A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

The Other Shoe Just Dropped

In a new filing Thursday, former President Donald Trump launched a wholesale attack not just on his conviction in the New York hush money case but on the underlying indictment, too – relying heavily on the Supreme Court’s unprecedented ruling in his favor on presidential immunity.

You knew this was coming, but there was a jolt in reading the particulars of the motion. Perhaps it was the effect of seeing anew that the Supreme Court gifted Trump so many angles of attack by issuing such a broad, vague ruling and tacking on to it a newly invented evidentiary rule that benefits Trump and future lawless presidents in myriad ways.

It was the high court’s new evidentiary rule that evidence of official acts can’t be used in a criminal proceeding against the former president – ostensibly because it would deprive him of the benefits of the immunity protection the court bestowed on him – that opened the door for Trump now to challenge the underlying indictment.

“Because of the implications for the institution of the Presidency, the use of official-acts evidence was a structural error under the federal Constitution that tainted DANY’s grand jury proceedings as well as the trial,” Trump argued in the new filing.

Trump is asking the trial judge to dismiss the indictment and vacate the conviction. Most legal observers think the conviction will likely survive review in New York state, but the scope of the Supreme Court ruling on immunity means the high court will almost certainly get a chance to weigh in and is likely to take that chance. That was not the case, or at least was much more of a stretch, before the immunity ruling, when there were few if any real constitutional issues in the New York case that would have been a basis for Supreme Court intervention.

To reiterate, close observers recognized right off the bat that the immunity ruling posed a threat not just to the Jan. 6 case in DC and the RICO case in Georgia but also to the hush money conviction and the Mar-a-Lago case. Yesterday’s filing was evidence of those chickens coming home to roost.

The Supreme Court Is Gaslighting Us All

• Jesse Wegman: “At the close of one of the most consequential and least constitutional terms in the Supreme Court’s history, it’s hard to ignore one particularly offensive trend: the right-wing justices’ repeated and patronizing attempts to minimize the importance of their unprecedented decisions.”
• Roger Parloff: “[T]he SCOTUS majority in Trump v US contemptuously chided the bipartisan lower courts for trying to let justice be done before Trump has a chance to abuse power to derail it. They even purported to be acting expeditiously … though we are, right now, pointlessly counting 32 more days off the calendar for SCOTUS’s ruling to become final, because the court declined to make it immediate. (The pause permits the losing party to seek rehearing—inconceivable here as the Court well knows.)”

An Impossible Feat

As I suggested in yesterday’s Morning Memo, Joe Biden’s press conference to wrap up the NATO summit was a trap more than a potential escape route for the embattled president.

Despite a strong showing that effectively muted concerns that Biden had suffered a sudden and irreversible cognitive decline in recent months, the news coverage universally took on the bitter flavor of “he did fine but it won’t matter” – a hall of mirrors of political analysis that seems destined to be the surreal place American politics is going to spend the next few days, weeks, and maybe even months.

The one bit of good news yesterday for Biden was that a meeting of Democratic senators with Biden’s campaign triumvirate was not followed by a series of Senate defections. That number still stands at one.

Biden’s Shrinking Electoral College Map

The Biden campaign sent a memo to campaign staffers yesterday that amounted to a concession that the Electoral College map for the president has shrunk to the “blue wall” of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, the Associated Press reports:

The fresh emphasis on the “blue wall” states by the campaign, which has heavily invested in other battlegrounds such as Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia, acknowledges that the path to defeating Donald Trump in November is narrowing, even as the team insists the Sun Belt states are “not out of reach.”

Democratic political strategist Doug Sosnik cites the campaign memo as he reassess the current political map in a NYT op-ed out today. Sosnik paints a grim picture for Biden:

Unless the basic contours of the race change and some of the Sun Belt battleground states become more competitive (which is unlikely), Mr. Biden’s only viable path for winning is to carry Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Each of the three states poses particular challenges for Mr. Biden. Current polling shows him trailing Mr. Trump by as many as five points in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and more narrowly in Michigan.

I should add one note for the discerning reader: The Sosnik op-ed, while sound, also reads like part of the internal party drumbeat for Biden to exit the race. That’s not to denigrate the analysis just to heighten your awareness.

The McCain Precedent

Brian Beutler has a insightful callback to the desperate measure GOP nominee John McCain reached for in 2008 to try to change the trajectory of his losing campaign: Sarah Palin.

Quote Of The Day

It’s fucking awesome.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), on seeing congressional Democrats swarmed by reporters this week and having to face uncomfortable questions about President Biden

The Looming Menace, Part I

TPM’s Josh Kovensky: What Viktor Orbán brought to Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago last night.

The Looming Menace, Part II

WaPo: “U.S. intelligence officials warned the German authorities earlier this year that Russia was plotting to assassinate the head of Europe’s biggest weapons producer, according to two Western officials, amid an escalating sabotage campaign by Moscow to raise the cost of Western support for Ukraine.”

From The ‘You Can’t Make This Up’ File

Via NBC News’ Frank Thorpe V:

Outside Sen Brown’s office this morning, his GOP opponent, Bernie Moreno, gaggles with reporters, saying, “I can tell you this, if I’m here, I will talk to you at any point in time, even take tough questions. Sherrod Brown won’t do that.”

He then immediately got a Q from @AndrewDesiderio about if his stance on abortion conflicts with the party platform.

Moreno: “We’re not here to talk about abortion.”

Outside Sen Brown’s office this morning, his GOP opponent, Bernie Moreno, gaggles with reporters, saying, “I can tell you this, if I'm here, I will talk to you at any point in time, even take tough questions. Sherrod Brown won't do that.”

He then immediately got a Q from… pic.twitter.com/FLp1epSvYf

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) July 11, 2024

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A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

The March Toward Extremism Continues

As I explain below, today is shaping up to be another long day for President Biden and the White House as they attempt to ride out the chorus of calls from within his own party for him to end his re-election bid. We may have a better read by this evening on whether the dynamics of the past two weeks have substantively changed.

In the meantime, Donald Trump and the Republican Party have mostly taken a half-step back and out of the glare of the spotlight to allow the Biden turmoil to bubble and stew. No reason to interrupt the dynamic that is throttling your opponent’s campaign. But the entire far-right apparatus is continuing to position itself for what looks like an increasingly likely win in the fall, and maybe a big one.

The momentum that the far-right forces would have coming off a landslide win that would give them the White House, Senate, and House would be staggering. I’m not predicting outcomes here. But the wolves are circling closer, and the present picture of our politics is sobering.

A few examples from this week that you might have missed:

• Wannabe American strongman Donald Trump is expected to meet at Mar-a-Lago today with Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, who is coming from the NATO summit in Washington. Orbán, the newly minted president of the European Union (a rotating position) is fresh off a meeting last week with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. Doesn’t take much to read between the lines there.
• Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) openly trumpeted and embraced Christian nationalism during an appearance at the National Conservatism Conference:

"Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian Nation. So I am.

And some will say that I am advocating Christian Nationalism. And so I do."

-Senator @HawleyMO at NatCon 4 pic.twitter.com/yyJsA0BIkf

— National Conservatism (@NatConTalk) July 9, 2024

• The chairman of the Alabama Republican Party declared in a radio interview that democracy somehow leads to socialism, and cast it as a giant conspiracy: “The mainstream media wants us to think of ourselves as a democracy because that leads to socialism.”
• TPM’s Khaya Himmelman: Big Lie-Pilled Officials Are Now In Charge Of Election Admin In Counties Across The U.S.

Biden Death Watch, Day Infinity

I’m snarking a bit with that subhed, but the day ahead is a looking like a rough one for Biden, with the bulk of the news coverage built around two key events, neither of which seems likely even in the best-case scenario to be able to rescue him but both of which could further doom him.

• Noon ET: The Biden trio of Steve Ricchetti, Mike Donilon and Jen O’Malley Dillon are scheduled to meet with Democratic senators at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to reassure them that Biden has a viable path to victory against Trump. So far, only one Democratic senator has defected. This meeting seems intended as a bulwark against further defections.
• 5:30 p.m. ET: Biden gives a solo White House press conference that runs the risk of devolving into a proof-of-life hostage video. Every stutter, stumble, malapropism, misstep, and gaffe will be dramatically inflated in the current atmosphere. The other real risk is that even if he doesn’t flub his lines or repeat any of the worst of his debate performance, the press conference could end up focused on whether he will stay or go, whether he can win, why Democrats should keep him, why so many have already defected, etc. It would be a difficult performance to pull off under the best of circumstances. These are not the best of circumstances.

Going into the day with these set-piece events is the kind of thing White Houses often engineer for their own advantage. But today feels more like a made-for-TV set-up forced on the Biden White House amid all the demands for Biden to come out swinging, look capable, and overcome the doubts about his vigor and resilience by demonstrating a lot of vigor and resilience.

Other Biden Developments …

• Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) became the first Senate Democrat to call for President Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, penning a WaPo op-ed to that effect.
• Longtime Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who himself is not running for re-election, became the ninth House Democrat to call for President Biden to end his candidacy. Here’s a tally of which Democrats in Congress have weighed in so far.
• Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) didn’t do President Biden any favors, with a muddled message in a TV appearance that said he needs to decide soon. Of course, Biden has made it abundantly clear that he has decided … to stay in the race.
• The WaPo takes a look at the mechanics of Biden withdrawing his candidacy before the Democratic convention versus after. It’s a big difference.

Deep Dive

Tim Alberta embedded himself with the Trump campaign brain trust and has a close look at their strategy, reaction to the Biden debate meltdown, and the electoral map.

How Trump Played The Media On Abortion

Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby on the flawed coverage of the new Republican Party platform.

Supreme Court Watch

We’re still picking through the debris of the just-finished term, and mapping the way ahead to some future high court reforms:

• TPM’s Kate Riga: Often In Dissent, Sometimes Alone, Ketanji Brown Jackson Lays Out Progressive Vision For The Court
• Kevin Kruse offers a historical corrective on what really happened with FDR’s court-packing effort and what it suggests and doesn’t suggest about court reforms today.

Rudy G’s Bankruptcy Looks Poised To Be Dismissed

A ruling is expected Friday that would dismiss Rudy Giuliani’s Chapter 11 filing and strip him of the bankruptcy protections that have kept Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss (and other creditors) from collecting on the debts he owes them.

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