials that you wonder where it’s going to end.“How many more trials are we going to put Donald Trump through? He’s a presidential candidate again. Come on, that’s a little crazy to me. The whole country sees it that way except a few left-leaning people who just want to get Trump. Judicially we’ve got a whole bunch of other things we could be fighting.”Michael Sheppard, 42, a home builder from Canton, North Carolina, who has been following the trial “passingly” via the social media platform X, said: “I know the trial exists. I know the basics behind it but I really don’t care what they say.”Sheppard believes that it is common practice to pay someone off out of court if the alternative would be more costly. He intends to vote for Trump in November but added: “I wish we had somebody right of Trump. Trump’s a centrist.”Opinion polls have tightened in recent weeks with Biden closing the gap on Trump. It is uncertain what impact the trial will have on the election. The former president himself is thought unlikely to testify, but the court is likely to hear lurid, sordid details that even Trump’s allies in the media might find hard to resist. He is not out of danger yet.Charlie Sykes, a political columnist and author of How the Right Lost Its Mind, said: “The danger of this trial for Trump and for the rightwing media is that many of the details are going to be quite salacious, quite dramatic and easily understood.“People are going to understand a Playboy model saying ‘I had an affair’ as opposed to some of the more arcane things. It’s going to be interesting to see how the rightwing media covers it. Fox News are going to be torn between ‘this is pretty compelling material’ versus ‘it’s also pretty damaging’.”But the experience of the past eight years suggest that Trump’s base understand who he is and are willing to accept it, sexual peccadilloes and all. Sean Spicer, his first White House press secretary, said: “I would argue that after four years of Trump in office and almost four years of Biden, people have pretty much made up their mind who they’re with and this is largely going to be a get-out-the-vote-operation election.“I don’t think anyone seeing anything right now on television or reading it online is somehow going to learn something new about Donald Trump.” More