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      Ex-CNN anchor John Avlon announces Congress run to defeat ‘Maga minions’

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      The former Daily Beast editor and CNN anchor John Avlon announced his candidacy for US Congress in New York as a Democrat, seeking to flip a seat on Long Island, where Republicans saw surprising gains in the 2022 midterm elections.In a video announcement, Avlon said he was running to help Democrats win back the House from Donald Trump’s “Maga minions”.“Our democracy is in danger,” he said. “This election is not a drill. It’s up to all of us to step up and get off the sidelines.“We need to build the broadest possible coalition to defeat Donald Trump, defend our democracy and win back the House from his Maga minions who don’t even seem interested in solving problems.”Avlon included the incumbent congressman in the first district, the Republican Nick LaLota, among those “minions”, who he said were “doing whatever Trump wants, including blocking a bipartisan border security deal” – a reference to a successful move by Senate Republicans earlier this month, while their House counterparts refuse to pass a foreign aid bill that does not also include a border element.LaLota is one of a number of New York Republicans who won in 2022 in districts where Joe Biden beat Trump in 2020. Those districts are now targets for Democrats seeking to take back the closely divided House. One was flipped last week, when the third district, previously represented by George Santos – an indicted fabulist and only the sixth member ever expelled from the House – was won by a Democrat.LaLota’s spokesperson, Will Kiley, previewed Republican attack lines, calling Avlon “a Manhattan elitist without any attachments to Long Island other than his summer home in the Hamptons”, who knew “nothing about Suffolk county other than Sag Harbor croquet matches and summer cocktail parties in Bridgehampton”.Married to the commentator and PBS host Margaret Hoover, a great-granddaughter of the Republican president Herbert Hoover, Avlon lives in Sag Harbor, a whaling port turned desirable seaside retreat.Kiley added: “It may take burning millions of his friends’ money for Avlon to learn NY-1 has a history of rejecting out-of-state and Manhattan elitists, from both sides of the aisle, who parachute into the district attempting to buy a seat in Congress.”Savannah Viar, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, called Avlon a “smug liberal hack”.LaLota, 45, is a graduate of the US Naval Academy. Kiley called him “the commonsense conservative voice Long Island needs at this crucial time”.In his announcement, Avlon said: “This district needs real leadership, not more hyper-partisanship, and I am going to hit the ground running, talking to voters across Suffolk county about the issues we all care about.”He aimed, he said, to “rebuild the middle class, invest in infrastructure, protect women’s reproductive freedoms and combat climate change”.A former volunteer for Bill Clinton and chief speechwriter to the mayor of New York City, Avlon, 51, is also the author of books on George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and contemporary US politics, including, in 2010, Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America.On Wednesday, he said he wore “as a badge of honour” Trump’s decision in 2016 to “blacklist” outlets including the Daily Beast, the website Avlon edited for five years from 2013 before focusing on CNN, which he left this month.On social media, Avlon thanked David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s chief White House strategist, who called him “thoughtful, incisive and passionate about our country and its future” and said he would be “a great and impactful member of Congress”. More

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      Biden visited East Palestine a year after Trump. This doesn’t bode well | Ben Davis

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      Joe Biden visited East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a massive train derailment and ecological disaster, for the first time last week. The problem, of course, is that the accident happened over a year ago. Donald Trump visited while out of office, only two weeks after the initial disaster.The mismatch encapsulates a major problem for the Democrats’ messaging. They have allowed Trump and the Republican party to position themselves more and more as representing workers and victims of corporate negligence and malfeasance. Biden and the Democrats must change their positioning and economic messaging to reassert that they will fight for workers.Changing strategy is crucial. Biden’s poll numbers are weak, particularly with working-class voters, allowing Trump to put himself in the pole position in the election. Contrary to what Trump and his allies would have voters believe, a Trump victory would be a disaster for workers, safety regulations on corporations, and environmental protections.Much has been made of Trump and the Republicans’ strengthening position among working-class voters. If anything, the trend has been overstated: Biden won low-income voters in 2020 by double digits. When accounting for other factors like age, gender, and education level, higher income is still, statistically, a particularly clear driver of more conservative politics. Trump’s actual economic policies in office were a massive upward transfer of wealth, not appreciably different from any establishment Republican.But the perception is becoming more and more the reality. Biden’s sagging approval numbers are driven almost entirely by middle- and lower-income voters. Unlike in 2016, the losses among working-class voters can’t be attributed to white racial resentment; these new losses are concentrated among voters of color.Voters do not think the government is working for their economic interests. Even among Democratic-leaning voters, perception of the economy among younger, lower-income, and non-white voters is drastically lower than among other voters.The Democratic strategy has been to point out that the economy, by most metrics, is doing very well, and argue that the media drives poor perception of the economy. This may be true, but it’s also not a solution. Politics doesn’t have rules or referees you can complain to. Perception is reality.Allowing Trump to brand himself as the supporter of the downtrodden – visiting East Palestine, posing with Teamsters, and more – without challenge will only further alienate Democrats from the voters they need. Biden needed to be in East Palestine last year, and he needs to be in places like that as much as possible going forward, particularly while Trump is in court for crimes that show that he is a wealthy elite only in it for himself.The Democratic messaging strategy has leaned heavily on correcting voters and denying their feelings – telling people “actually … ” Actually, the economy is great. Actually, Biden’s age is not an issue. This strategy doesn’t work. Democrats need to empathize with voters. They need to show up and listen. They need to point out the actual material harm caused by Trump.Trump will gut regulations that protect people from disasters like East Palestine, and worse. His role in politics is fundamentally to transfer wealth upwards and make workers less safe and secure. Voters struggle to conceptualize abstract threats to democratic norms, but they understand real threats to their standard of living.Going forward, Biden must be front and center on issues affecting working people. He must publicly show he cares about people. The perception that he empathized with ordinary Americans was a driving factor in his victory in 2020, in contrast with Hillary Clinton in 2016, and it’s one of the critical issues on which he has lost ground.Showing up may not materially change things, but not showing up allows the perceptions of incompetence and lack of empathy to grow. Democrats need to show up if they are going to win in November.
      Ben Davis works in political data in Washington. He worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign More

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      ‘I wish the media would knock it off’: Guardian readers on how to cover Biden’s age

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      One of the benefits of being a regular Guardian supporter is that you get a weekly email with a direct line to the newsroom, giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how we report on the big news stories of the day.Last week, we wrote about our approach to covering Joe Biden’s age and asked our supporters for their feedback. Our inbox was deluged, and below you can find a cross-section of the replies we received – the good, the bad and the funny.The Guardian is a reader-funded news organization committed to keeping our global journalism free for all. You can help keep it that way by supporting us here. Every dollar helps. Thanks for engaging with serious journalism.Over to the readers:‘Age is not the most dangerous concern’“When you weigh Biden’s age against Trump’s selfish and unhinged craziness, age is not the most dangerous concern. Biden has never threatened to give our allies over to Putin or cure a virus by drinking bleach.” Suann S, choral music educator, Virginia‘We put too much emphasis on the individual’“I can’t help but think that it’s not one man we are electing as president, but an entire administration, staff, advisors, judges, and executive orders that will really make or break our nation and its fragile laws. I trust Biden to choose the people that will carry out the democratic principles I care about and to respect and defend the US constitution. I don’t expect perfection, but we are already better off with Biden as president. I can’t bear the thought of another Trump presidency. It’s a no-brainer. We put too much emphasis on the individual and not enough on the people who surround them.” Anonymous female Guardian supporter, 69, Montana‘I wish Biden had run as a single-term candidate’“I’m a true Independent. I vote for Democrats and Republicans. Trump is vile in so many ways. I would have no problem voting for Nikki Haley if she was on the ballot. I truly wish Biden had run as a single-term candidate. Shame on him. He does not inspire confidence in his physical and mental abilities. I think his administration has done as well as anyone could have, better than most. That sincere old man has done an excellent job despite his appearance of incompetency. In an election between Biden v Trump, I would vote for Biden even if he were institutionalized in a memory care unit of a nursing home.” Anonymous female Guardian supporter, Wisconsin‘He has sure gotten a lot done’“While I might share in some … voters’ wish to have a younger choice on the Democrat ballot, the bottom line is that I would take Biden any day over the horrifying prospect of another Trump presidency. I would take a senile Biden. I would take a dead Biden presiding from the grave over Donald Trump. If Biden is so mentally impaired he has sure gotten a lot done in the last four years.” Linda Lester, Boise, Idaho‘I see real, substantive merit and progress’“Biden does indeed have a history of gaffes and even plagiarism. I, a registered Republican, however, look at the issues Biden and his team focus on and the merits of their efforts and successes, and I see real, substantive merit and progress for the nation. Biden’s gaffes are merely innocent misstatements, not boldface intentional Trumpist lies. The choice is crystal clear. We cannot allow Trump to have the presidential platform to wreak self-aggrandizing havoc for our country and the world.” Paul Francis, 75, retired attorney, Houston, Texas‘Whatever happened to respecting our elders?’“I’m a blue collar worker in the construction trade in my late 60s and still climbing ladders, carrying heavy loads and making difficult decisions. I work beside people half my age and am better for my years of experience. If 60 is the new 40 then 80 is the new 60. Whatever happened to respecting our elders? Age brings wisdom and leaders should be wise.” Tobias R, late 60s, low voltage electrical installer/service technician, Ojai, California‘While Biden may forget a name, he has not forgotten the values’“I taught school for 30 years, was a master teacher who spent five days a week with 30 youngsters. The next year, invariably I would forget their names, reduced to: “Hi, sweetie!” when seeing these kids in the hall.We all have selective memories. Musician friends of mine are masters at memorizing music. Reader friends remember the plots of every book they’ve read. My husband can’t remember what I told him 10 minutes ago.While Biden may forget a name, he has not forgotten the values that truly make America great. It’s those actions and qualities that the media should focus on, reminding us all what’s at stake in this election.” Anne Anderson, retired teacher, 75, Santa Barbara, California‘I wish the media would knock it off’“I wish the media would knock it off. Until and unless there is some actual proof of Biden’s declining cognitive ability, you should stop talking about it. His age does not concern me, but I’m glad that he has the wisdom and experience that we used to respect. I think we should go back to respecting wisdom and experience. Please do.” Loree St Claire, 68, part-time home caregiver, Oregon‘A red herring’“Biden’s sure walking more stiffly and looking a tad more vacant at times than those days I used to run into him on the train between Wilmington and Washington. (As you know, he commuted every day.)But other than that, he’s the same damn guy. All the defects and flaws. But those flaws never then interfered with his judgment. (Though it sure wasn’t perfect, as he sometimes over-promised as he does now.) Why has the perception so radically changed? I’m afraid that you, the media, but less the print than the broadcast media, are on the hook for a lot of this.Every little jot and tiddle. And the GOP is ever so good as capitalizing on this rapt attention to Joe’s gaffes. The whole memory thing is, especially, a red herring. It’s about judgment, devotion to family and duty, and ability to pick good people arrayed around him. Talk about that, won’t you?” Dr Russ Maulitz, former family physician, US citizen in Tuscany, Italy‘No one mentioned Biden’s age’“I do weary of the news media’s harping on Biden’s age, certainly having the effect of campaigning against him. Age brings wisdom. I look forward to voting for Biden.Also, I spent a couple hours today canvassing door-to-door for the Democrats locally. I was cheered by how fervent Democrats are about voting, even in the primary. One swing voter told me that we all have to be Democrats now. No one mentioned Biden’s age.” Lynne Small, Del Mar, California‘I think that Harris would be a fine president’“There is a subtext to the ‘Biden’s age’ issue that the media will not acknowledge or engage. Nikki Haley has been quite explicit about it and that subtext is Kamala Harris. Vice-president Harris has been a tireless partner to the president and has been routinely vilified by the right. The focus on Biden’s age is not just about whether he can do the job (he has and will continue to do so) but whether Harris is an acceptable alternative. I, for one, think that Harris would be a fine president. The fact that she is a woman of color is apparently abhorrent to a large number of people who use Biden’s age as a cowardly surrogate for their actual fear. I have every confidence that Joe Biden will be able to capably execute his duties through the entirety of his next term building an unassailable legacy of competence and achievement. In the unfortunate event that VP Harris is required to ascend to the presidency, I have no fear of that whatsoever.” Kevin Judge, 67, retired physician, Riverwoods, Illinois‘You’re playing into the Republican strategy’“You talk about being careful about information being weaponized against Biden, but you’re helping to weaponize it. You’re playing into the Republican strategy of letting the media spread their lies for them. Did you learn absolutely nothing from Comey’s smearing of Hillary Clinton and how the mass media helped amplify those smears?” Roy W, 74, former senior director for AI and data science at a biotech company, Massachusetts More

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      ‘I refuse to quit’: defiant Nikki Haley vows to stay in race against Trump

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      A defiant Nikki Haley on Tuesday declared no fear of retribution from Donald Trump as she persists in her efforts to compete against the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, saying, “I feel no need to kiss the ring.”Haley approaches the South Carolina primary on Saturday, her home state where she was previously governor, a long way behind Trump but turning up the rhetorical heat.“We’ve all heard the calls for me to drop out,” she said in a speech in Greenville, South Carolina, on Tuesday. But she also said: “I refuse to quit.”And in an interview with the Associated Press, she vowed to stay in the fight at least until after Super Tuesday’s slate of more than a dozen contests on 5 March.“Ten days after South Carolina, another 20 states vote. I mean, this isn’t Russia. We don’t want someone to go in and just get 99% of the vote,” Haley said, adding: “What is the rush? Why is everybody so panicked about me having to get out of this race?”In a cutting remark on X, formerly Twitter, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung posted in a riposte to Haley’s kissing the ring statement: “She’s going to drop down to kiss ass when she quits, like she always does.”Betsy Ankney, Haley’s campaign manager, responded with sarcastic humor on the same platform.“What a move. @TheStevenCheung is the key to winning back suburban women!” she posted.In Greenville, Haley taunted that maybe some people, especially reporters, turned out to hear if she was going to drop out of the race after Trump won the first three contests of the primary race, in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.“Well, I’m not. Far from it, and I’m here to tell you why,” she said. “I’m running for president because we have a country to save,” she said, listing domestic issues such as crime, gun violence, illegal drugs, children struggling with their studies, migration at the US-Mexico border and the high cost of many things from groceries to buying a house.And on foreign policy, she said: “I’m talking about the American weakness that led to wars in Europe, and the Middle East, and the urgent need to restore strength before war spreads and draws America further in. These are the challenges I’m here to tackle.”Trump has been scathing about Haley’s performance and has been leading pressure from several directions for her to drop out, after she became the last opponent left standing following the end of the campaign trail for rivals including Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Haley said on Tuesday: “Many of the same politicians who now publicly embrace Trump, privately dread him. They know what a disaster he’s been and will continue to be for our party. They’re just too afraid to say it out loud. Well, I’m not afraid…I feel no need to kiss the ring. I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSome Republicans are encouraging Haley to stay in the campaign even if she continues to lose – potentially all the way to the Republican National Convention in July, as Trump faces numerous court cases.Haley said: “He’s going to be in a courtroom all of March, April, May and June. How in the world do you win a general election when these cases keep going and the judgments keep coming?”Meanwhile, Joe Biden was asked whether he preferred to compete against Haley or Trump this fall.“Oh, I don’t care,” the US president said.
      The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Trump’s trial calendar becomes clearer – as do his delay tactics

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      Donald Trump’s legal calendar is coming into sharper relief after a New York judge affirmed last week that the ex-president’s first criminal trial – on charges that he manipulated the 2016 election by concealing hush-money payments to an adult film star – will proceed to trial in Manhattan next month.A federal case in Washington over the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election had once been expected to go first. But when Trump filed appeals on grounds of presidential immunity last year, the presiding US district judge, Tanya Chutkan, was forced to put the case on hold.With Trump’s legal calendar otherwise clear, justice Judge Juan Merchan on Thursday scheduled Trump’s hush money trial to start on 25 March in Manhattan and last roughly six weeks. Allowing a week for jury selection and deliberation could mean a verdict might arrive around mid-May.That is the straightforward part.For the federal case in Washington, the timing of the trial depends on what the US supreme court decides to do with Trump’s immunity arguments, which contend Trump should be absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for what he claims were official acts he took as president.There are several options available to the court that could affect a trial date: refuse to hear the case and send it back to Chutkan with immediate effect, hear the case and issue a ruling expeditiously, or hear the case and issue a ruling late in the summer.Complicating matters, Chutkan isn’t expected to schedule a trial immediately even if the court denies the immunity claim and sends the case back to her, because Trump is technically entitled to the “defense preparation” time that elapsed since he first started appealing the immunity issue.(Trump filed his immunity claims to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit on 8 December. The moment he appealed, it paused the case before Chutkan, including her since-scrapped 4 March trial date. The clock ticking down to trial only starts again when all the appeals are done.)As a result, the way to estimate a potential trial date is to take the elapsed time between 8 December, and add that to when the case is returned to Chutkan’s control, assuming the supreme court won’t decide Trump has absolute immunity from all the charges.If the supreme court refused to take the case, for instance as early as this week, the total time elapsed that Trump would get back might stand at roughly 80 days, meaning Chutkan could schedule a trial around the final week of May.If the supreme court agrees to take the case with oral arguments set sometime in March, and then issues a quick decision in April, the total time Trump would get back might stand at roughly 100-120 days, meaning Chutkan could set a trial to commence in June.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut in the worst-case scenario for the special counsel, Jack Smith, if the court agrees to take the case but puts off ruling on immunity until the end of its term, for instance at the end of June, there might not be a trial in Washington until after election day.The date that the federal election case goes to trial is important mainly because estimates for how long the trial itself might take has been estimated at roughly a week for jury selection, eight weeks for the prosecution, four weeks for Trump, and a final week for deliberation.Added together, the trial might take around 100 days. If voters wanted to go to the ballot box knowing whether Trump was guilty of conspiring to stop the peaceful transfer of power after losing the 2020 election, a trial would need to have started before the last week of July.All of this matters because Trump has made it no secret that his strategy is to seek delay – ideally even beyond the election – in the hopes that winning a second presidency could enable him to pardon himself or allow him to install a loyal attorney general who would drop the charges. More

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      Voters may at last be coming round to Biden’s sunny view of the economy

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      Joe Biden has spent most of his presidency insisting to Americans that the economy is on the right track. Poll after poll has shown that most voters do not believe him. That may be changing.After months of resilient hiring, better-than-expected economic growth and a declining rate of inflation, new data shows that Americans are becoming upbeat about the US economy, potentially reversing the deep pessimism Biden has struggled to counter for much of the past three years.That trend could reshape campaigning ahead of November’s presidential election, in which Biden is expected to face off against Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Experts believe the president’s case for a second term will benefit from more optimistic views of the economy – but the hangover from the inflation wave that peaked a year and a half ago presents Republicans with a potent counterattack.“Over the last couple of years, people have been feeling the most pain on day-to-day spending, on things like groceries and gas prices and prescription drugs. And, fortunately, those prices are beginning to come down, which gives Democrats a stronger hand than we had just a few months ago,” said Adam Green, co-founder of advocacy group the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.“For a campaign that says that they want to finish the unfinished business of the Biden presidency, our polling shows that it’s perfectly OK to acknowledge that there has been pain, and there’s more business to do,” said Green.He added that the Biden campaign should “really focus the voters’ attention on the forward-looking agenda of one party wanting to help billionaires and corporations, and the Democratic party wanting to challenge corporate greed and bring down prices for consumers”.Biden has been unpopular with voters, according to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, even as employment grew strongly and the economy avoided the recession that many economists predicted was around the corner. While it’s not the only factor, pollsters have linked voters’ disapproval with Biden to the wave of price increases that peaked in June 2022 at levels not seen in more than four decades, and which have since been on the decline. An NBC News poll released this month showed Biden trailing Trump by about 20 points on the question of which candidate would better handle the economy, a finding echoed by other surveys.But new data appears to show Americans believe the economy has turned a corner. Late last month, the Conference Board reported its index of consumer confidence had hit its highest point since December 2021, while the University of Michigan’s survey of consumer sentiment has climbed to its highest level since July of that year.View image in fullscreen“The people who give positive views of the economy, they tend to point to, the unemployment rate is low, and they also point to that inflation is down from where it was,” said Jocelyn Kiley, an associate director at Pew Research Center, whose own data has found an uptick in positive economic views, particularly among Democrats.Trump and his Republican allies have capitalized on inflation to argue that Biden should be voted out, though economists say Biden’s policies are merely one ingredient in a trend exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and global supply chain snarls that occurred as a result of Covid-19. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who is the last major challenger to the former president still in the race has said the economy is “crushing middle-class Americans”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut voters’ improving views of the economy could blunt those attacks ahead of the November election, where the GOP is also hoping to seize control of the Senate from Biden’s Democratic allies and maintain their majority in the House of Representatives. Lynn Vavreck, an American politics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Trump might have to fall back to tried-and-true tactics from his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, such as promising to institute hardline immigration policies.“The economy is growing. People don’t really say that they feel good about it, but if you’re gonna load up your campaign on those people’s feelings, I feel like that’s a little risky,” said Vavreck, who has studied how economic conditions can affect presidential campaigns.“You could do that, and that would be a bit of a gamble, or you could find an issue on which you believe you are closer to most voters than Joe Biden, that is not about the economy, and you could try to reorient the conversation around that issue.”There is already evidence that harnessing outrage over the flow of undocumented immigrants into the United States is key to Trump’s campaign strategy. The former president’s meddling was a factor in the death of a rare bipartisan agreement in Congress to tighten immigration policy in exchange for Republican votes to approve assistance for Ukraine and Israel’s militaries.With the economy humming along, Trump is apparently nervous that the US economy could enter a recession at an inconvenient moment. “When there’s a crash, I hope it’s going to be during this next 12 months because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover,” he said in an interview last month, referring to the US president who is often blamed for the Great Depression that began 95 years ago.Even though the rate of inflation has eased, albeit haltingly, prices for many consumer goods remain higher than they were compared with when Biden took office, which his opponents can still capitalize on, said the Republican strategist Doug Heye.“Consumers go to the grocery store, and they spend money, and they’re upset with what things cost, and that should always be what they’re talking about,” Heye said.While Biden has been quick to take credit for the strong hiring figures during his administration, polls show that hasn’t landed with voters. In recent months, the White House has shifted strategy, announcing efforts to get rid of junk fees and accusing corporations of “price gouging”.Evan Roth Smith, head pollster for the Democratic research firm Blueprint, said that lines up with his findings that voters care less about job growth and more about the fact that everything costs more.“Voters just felt a prioritization mismatch between what they were experiencing, the kind of pressures they were under, which isn’t that they didn’t have jobs, it’s that they couldn’t pay their bills,” Smith said.“Makes all the sense in the world that if the White House and president and the Biden campaign are touting this stuff, that they are going to make headway, and are making headway with voters in getting them to feel like Joe Biden in the Democratic party do understand.” More

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      After a bad legal week for Trump, even worse could be on the horizon

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      Donald Trump was already reeling from multiple legal setbacks when a New York judge last week handed the former president a staggering defeat in his civil fraud case, ordering him to pay roughly $450m to the state after finding him liable for conspiracy to manipulate his net worth.The decision by Justice Arthur Engoron capped a bad legal week for Trump, who had watched his lawyers attempt to get access to sealed filings in a classified documents case in Florida and then watched his lawyers lose their attempt to delay his first criminal trial in New York.There may be worse coming.The immediate priority for Trump’s legal agenda remains, according to people familiar with the matter, figuring out how to come up with $450m – a figure that includes pre-judgment interest – or finding a company prepared to help him post bond within 30 days of when the court entered the judgment, so that he can appeal the penalty.Trump saw the ruling as a two-pronged stab at his personal identity: it is likely to almost entirely drain his accounts of cash and it bars him from running the Trump Organization, the vehicle he used to attain his fame, for three years.Trump’s preference is to avoid using his own money while he appeals and his lawyers have contacted several companies to provide the bond, which essentially assures the state that Trump has the money to pay the judgment should he lose his challenge.To obtain the bond, Trump would first have to find a company willing to accept him. He would then have to pay a premium to the bond company and offer collateral, likely in the form of his most prized assets, which would accrue interest and fees.If the penalty is upheld on appeal, Trump will face a huge financial burden. In an interview under oath with the New York attorney general’s office last year, Trump said he had $400m in cash and cash equivalents, though that figure could not be verified.A proportion of that figure comes from Trump’s sales of two properties after he left the White House, as well as new ventures including a real estate branding deal in Oman.The deals were intended to give Trump a cash cushion in the event of a sudden financial setback. But even if Trump’s $400m claim was accurate, that would clearly be wiped out should the $450m penalty be largely upheld.Adding to the total sum Trump must disgorge is an $83.3m judgement entered against him last month after he lost the second defamation trial involving the writer E Jean Carroll. That figure is not payable immediately, but it is another massive figure for which he has to account.Trump may ultimately find himself without enough of a cushion and face the need to mortgage or sell some of his properties. While Trump is not expected to go bankrupt – his total holdings are in the billions – it would mark a particularly humiliating moment for the former president.The legal woes extend beyond causing him financial pain. On Thursday, it was confirmed Trump would face trial in New York on charges that he falsified business records over hush money payments to a porn star to shield himself from bad press before the 2016 election.Jury selection in the case is now scheduled for 25 March, despite a last-ditch attempt by Trump’s lawyers to stave off the trial.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBefore the hearing to affirm the trial date, people involved in the situation said, Trump’s advisers had retained some hope it might be delayed even if they believed it was the most politically advantageous case of all his four criminal indictments.If Trump must face a criminal case before the election in November, they would choose the hush money case because Trump may not face jail time even if he is convicted, an outcome that could desensitize voters to the other, federal criminal cases looming before him.But Trump may have to grapple with the fallout from another legal setback in Atlanta, after he and his co-defendants charged by the Fulton county district attorney over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election struggled to argue she should be disqualified from bringing the case.The second day of the evidentiary hearing examining whether Fani Willis’s romantic relationship with her top deputy, Nathan Wade, amounted to some sort of kickback scheme sufficient to generate a conflict of interest went sideways for the defendants.The defendants called Terrence Bradley, the former divorce lawyer for Wade, to testify that the relationship started before Willis hired Wade to work on the Trump case on 1 November 2021, in order to contradict Willis and Wade’s testimony.The objective was to have Bradley contradict under oath the testimony of Willis and Wade, in order to make the case that they committed perjury and argue the presiding Fulton county superior judge, Scott McAfee, to discredit their testimony.But Bradley was a particularly reluctant witness and testified he had privileged information about when the relationship started, but not personal knowledge he obtained separate from him representing Wade.By the end of the day, it appeared uncertain whether the defendants had met their burden of proof to force Willis off and make the criminal charges in Georgia go away. More

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      Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib tells fellow Democrats: reject Biden in primary

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      The progressive US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has called on her fellow Michigan Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s presidential primary election – at the expense of the party’s incumbent, Joe Biden – in late February.Appearing in a video posted to X on Saturday by Listen to Michigan, a political campaign to encourage the state’s voters to vote “uncommitted” in the 27 February primary, Tlaib justified her stark display of displeasure with Biden by alluding to Israel’s military strikes on Gaza, which local authorities say have killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians since last October.Tlaib – Congress’s only Palestinian American lawmaker – also criticized the Biden White House’s support for Israel, which launched its military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October Hamas attacks that killed about 1,200 Israelis.Speaking in front of the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center in Dearborn, which has one of the US’s largest populations of Arab Americans, Tlaib said: “It is important … to not only march against the genocide, not only make sure that we’re calling our members of Congress and local elected [officials], and passing city resolutions all throughout our country. It is also important to create a voting bloc, something that is a bullhorn to say, ‘Enough is enough.’”Tlaib added: “We don’t want a country that supports war and bombs and destruction. We want to support life. We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza … This is the way you can raise our voices. Don’t make us even more invisible. Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government.“If you want us to be louder, then come here and vote uncommitted” rather than in support of Biden, the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee for November’s presidential election.The congresswoman’s message echoed the calls of Listen to Michigan, whose campaign manager is Tlaib’s sister Layla Elabed.Speaking to Business Insider, Elabed said: “Voting uncommitted is our way of demanding change, and this is going to be our vehicle to return political power back to us.”More than 30 elected officials across south-east Michigan have already pledged to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s 27 February primary elections. Those officials include the Dearborn mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, along with city council members and state representatives.A statement released by Listen to Michigan earlier in February said, “Let us be clear: we unequivocally demand that the Biden administration immediately call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We must hold our president unaccountable and ensure that we, the American taxpayers, are no longer forced to be accomplices in a genocide that is backed and funded by the United States government.”It also said: “Therefore, we pledge to check the box for ‘uncommitted’ on our ballots in the upcoming presidential primary election. These are not empty words; they signify our steadfast commitment to justice, dignity, and the sanctity of human life, which is greater than loyalty to any candidate or party.”With the 81-year-old president facing increasing pressure over his handling of Israel’s military strikes in Gaza, as well as scrutiny over his age, Arab and Muslim Americans across multiple swing states – including Michigan – have organized campaigns under the slogan #AbandonBiden.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTlaib’s latest video announcement has received mixed responses.The former Ohio Democratic state senator Nina Turner tweeted, “Arab Americans do not want their tax dollars going to kill their family members. It’s unnerving to see the liberal response to that demand. Rashida Tlaib is absolutely justified to endorse this.”Meanwhile, in response to Tlaib’s endorsement of Listen Michigan, the conservative group Republicans Against asked on X who among Democrats would run against the congresswoman ahead of her running for re-election in November.Tlaib last year was censured by the Republican-led US House over her criticisms of Israel. She responded to the censure measure by saying that she would “not be silenced” and that “Palestinian people are not disposable”. More