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

If You Can’t Beat Biden, Run Against Obama Instead?

A lot has been made of Donald Trump’s string of gaffes in which he either confuses Barack Obama for Joe Biden, asserts Obama is still president, or claims he beat Obama (they never ran against each other). The gaffes are so frequent that Trump issued a lame “explanation” for it last fall, claiming that in fact it was on purpose.

A sign of cognitive decline? Perhaps.

But it’s hard not to get the sense that there is a certain kind of truth in the gaffes. Whatever Biden’s weaknesses as a candidate, he has all the privileges and immunities of being an old white guy. He can’t be vilified by Republicans in quite the same way as Obama or Hillary Clinton. It’s got to hurt to have your ready-made racist and misogynistic attacks sitting unused in your rhetorical armory.

I’m not saying that Republicans are going to spend the next seven months pretending that Barack Obama is president so that they can stoke the darkest MAGA impulses and unleash their full fury at Democrats. Nope, not saying that at all:

"Obama is running the country" — Marjorie Taylor Greene pic.twitter.com/G9uQDQhoie

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 28, 2024

Flanked by American flag home decor, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) covered a lot of weird ground in that interview with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon – but Biden as Obama’s puppet is a marvelous bit of misdirection. It’s almost as if having given away immigration as their centerpiece issue by killing the immigration bill they actually liked, MAGA Republicans are casting about for a new organizing theme for their vitriol. Blame the Black guy must feel so comfortable and familiar.

Now, both can be true: Trump is slipping, getting easily confused about who is president and Trump and his minions are operating in a mental space where it’s easy to slip into attacking the Black guy because it fits with all their priors.

A Big Thanks!

For all the Morning Memo readers who have taken the plunge and become TPM members during our annual membership drive, welcome to the community!

We’re a small network of like-minded folks with a certain sensibility and outlook. While our operations are anchored in NYC and DC, we’ve always brought an outsider’s perspective to covering politics that comes in part from Josh Marshall and I having each grown up far from the centers of power.

When I think of our audience, I have in mind not just folks on the coasts but those of you in the blue dots scattered in red states, in university towns, state capitals, and places where you may feel a bit isolated and alone. In addition to supporting our journalism, the TPM community offers the reassurance that there are others out there just like you.

If you haven’t joined yet, please take a moment before the week ends to sign up. It’s quick and easy. We’re making good progress toward our goal of 1,000 new members in this drive. I appreciate any help you can give in getting us there. Thanks again!

Trump Goes After Trial Judge’s Daughter By Name

Donald Trump ramped up his attacks on the daughter of the trial judge in his hush-money case, calling her out by name in a post on his Truth Social platform. The gag order state Judge Juan Merchan imposed this week does not include restrictions on attacking him or his family, and Trump is taking full advantage of the carveout.

This is, of course, only the latest in a months’ long series of Trump attacks on judges, court workers, prosecutors, witnesses, and others, with full awareness of the risk of inciting further threats and potential violence.

It led to an extraordinary move last night by senior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who sits in DC and has heard some of the Jan. 6 rioter cases to go on CNN and decry Trump’s attacks. I can’t remember anything like this ever happening before. It is beyond unusual:

Senior Judge Reggie Walton: “We do these jobs because we’re committed to the rule of law & we believe in the rule of law & the rule of law can only function effectively when we have judges who are prepared to carry out their duties without the threat of potential physical harm.” pic.twitter.com/V1GC7LVD2g

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) March 29, 2024

The Last Bastion Of Institutionalism?

Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes discuss the unexpected role that state bar authorities are playing in providing some measure of accountability for the 2020 coup attempt, even as other elements of the legal profession struggle to come to grips with the scale and scope of the threat to democracy:

The Great Voter Fraud Bamboozlement

Once again the party that invented the myth of widespread voter fraud seems to have the hardest time not engaging in voter fraud. This time around it’s the vice chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, who illegally voted nine times while serving probation for felony check forgery.

2024 Ephemera

• Biden raises $25 million at NYC campaign event with Presidents Obama and Clinton.
• NYT: How Trump Paid $100 Million in Legal Fees
• RFK Jr’s veep pick has long denounced IVF as “one of the biggest lies that’s being told about women’s health today.”

Senate Dems Not Covering Themselves In Glory

With Biden nominee Adeel Mangi under sustained Islamophobic attack from Republicans because he would be the first Muslim American appeals court judge, Senate Democrats are not uniting around him en masse but rather letting him twist in the wind.

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) this week became the third Democratic senator to abandon Mangi, joining Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Joe Manchin (D-WV).

SBF Sentenced To 25 Years In Prison

The 32-year-old crypto-king’s 25-year federal prison sentence was less than the 40-50 years sought by prosecutors.

Have A Great Weekend!

Baseball is back. It’s my favorite weekend of the men’s NCAA tourney. Caitlin Clark’s Iowa team plays again Saturday in the women’s tourney. What’s not to love as a sport fan?

And if sports is not your thing, the days are longer and warmer and you know what to do.

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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 Closest We Get To A Jan. 6 Verdict Before November?

With the Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump ground to a halt and the no real prospect of the Georgia RICO case against him reaching a verdict before November, yesterday’s ruling against Trump co-defendant John Eastman in California may be the closest we get to a taste of a Jan. 6 verdict before Election Day.

In recommending that Eastman be disbarred for his role in the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, a state judge issued a blistering ruling that treated the autocoup with the historic seriousness it deserves. It came after a full evidentiary record was developed over months and extensive legal argument, like a full-blown trial. Eastman plans to appeal, and ultimately the state Supreme Court will decide whether he’ll be disbarred, but in the meantime he is suspended from practicing law.

Some highlights from the 128-page ruling by state Judge Yvette Roland:

“Most of his misconduct occurred squarely within the course and scope of Eastman’s representation of President Trump and culminated with a shared plan to obstruct the lawful function of the government.”

“The evidence clearly and convincingly proves that Eastman and President Trump entered into an agreement to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress by unlawfully having Vice President Pence reject or delay the counting of electoral votes on January 6, 2021.”

In sum, Eastman exhibited gross negligence by making false statements about the 2020 election without conducting any meaningful investigation or verification of the information he was relying upon.

A bonus reference to Watergate figure Donald Segretti, whose own disbarment case in California was cited:

The scale and egregiousness of Eastman’s unethical actions far surpasses the misconduct at issue in Segretti. Unlike Segretti whose offenses occurred outside his role as an attorney, Eastman’s wrongdoing was committed directly in the course and scope of his representation of President Trump and the Trump Campaign. This is an important factor, as it constitutes a fundamental breach of an attorney’s core ethical duties. Additionally, while the Segretti court found compelling mitigation based on his expressed remorse and recognition of his wrongdoing, no such mitigating factor is present with Eastman.

A couple of years ago, as the bar proceedings against various Trump world figures were getting underway, I confess I grew impatient when my reporting team kept getting excited about this or that procedural development. Disbarment is weak tea for what we’re dealing with here, I would insist. And yet here we are with only the bar proceedings having provided anything like a modicum of accountability in a timely fashion.

Jeff Clark Takes The 5th In Disbarment Hearing

Chris Hayes and the gang had a bit of fun with Trump DOJ official Jeff Clark repeatedly taking the 5th while on the stand yesterday in his DC disbarment hearing:

During a disbarment hearing, Jeffrey Clark’s attorney argued his client shouldn’t have to take the stand because it could be played on MSNBC… pic.twitter.com/LpBy1aMsgG

— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) March 28, 2024

Trump Goes After Trial Judge’s Daughter

The new gag order against Donald Trump in the New York hush money case doesn’t bar attacks on the trial judge or his family, so Trump spent the day going after him and his daughter, with posts like this:

Nice daughter you have there, would be a shame if something happened pic.twitter.com/1GzBO6iLQb

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 27, 2024

Trump focused much of his ire on recent tweets from a Twitter account that the court administrator says no longer belongs to the judge’s daughter and hasn’t for more than a year.

What We’re Up Against

In the aftermath of the Ronna McDaniel fiasco at NBC News, my former colleague Brian Beutler writes:

If the past seven years have taught us anything it’s that these kinds of organizations—mainstream news outlets, think tanks, elite universities, civil-society organizations—aren’t well calibrated to make moral choices when their mandates come into tension. Abstract values will more often than not yield to other considerations: mass appeal, revenue, brand management, and, given the bent of the modern right, insurance against organized retaliation. 

I’m not sure if or how the rest of us can change this calculus. The durability of the dynamic may simply underscore two things: First, how important it is for the Trump opposition to embrace politics that convey MAGA’s incompatibility with democratic life; second, our collective obligation to defeat it so soundly that it shrivels on its own, before the corrosive effect it has on these mediating institutions destroys them.

Matt Schlapp Vindicated? Not At All!

Yesterday’s Morning Memo mused that the settlement of the sexual assault and defamation lawsuit against American Conservative Union head Matt Schlapp was unusual enough to call the underlying allegations into question.

It turns out that the settlement wasn’t unusual at all! What was unusual was the deceptive way it was portrayed by the parties.

Former GOP campaign staffer Carlton Huffman said neither Schlapp nor the ACU paid him to drop the lawsuit that claimed he was groped by Schlapp. Huffman called his underlying allegation a “complete misunderstanding.”

That was too clever by half. It turns out Huffman was paid as part of the settlement: $480,000 under an insurance policy, perhaps Schlapp’s homeowner’s policy. That’s according to a new report by CNN.

“I am only legally allowed to say five words, and that is ‘We have resolved our differences.’ Those are the only five words that I’m legally allowed to say,” Huffman told CNN in response.

Yes, Please

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is asking Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to declassify details from a Senate Intel report about the connections Paul Manafort had to Russian operatives back in the 2016 election, former TPMer Matt Shuham reports.

LOLOL

John Ganz catches us up on a new round of self-immolation on the far right:

Then, The Babylon Bee, the right’s consistently sweaty answer to The Onion and Elon Musk favorite, published the story in the tweet pictured above, with the headline “‘The White Race Must Maintain Our Genetic Purity,’ Says Inbred Man.” The Bee’s readership, who usually relishes a little ethnic humor, went into full meltdown at this “anti-white” provocation by the magazine. Predictably, this included accusation that the Bee had come under the sway of the Jews. This outburst caused a few right wingers, not usually the most reflective bunch, to get a little queasy about the sheer number of full-blown Nazis in their midst. 

Kari Lake Makes Big Concession In Libel Case

Arizona GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake has partially capitulated in a defamation suit against her by a state election official over Lake’s Big Lie provocations in 2020. Lake has asked a judge to enter a default judgment against her on liability and proceed to the damages phase of the case brought personally by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer (R). She still disputes damages.

Passages

Former Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) is dead at 82.

Bible Salesman-in-Chief

Many of you have probably at least seen reference to Donald Trump now hawking Bibles – a Lee Greenwood “God Bless The USA”-branded version that includes the U.S. founding documents because of course they’re infallible, too. All for the low, low price of $59.99. But if you haven’t actually seen his three-minute spiel, it’s worth a watch. So much on display here: the essential Trump grifting, the transactional embrace of Christian nationalism by the most irreligious of presidents, and his physical deterioration:

Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible. @TheLeeGreenwood https://t.co/1KK5QgVK85 pic.twitter.com/XoCIeGDpAg

— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) March 26, 2024

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