“Should I have done a deal? I couldn’t live with myself if I did a deal with the Democrats.”
— Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), in an interview with Politico.
Will Trump Take the Stand In His Criminal Trial?
“As prosecutors near the home stretch of their criminal case against Donald Trump, one of the biggest questions looming over the historic trial is whether the former president will take the stand in his own defense,” NBC News reports.
“Just last month, before jury selection began, Trump insisted he would be on the witness stand in Manhattan criminal court in New York City.”
Tasteless Tweet of the Day
Rep, Mike Collins (R-GA) actually tweeted this: “You either die a Kennedy with a hole in the brain or live long enough to become a Kennedy with a hole in the brain.”
Trump’s Political Fate Won’t Be Decided by the Courts
“What once resembled a wall of legal obstacles that stood between Donald Trump and his return to the White House is now looking like little more than a series of speed bumps,” Politico reports.
“Prosecutors handling cases from Georgia to Florida to Washington, D.C., are discovering that bringing groundbreaking criminal charges against a former president is a lot easier than getting them to trial.”
“That’s because Trump has benefited enormously from a pileup of postponements. After a pair of delays this week in Georgia and Florida, the most likely scenario for 2024 is that the only trial that Trump will face before the election is the ongoing one in Manhattan: the hush money case, which many lawyers view as the least serious of the four, both in terms of the severity of the alleged wrongdoing and the prospect of prison time.”
Nikki Haley Is Huddling With Donors
“Nikki Haley is easing back into public life after dropping out of the Republican presidential race in early March, but has no immediate plans to endorse Donald Trump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The former South Carolina governor is attending a retreat in Charleston, S.C., on Monday and Tuesday to thank about 100 of her biggest donors, a person close to Haley told The Wall Street Journal. She isn’t expected to discuss her political future or encourage them to give to other campaigns.”
Top Republicans Won’t Commit to Accept Election Results
“Top Republicans, led by former president Donald Trump, are refusing to commit to accept November’s election results with six months until voters head to the polls, raising concerns that the country could see a repeat of the violent aftermath of Trump’s loss four years ago,” the Washington Post reports.
“The question has become something of a litmus test, particularly among the long list of possible running mates for Trump, whose relationship with his first vice president, Mike Pence, ruptured because Pence resisted Trump’s pressure to overturn the 2020 election.”
Mike Johnson Has a Trump Problem
Punchbowl News: “Johnson has been hugging former President Donald Trump as closely as possible for the last few months. Johnson held a news conference with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, appeared at the Trump campaign’s donor retreat, devoted the top of his news conference earlier this week to saying the charges against Trump are bogus, and stood with Trump’s allies on the Capitol steps Wednesday to push a bill making something illegal that’s already illegal. All this helped him.”
“Yet on Wednesday, Trump issued a statement on Truth Social that backed Johnson while still leaving the door open to dumping him: ‘With a Majority of One, shortly growing to three or four, we’re not in a position of voting on a Motion to Vacate. At some point, we may very well be, but this is not the time.’”
“This is Trump 101. Trump helped Johnson, but he’s also keeping the Louisiana Republican on a short string. Welcome to Trump’s world, Mr. Speaker.”
“The larger problem for Johnson, as we’ve written several times, is that Greene or other Republicans can bring this motion again. And if that happens, there’s no guarantee Democrats will save him.”
House Democrats Won’t Promise to Save Johnson Again
“House Democrats aren’t committing themselves to saving Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) should Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) take another shot at removing him,” Axios reports.
“Greene caught colleagues in both parties by surprise by forcing an ouster vote on Wednesday, leading some lawmakers to fear she’s not above repeated attempts.”
Barron Trump Will Be a Delegate at the GOP Convention
Barron Trump, who will graduate from high school next week and has largely been kept out of the political spotlight, was picked by the Republican Party of Florida as one of the state’s at-large delegates to the Republican National Convention, NBC News reports.
U.S. Won’t Supply Weapons to Attack Rafah
President Biden said Wednesday that he would not supply offensive weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah — the last major Hamas stronghold in Gaza — over concern for the well-being of the more than 1 million civilians sheltering there, the AP reports.
House Defeats Effort to Oust Mike Johnson
The House resoundingly defeated a motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, Punchbowl News reports.
The vote was 359 to 43. Eleven Republicans voted against tabling the resolution, effectively voting to oust Johnson.
Seven lawmakers voted present.
Biden Looks to Thwart Surge of Chinese Imports
“President Biden is warning that a new surge of cheap Chinese products poses a threat to American factories. There is little sign of one in official trade data, which show that Chinese steel imports are down sharply from last year and that the gap between what the United States sells to China and what it buys is at a post-pandemic low,” the New York Times reports.
“But the president’s aides are looking past those numbers and fixating on what they call troubling signs from China and Europe. That includes data showing China’s growing appetite to churn out big-ticket goods like cars and heavy metals at a rate that far exceeds the demand of domestic consumers.”
“China’s lavish subsidies, including loans from state-run banks, have helped sustain companies that might otherwise have folded in a struggling domestic economy. The result is, in many cases, a significant cost advantage for Chinese manufactured goods like steel and electric cars.”
Did Stormy Daniels Help or Hurt the Case Against Trump?
Harry Litman: “From the vantage point of the prosecution, the legal essentials of the hush money payment and alleged fabrication of documents don’t turn on whether the jury believes Daniels. Indeed, a number of analysts suggested the district attorney would have been better off not calling her at all.”
“What that analysis overlooks, however, is the jury’s natural desire to take the measure of the woman who propelled the crisis and about whom they had heard so much. Not calling her risked leaving them wondering what the prosecution was hiding. On the other hand, if a good portion of the jury didn’t like Daniels or, worse, didn’t believe her, that could negatively influence their deliberations.”
“From Trump’s vantage point, the risks are keener. That is in large part because his vanity and arrogance have forced his lawyers to commit to an unnecessary insistence that he never had sex with Daniels. Consequently, if the jury credits the basics of her story, it discredits Trump.”
“And it’s very hard to see how the jury could adopt Trump’s absolutist account, including his claim that he met Daniels only once at a celebrity golf tournament. For starters, the evidence that they met several times thereafter is basically undisputed.”
GOP Staffer Engaged with Antisemitic Posts
“A staffer for Montana Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy engaged with numerous social media posts with racist and antisemitic messaging,” Axios reports.
Democrats Sense Shift on Abortion Rights from Latinas
New York Times: “Polling trends, interviews with strategists and election results in Ohio and Virginia, where abortion rights played a central role, suggest Democrats’ optimism regarding Latinas — once considered too religious or too socially conservative to support abortion rights — could bear out.”
“But the diversity of the Latino voting population still poses some obstacles for Democrats.”
Biden Prepares New Asylum Change
“Biden administration officials are readying to publish a new rule to more rapidly reject some migrants from asylum soon after crossing the border,” Axios reports.
“It is one of several actions being weighed by President Biden to clamp down on illegal border crossings ahead of the election, as Biden and Democrats try to go on offense on one of their most vulnerable issues.”
Politico: “That change would effectively allow the U.S. to expedite the removal of migrants whom officials see as potentially ineligible to stay in the country due to national security or public safety risks, per all four people, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the administration’s plans. The Department of Homeland Security will announce the new policy via a proposed rule on Thursday.”
How Trump’s Allies Amplify His Truth Social Posts
Washington Post: “Truth Social was estimated to have 5.4 million website visits in the United States in March, with another 800,000 on its app. By comparison, X, which was formerly known as Twitter, claimed more than 200 times that, with over 1 billion visits. Facebook is estimated to have had 3 billion visits in the same period… Even though Trump has now been reinstated on the larger platforms, he has stuck with Truth Social, a platform that gives him greater freedom but a far more limited reach.”
“Yet despite its relatively small user base, Truth Social is influential because it sustains the networks of MAGA influencers, culture warriors and election deniers that power the right-wing media and guide the rhetoric and policies of many Republican elected officials. It directly connects Trump to influencers with enormous networks and audiences outside the platform.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“He promised a $10 billion investment by Foxconn. He came with your senator, Ron Johnson, with a golden shovel and didn’t build a damn thing. They dug a hole with those golden shovels and then they fell into it.”
— President Biden, quoted by Politico, slamming Donald Trump’s economic promises for Wisconsin.
