“Lawyers defending Donald Trump in his criminal trial in Manhattan rested their case on Tuesday after calling just two witnesses — neither of them the former president — setting the stage for closing arguments after more than five weeks of testimony,” the New York Times reports.
“But jurors are not expected to deliberate until after the Memorial Day holiday as the court deals with important business, including instructions that the judge will give the jury.”
“As he exited the courtroom, and raised his hand in a fist, Trump did not answer reporters’ questions about why he had not testified in the trial.”
Earlier on Monday: “Your honor, the people rest.” — Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass, quoted by the New York Times, at Donald Trump’s criminal “hush money” trial.
So that means the trial schedule looks like this:
- Wednesday: Off Day/No Trial
- Thursday: Partial trial day (if needed)
- Friday: Off Day/No Trial
- Monday: Memorial Day/No Trial
- Tuesday: Closing Arguments
“The 12 jurors who will decide the guilt or innocence of Donald Trump in the first criminal trial of an American president could be deliberating his fate next week after a few days off,” the New York Times reports.
“On Monday, prosecutors rested their case after their 20th and final witness, Michael D. Cohen, stepped down from the stand after a week of testimony in a Manhattan courtroom. At the end of the day, defense lawyers told the judge that they could finish early on Tuesday after the conclusion of testimony from Robert J. Costello, whom they called to the stand. That’s an indication that it is unlikely Mr. Trump will testify.”
“The judge, Juan M. Merchan, said that closing arguments would come next, after the long Memorial Day weekend.”
“The judge overseeing former President Trump’s New York hush money trial admonished defense witness Robert Costello Monday for his reactions while on the stand,” Axios reports.
“It was one of the most dramatic moments of the ongoing Trump criminal trial, which is now in its sixth week, and led the judge to temporarily clear the courtroom.”
We didn’t know what was said behind closed doors until later in the day when the transcript was released:
Rolling Stone: “The tension in the court exploded after Costello seemingly rolled his eyes at one of Merchan’s rulings. The judge admonished Costello, ordering the jury out of the room to ‘discuss proper decorum in the courtroom’ with Costello.”
NBC News: “Professional line-standers are a growing part of the gig economy. But the criminal trial of a former president accused of illegally covering up hush money payments to a porn star has translated into a windfall for people who get paid to wait — and who, as the trial goes on, have increasingly been hired by members of the general public with no stake in the trial other than curiosity.”
Brian Beutler on whether the Hush Money Trial is helping Donald Trump: “As to the political question of whether the trial is making Trump more popular with the voting public, or engendering its sympathy, nobody has to predict anything: Before the trial, Trump was more popular (or less unpopular) than he had been in a long time; through the trial, those numbers have slowly deteriorated.
His head-to-head polling against Biden has also not improved. Depending on which model you consult, it’s flat or slipped a little.
This movement in Trump’s numbers is hardly earth-shattering. We can’t even say for sure that it’s happening because of the criminal trial.
But it’s decent evidence the trial is not helping Trump either — at least not yet.
9A video posted to Donald Trump’s account on his social media network Monday included references to a ‘unified Reich’ among hypothetical news headlines if he wins the election in November,” the AP reports.
“The word ‘Reich’ is often largely associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich, though the references in the video Trump shared appear to be a reference to the formation of the modern pan-German nation, unifying smaller states into a single Reich, or empire, in 1871.”
Donald Trump said he would consider tapping Ken Paxton for U.S. attorney general if he wins a second term in the White House, the Texas Tribune reports.
Said Trump: “I would, actually. He’s very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he’s a very talented guy.”
“Three former U.S. foreign policy officials in Donald Trump’s administration met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other public figures in Israel on Monday,” Reuters reports.
“The delegation was comprised of Robert O’Brien, who served as Trump’s fourth and final national security adviser, as well as former Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates John Rakolta and former Ambassador to Switzerland Ed McMullen.”
Tom Nichols: “Winston Smith, the protagonist of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, works for the totalitarian Ministry of Truth, where his assignment is to produce lies. He rewrites history so that whatever the regime says today cannot be contradicted by something it might have said yesterday. (He ensures, for example, that Big Brother’s ‘Order for the Day’ announcements about the regime’s achievements match up with everything the leader predicted in previous statements, and he excises any untidy references in the state media to people who have been arrested and disappeared.) Once history is fixed, Winston drops contradictory materials into ‘the memory hole,’ a small opening near every desk that leads to a furnace, where the inconvenient past is quickly incinerated.”
“Leaders of the current GOP presumably do not have such memory holes in their offices, but they’re doing their best to replicate the effect. Republicans who once claimed to be against Donald Trump, and ridiculed him, are now expending kilocalories of political energy to convince their constituents and the rest of the American public that they have always been faithful to Trump.”
Trump Media and Technology Group, the company affiliated with Donald Trump that operates Truth Social, reported $770,500 in revenue for the first quarter of 2024 and a net loss of $327.6 million, Variety reports.
“The top U.S. general in Afghanistan during the American military’s 2021 withdrawal repeatedly warned Washington that security would get ‘very bad, very fast’ after troops departed, but the Biden administration still failed to grasp the danger in keeping its embassy open with only nominal protection, he told lawmakers investigating the war’s deadly endgame,” the Washington Post reports.
Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) said he doesn’t plan to hold hearings on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s house flying an upside-down flag in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, NBC News reports.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Alito showed “not good judgment.”
“Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg bowed to pressure to resign from the bank regulator after an external investigation found widespread sexual harassment at the agency and lawmakers of both parties berated his leadership, capping a nearly two-decade career at the agency,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown (D-OH) called on President Biden to replace FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg, after damning reports of a toxic workplace culture at the bank regulator where Gruenberg has served for nearly two decades, Politico reports.
Wall Street Journal: “For many Americans, the race between two universally known but widely disliked candidates has had the low drone of background noise. Many have rushed to their political camps, pretty much sure of how they will vote this fall despite their displeasure with the choice before them.”
“But the campaigns are eager to make sure their core supporters are fully engaged and committed to voting—and they want to move sooner rather than later to reach the approximately one-third of voters who remain persuadable and up for grabs.”
Said GOP strategist David Winston: “Generally, why does someone turn on the TV and watch someone they have an unfavorable view of? I have an unfavorable view of both, but who do I decide who I’m going to vote for?’ It’s a moment when information could be provided.”
NPR: Biden and Trump pin their hopes on debate to give them an edge.
“Donald Trump on Saturday floated the idea of a third term if he wins in November,” Politico reports.
Said Trump: “You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?”
“It’s not the first time Trump has mentioned extending his stay in the White House, an idea he suggested while on the campaign trail in 2020. His latest remarks provide more fodder for the Biden campaign, which seized on the comments as it tries to paint Trump as a threat to democracy and institutional norms.”
“Donald Trump’s long-fraught relationship with the Covid vaccine is again becoming a political liability for the former president as he tries to stop his voters from potentially defecting to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr,” Politico reports.
“Trump is threatening to ‘not give one penny’ to schools or colleges that mandate the Covid-19 vaccine. He is accusing Kennedy of being a ‘fake’ anti-vaxxer. And he is rarely mentioning what he once touted as ‘one of the greatest miracles’ of his presidency — his program to speed development of the vaccine.”
“The Biden administration was close to transferring 11 detainees out of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a country in the Middle East in October 2023, but abruptly halted the move amid concerns about political optics after Hamas’ attack on Israel,“ NBC News reports.
“More than seven months later, the administration has not set a new date for the transfer, the officials said, and the detainees remain at Guantanamo with no clarity on when, or if, it will happen.”
“A proposed amendment to enshrine access to abortion in Nevada’s constitution is one step closer to appearing on the November 2024 ballot, after a coalition of reproductive rights advocates on Monday submitted to state officials the required number of signatures,” NBC News reports.
“State officials will now review the signatures and have until July 8 to fully certify the proposed amendment for the ballot.”
Peter Navarro told Semafor in a prison interview that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell would be gone in the first 100 days of a second Donald Trump term that would also include mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and more tariffs on Chinese goods.
Navarro also said he hopes to speak at the Republican National Convention if he can make it out in time, with his scheduled release date of around June 17 falling in the middle of the gathering.
New York Times: “This was just a typical month in American public life, where a steady undercurrent of violence and physical risk has become a new normal. From City Hall to Congress, public officials increasingly describe threats and harassment as a routine part of their jobs. Often masked by online anonymity and propelled by extreme political views, the barrage of menace has changed how public officials do their work, terrified their families and driven some from public life altogether.”
“By almost all measures, the evidence of the trend is striking. Last year, more than 450 federal judges were targeted with threats, a roughly 150 percent increase from 2019, according to the United States Marshals Service. The U.S. Capitol Police investigated more than 8,000 threats to members of Congress last year, up more than 50 percent from 2018. The agency recently added three full-time prosecutors to handle the volume.”
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