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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
This is 2024’s new political normal six months from the election | |
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN | |
Updated: | |
12:00 AM EDT, Mon May 6, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
Donald Trump, the Republican presumptive nominee who just falsely | |
accused his opponents of , will be back in a New York courtroom on | |
Monday at his criminal trial — the first of an ex-president in | |
history. | |
The White House, meanwhile, is trying to defuse the impact of campus | |
protests over Israel’s assault on Gaza, as some Democrats warn images | |
of unrest could boost Trump and fear the issue could buckle coalition. | |
This all comes as Republican House faces a likely vote this week over | |
his ouster in a fresh sign of GOP disarray fomented by Georgia Rep. | |
Marjorie Taylor Greene. He will need Democrats to save him. | |
It’s just another normal week in American politics as unpredictable | |
forces rock both parties and augur a tense run to an election — now | |
six months less one day away — that could fundamentally change the | |
nation. | |
The Trump trial enters pivotal stage | |
Trump faces another week in the Manhattan courtroom where he is on | |
trial over the alleged falsification of business records to cover up an | |
affair with adult film actress Story Daniels. Prosecutors argue he | |
attempted a cover-up to mislead voters in 2016 in an early act of | |
election interference. Trump denies the affair and has pleaded not | |
guilty — to this and to three other criminal indictments. | |
Given the former president’s frequent attacks on witnesses, which | |
last week over violations of gag orders, prosecutors are keeping | |
witness lists under wraps. But in dramatic testimony last week, former | |
White House communications director Hope Hicks under a prosecution | |
subpoena. In potentially the most significant moment of the trial so | |
far, a nervous Hicks, who shed tears at one point, appeared to | |
implicate Trump in a way that played into the prosecution argument when | |
she said that the ex-president admitted to her that he knew his | |
then-fixer Michael Cohen had paid Daniels. She also said that Trump | |
felt it was better to deal with the story after the election than | |
beforehand. But Trump’s lawyer, Emil Bove, extracted a statement | |
under cross-examination that could be useful to bolstering the core | |
defense argument when Hicks said her boss was worried about the Daniels | |
story because it could hurt or embarrass members of his family. | |
Another critical twist of the trial will arrive with the expected | |
testimony of Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer who served time in prison | |
for tax fraud, making false statements to Congress and violating | |
campaign finance laws. | |
As the trial continues, Trump’s mood is becoming testy. He’s | |
offering new glimpses of the extremism that could drive his second term | |
and is already posing a fresh challenge to American democracy, | |
following his departure from office in disgrace in 2021 after trying to | |
steal the last election based on false claims of fraud. | |
At a private luncheon at his Mar-a-Lago club on Saturday, he accused | |
Democrats of “running a Gestapo administration,” according to three | |
attendees, equating the Biden team with the Nazi Secret Police who | |
rounded up and committed genocide against Jews in the Holocaust. | |
Trump continually repeats his charge that his indictments are a result | |
of a Democratic plot. But there is no evidence to support this. His | |
comments about the Gestapo do not only betray historical ignorance but | |
also underscore how there is no limit to the ex-president’s use of | |
inflammatory rhetoric to try to win the election. Last week, in an | |
interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Trump he’d accept the | |
result of the next election. And in published last week, he said | |
violence was possible depending on the “fairness” of the election. | |
James Singer, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, said Trump’s | |
remarks at the fundraiser proved the danger of a potential second term | |
the ex-president has said would focus on retribution. “Trump is once | |
again making despicable and insulting comments about the Holocaust, | |
while in the same breath attacking law enforcement, celebrating | |
political violence, and threatening our democracy,” Singer said. | |
Democrats register growing alarm over protest fallout | |
Democrats face another week dealing with the political consequences of | |
campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza. | |
A wave of over the civilian carnage in the enclave has emerged as a | |
severe test for Biden’s appeal among progressive and young voters | |
whom he needs to help him to beat Trump in November. | |
After days of building political pressure, the president addressed the | |
situation for the first time on camera last Thursday, saying that the | |
right to protest was a vital American freedom but that it was not | |
acceptable when demonstrations turn violent. He condemned antisemitic | |
incidents that have been reported against some Jewish students and he | |
said he wasn’t rethinking his staunch support for Israel in the wake | |
of the October 7 terror attacks — despite his frequently ignored | |
calls on the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more | |
to protect civilians in Gaza. | |
Trump and Republicans have seized on the protests — and police | |
operations to clear them at some schools — to underscore their | |
narrative that the country is spinning out of control under Biden and | |
that Trump could restore law and order. | |
But speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, the Biden | |
campaign’s national co-chair Mitch Landrieu pushed back on an analogy | |
by Sen. Bernie Sanders, who likened the current protests to the | |
anti-Vietnam war sentiment in 1968 that caused then-President Lyndon | |
Johnson to abandon his reelection bid. Landrieu said the Independent | |
senator from Vermont’s view was an “over exaggeration.” He added: | |
“This is a very different circumstance. I think that people who | |
actually lived through that very difficult time; they would say that | |
this isn’t comparable. However, that is not to say that this is not a | |
very serious matter.” | |
Some Democrats have downplayed the impact of the protests, citing | |
polling that suggests that the war in Gaza is well down the list of | |
concerns for most young voters, notwithstanding the dramatic scenes at | |
many colleges. But Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a | |
staunch supporter of Israel during the conflict, warned that | |
pro-Palestinian demonstrators could help Trump in November. “Like if | |
they want to throw Michigan to Trump that way — well, if you want to | |
play with that fire … you better own that fire,” said Fetterman, | |
referring to a swing state where Arab Americans form an important part | |
of the Democratic electorate. He also warned against liberal voters | |
deserting Biden because of his stance on the war. “If you are willing | |
to walk away or to actually vote for someone else, you are going to | |
throw your vote away and you are on the Trump train and you better | |
watch out for the wreck,” he said. | |
But another leading Democrat, California Rep. Ro Khanna, said on CBS’ | |
“Face the Nation” that a lot of the protests across the country | |
were seeing a constructive dialogue. “We have to understand that this | |
is a defining moment for this generation, similar to anti-Vietnam | |
protests, anti-apartheid protests, anti-Iraq War protests,” he said. | |
“They’re telling us that over 30,000 people have died. It’s time | |
for this war to end. It’s time for the hostages to be released that | |
Hamas has, and they want to see leadership in America and around the | |
world.” | |
Johnson fights for survival, again | |
In another significant political drama looming this week, Johnson is | |
expected to survive a vote called by Greene to oust him and throw the | |
House GOP into yet more chaos. After Johnson pushed through Biden’s | |
request for billions of dollars in funding for Ukraine last month, | |
Democrats are likely to vote to save the speaker. But even if he | |
survives, no Republican speaker wants to leave the impression that he | |
is only in power because of the opposition party, and the Louisiana | |
lawmaker’s long-term future remains cloudy. | |
Many Republicans, even those cool on the rookie speaker, don’t want | |
to see another governing farce unfold like the multi-vote ballot to | |
choose Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, and the vote to oust | |
— and then replace — the Californian last year. | |
Right-wing extremists, taking advantage of the tiny GOP majority, have | |
made the House all but ungovernable since the party took over after the | |
2022 midterm elections. But despite signs that Greene’s patron, | |
Trump, has praised Johnson and is not enthusiastic about more chaos in | |
the party that could complicate his and the GOP’s chances in the | |
fall, she is vowing to push ahead after accusing Johnson of betraying | |
Republican base voters. | |
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