Donald Trump’s lawyers wrapped up their days-long cross examination of Michael Cohen Monday afternoon and, soon after, the DA’s Office rested its case.
Trump’s lawyers are now beginning their defense.
Your Primal Scream Is Good Therapy, Not Good Campaign Advice
After a short bout of mea culpas and self-flagellating in response to Biden’s State of the Union speech in early March, Ezra Klein is back with a laundry list of complaints about the campaign. He starts by taking as gospel an Axios report about Biden campaign polling denial and proceeds to whine and perseverate about every possible aspect of the campaign.
This passage from the lead in to the piece offers some illustration …
Continue reading “Your Primal Scream Is Good Therapy, Not Good Campaign Advice”Rudy G Gets Served But Not Before Beclowning Himself Again
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Hate To See Rudy Roasted
Under indictment in Arizona for his alleged role in the 2020 fake electors scheme there, Rudy Giuliani had managed for the past few days to avoid being served in that new criminal case.
Feeling cocky, Rudy went on X/Twitter Friday night and began taunting Arizona prosecutors. His gloating didn’t last long. Shortly thereafter, Rudy was served in Palm Beach at his 80th birthday bash, hosted by Trumper Caroline Wren.
That prompted this retort from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes:
Rudy soon deleted his own tweet.
Meanwhile, co-defendant John Eastman pleaded not guilty to the Arizona charges in a court appearance earlier Friday.
UPDATED: No Trump Verdict Til At Least Next Week
The cross examination of Michael Cohen should end this morning, but we won’t have closing arguments until next Tuesday, the judge just said in open court.
TPM’s Josh Kovensky is liveblogging the trial here.
The wild cards that remain:
(1) How much longer will the Cohen testimony go? We could end up in a bit of a dance of redirects and re-crosses that drag today out a bit – or we could be done with Cohen by late morning. Stay tuned.
(2) Will Trump testify? He loves to promise it, but don’t expect him to deliver. It would be madness.
(3) Will Trump put on any kind of defense case? It will be spartan if he does.
Ed. note: This item was updated based on the new developments Monday morning.
… But Their Yard Signs!
Justice Samuel Alito’s “explanation” for why his wife was flying the American flag upside down at their home as a pro-insurrection protest in the days before Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration is for the ages.
The neighbor dispute that Alito describes – including accusing some of his neighbors of being “very political” natch – doesn’t actually explain anything. “My neighbors were rude in blaming me for Jan. 6 so I proceeded to retaliate by showing my support for Jan. 6” is a first-class non sequitur.
Counter-programming my neighbor’s “Fuck Trump” sign with a symbol warning that America has been taken over by enemy forces in the name of Joe Biden maybe has an internal logic to it but it remains quite insane, especially at the home of a Supreme Court justice.
Many others have imagined the fallout in a scenario where one of the liberal justices let their true flag fly. You get it.
Judge Cannon Is Not Fit For This Moment
Former CIA lawyer Brian Greer: It Is Inexcusable How Judge Cannon Is Delaying the Trump Documents Case
Pelosi’s Husband’s Assailant Must Be Resentenced
The man who broke into then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer was sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison for the attack – but sentencing has been reopened because the judge in the case failed to give the defendant a chance to speak during the sentencing hearing.
The Latest Hunter Walker Special
TPM’s Hunter Walker: Lawsuit Exposes Internal Feuds And Inner Workings Of Stew Peters’ Extremist Media Empire
2024 Ephemera
- David Corn: Here Come the Russians, Again
- Politico: Trump at NRA convention floats 3-term presidency
- NYT: 2 Liberal Groups to Spend $5 Million on State Supreme Court Races
It’s Fundamentally Not An Insurance Problem
The NYT is out with its own version of the “homeowners insurance crisis” story, and it’s better than most in emphasizing that climate change is driving this issue. But it’s still mostly trapped in a framing where instead of treating the lack of insurability as a symptom of the larger problem, it focuses on it as the problem.
The story gives away the game though when it talks about state-backed high-risk pools for homeowners, like in Florida:
So many homeowners have flooded into Florida’s state-backed high-risk pool that it is now the state’s largest insurer, with rates that are too low to reflect the risk it faces in the event of a major hurricane.
It doesn’t matter how big of a pool you create to disperse the risk if the baseline risk is simply too high to insure against. And if you don’t price the risk properly on top of that, you’re just shifting the risk from insurances companies and homeowners to taxpayers with no appreciable reduction in risk or in the ultimate cost. It’s a recipe for financial disaster alongside each natural disaster.
It’s Bad Out There For EV Drivers
I have had to make a conscious effort not to turn Morning Memo into a long-running diatribe about the state of EV charging infrastructure in this country. I’m almost four years into owning my first EV. Love the car (2019 Kia Niro EV), love how EVs drive, love the low maintenance. I’d never go back to an IC car, all else being equal. But the public charging infrastructure for EVs remains spotty and often shitty.
I thought I was making the shift as the EV wave was beginning to crest in 2020, but the availability of public EV chargers has gotten only marginally better in the time I’ve owned an EV – and their reliability still stinks. Showing up at a charging station with only some of the chargers working is 100% normal. Showing up where none are working is not uncommon. That only adds to the length of the lines to get a recharge and uncertainty of longer trips.
A couple of things that may make my situation a little different from the optimum EV owner that I knew meant I’d be pushing the envelope a little: I haven’t had off-street parking so no home charger, and I wanted to use the EV for occasional trips up and down the East Coast of as long as 500 miles each way.
I have a higher tolerance than most people for turning what should be casual road trips into white-knuckle adventures. But it’s no way to live, really. I was mostly willing to endure the indignities of being a relatively early adopter, figuring it was a small contribution to nudging along the energy transition. But it’s not getting better as fast as it should, and it’s going to end up being a impediment to the wider adoption of EVs, if it isn’t already.
With a reliable charging network, I’d have been fine. But the charger situation has muted even my enthusiasm for EVs. Not enough to dissuade people from making the plunge, but when people ask how I like my EV, my response is always the same: “The car is great! But lemme tell you about the charging situation …”
For The Ages …
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
The Fifth Circuit Is In For A Beatdown
Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕
Continue reading “The Fifth Circuit Is In For A Beatdown”Lawsuit Exposes Internal Feuds And Inner Workings Of Stew Peters’ Extremist Media Empire
A dispute raging inside the “Stew Peters Network” ended up in a federal court in Florida last month. The ongoing case has exposed drama between a group of far right media personalities, complete with alleged text messages and emails that show the inner workings of a company that has peddled conspiracy theories, anti-gay hate speech, racism, and antisemitism, while still maintaining connections with more mainstream Republicans.
Continue reading “Lawsuit Exposes Internal Feuds And Inner Workings Of Stew Peters’ Extremist Media Empire”Benny Gantz is a Follower, Lacks Moral Courage
Let me add a few thoughts on the issues we were discussing yesterday about Israel and Israel’s government. For several years, former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz has loomed over Israeli politics as a potential successor to Benjamin Netanyahu. This is an established dynamic in Israeli politics wherein the IDF is far and away the most respected institution. Former chiefs of staff almost always get discussed as potential prime ministers, though only two of them have actually done it, and many of them become government ministers. Gantz has run as the leader of a party he created which has existed under a few labels. He’s won more seats, then fewer seats. Through the war he’s been the public’s top choice in polls for the next prime minister.
What I say now is based on no inside information or even reporting and it may seem audacious to say about someone who’s had such a career of accomplishment. But it seems clear to me that the man is a follower and has some fundamental lack of moral courage.
Continue reading “Benny Gantz is a Follower, Lacks Moral Courage”Today In History: SCOTUS Rules On Brown v. Board Of Education
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court delivered a unanimous ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case. It was a landmark decision that declared the segregation of public schools to be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore unconstitutional. At the heart of this case was a class action lawsuit brought by local families against the Topeka Board of Education for forcing black and white students to attend separate schools. Among the plaintiffs was the Brown family — specifically Linda Brown, who became the face of the movement to desegregate schools. This case is considered to be a watershed moment in the Civil Rights Movement, setting the stage for legislative action in the 1960s.
Linda Brown sits in the middle of other students on the bus to the racially segregated Monroe Elementary School
Attorneys who argued Brown v. Board of Education stand in front of the Supreme Court Building
Nettie Hunt explains the meaning of the ruling to her daughter Nickie outside the Supreme Court building
Portrait of the children involved in the landmark lawsuit
John Davis (left) argued for segregation and Thurgood Marshall argued against
Linda Brown outside Sumner Elementary
Nathaniel Steward recites his lesson in a desegregated classroom
Linda Brown sits with her classmates at the racially segregated Monroe Elementary School
NAACP brochure published on the first anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision
Students for whom the Brown v. Board case was brought and their parents
An adult Linda Brown answering questions from the press regarding her 1954 case against the board of Education
White protesters on the anniversary of the Brown v. Board ruling hold signs, 2004
Linda Brown as she walks past Sumner Elementary
The Monroe School historic site of Brown v. Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas
A Response to TPM Reader JB
TPM Reader JS responds to TPM Reader JB’s note from last night. As I said with JB, I don’t agree with all of the points. But the overall argument hits at what I do believe JB leaves out, which is that the U.S. is still the great power in the region. And the situation in Gaza is umbilically tied to three or four other major regional tension points. To my mind the real issue is that we cannot bring this episode to a close because of Netanyahu’s intransigence which is one part ideology and one part the need to keep his coalition intact which, in turn, keeps him out of jail. That’s a tough reason for a great power to be consumed by an issue.
Continue reading “A Response to TPM Reader JB”JB is a classic dot disconnecter. His assertion that Israel is taking too much bandwidth from Ukraine, for example, completely misses the point. I’m going to pretend the assertion that Bibi was trying to suck us into a war with Iran was hyperbole, because it’s ridiculous, bordering on the conspiratorial (Bibi approved the killing of the Iranian general knowing they would shoot 300 drones at Israel and this bank shot would bring the US in against Iran? Lol, lmao even.)
Ohio SoS Announces Expanded Effort To Deal With An Election Problem That Does Not Exist
Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose joined MAGA Republicans and Trump allies in sounding the non-citizen voting alarms ahead of 2024, announcing a new initiative to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls in Ohio — a solution to a Republican manufactured problem.
Continue reading “Ohio SoS Announces Expanded Effort To Deal With An Election Problem That Does Not Exist”The Insurrectionists In Our Midst
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Blame It On The Wife
Though we certainly didn’t need it, yesterday was a reminder that convicting, defeating, and incarcerating Donald Trump won’t by itself rid us of the lawless insurrectionists that now populate the Republican Party, Congress, and the Supreme Court.
In a breathtaking report from the NYT’s relentless Jodi Kantor, neighbors of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito provided evidence that the American flag was flying upside down outside his Alexandria, Virginia home in the run-up to Jan. 20, 2021 inauguration of Joe Biden – an unmistakeable emblem of protest heavily adopted by the Big Lie/Stop the Steal crowd in the weeks after the 2020 election.
Remarkably, Alito admitted to the NYT via email that the incident had happened but blamed his wife for it, claiming she had been personally offended by a neighbor posting what we are led to believe was a “Fuck Trump” sign or similarly blunt message in their own yard:
I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag. It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.
Given how thin-skinned, peevish, and quick to offend Alito himself is, I suppose it would be no surprise if his wife were similarly small-minded. Note how Alito’s statement, while it blames his wife, also obliquely defends her – “objectionable and personally insulting”! – and does nothing to disavow what she did, the message it sent, or the way it undermined his already-compromised position on the high court.
Alito spends much of his time harnessing perceived personal slights to high principle and running around tilting at windmills. I don’t know anything of his spouse, and she has little public profile – so we are left to wonder if they are kindred spirits in that regard. But even the kind of people who get in fights with their neighbors and hold themselves in such high regard that they conflate their own wounded egos with foundational principles don’t usually find themselves defending or touting insurrections.
As things now stand, the wives of two of the Supreme Court justices – Virginia Thomas and Martha-Ann Alito – have either publicly organized, backed, or expressed support for the effort to subvert the results of the 2020 election.
My only gripe with the NYT story is that it quickly shifts from the facts of what happened to an analysis of the ethical implications for a sitting Supreme Court justice, including whether the Supreme Court’s own rules apply to the justice themselves, whether they should be subject to the standards of everyone else in the federal judiciary, and the whys and wherefores of judges not doing anything to appear overtly partisan.
Please. It’s all so precious. The more time we spend splitting hairs over the ethical niceties of this or that particular episode, the harder it is to see the big picture.
This wasn’t merely a matter of the household of a sitting Supreme Court justice improperly demonstrating a partisan preference in a public way. This was a bold declaration of affinity for and alignment with the smoldering insurrection led by a president of the same party that had just been put down but which still loomed as a threat to civic order, the peaceful transfer of power (which at that point had still not yet happened), and the rule of law.
All Alito can muster in response is to blame his wife.
Stand Back And Standby
While Justice Alito was dancing around the issue, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was saying the quiet part out loud. He posted a photo of himself standing behind Donald Trump at the courthouse in Manhattan where his hush money trial is being held and echoed Trump’s own famous line to the Proud Boys from the 2020 presidential debate stage:
Many of the leaders of the Proud Boys, who led the attack on the Capitol, are now in jail after being convicted on seditious conspiracy charges.
The message to Gaetz’s 2.5 million followers on X/Twitter was clear: He stands with the Proud Boys and whether it’s the next election or the current trial, he and the MAGA hoards are prepared to tear it all down – or at least posture about planning to do so.
Tell me again how the insurrection was quashed, nothing really happened, and it’s now over.
Abbott Pardons Gunman Who Killed BLM Protester
The third example from yesterday is not directly related to Jan. 6, and yet it’s unmistakably connected.
As he has long promised, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) pardoned the gunman who was convicted of shooting and killing an armed Black Lives Matter protester in Austin in the summer of 2020.
The BLM protests and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol are inextricably intertwined in the Republican mind. Jan. 6 was their BLM protest. Why are all the Jan. 6 rioters being prosecuted while Biden lets the BLM thugs walk free, they argue disingenuously. Abbott was sending his own message about the relative value of the lives of the gunman and the protester, about which side Abbott himself is on, and what his real values are.
So there you have it in a nutshell. From top to bottom, the Republican Party has become the insurrectionist party. It extends from the executive to the legislative to the judicial. It’s all encompassing and unapologetic. There is value in such clarity, if we choose to see it.
More Of What’s To Come In Trump II
WSJ: Trump Allies Draw Up Plans for Unprecedented Immigration Crackdown
Everything Is Perfectly Normal
The House Oversight Committee held a markup last evening of the bogus effort to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt and it devolved into a screaming match of a kind seldom seen on the Hill. It turned deeply personal and vindictive: “fake eyelashes” + “bleach blonde, bad built, butch body” + “you don’t have enough intelligence”:
Menendez Jurors Get To See The Gold Bars
Great lede: “With the corruption trial of Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey underway on Thursday, a prosecutor handed a juror in the first row of the jury box a plastic bag containing an object at the heart of the government’s case: a gold bar that glinted under the courtroom lights.”
My WhatsApp Group Chats Don’t Look Like This
WaPo: Business titans privately urged NYC mayor to use police on Columbia protesters, chats show
Have A Great Weekend!
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!