Trump on trial

It’s been a banner week for armchair lawyers. Here’s what you need to know about Donald Trump’s trials in New York City and before the Supreme Court.

In the Big Apple, where Trump has scored rave reviews in bodegas and from construction workers. This week, David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, confirmed what Ted Cruz long suspected during the 2016 campaign — that the tabloid was deeply plugged-in with the Trump orbit, even to the point of manufacturing conspiracies that Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

“We mashed the photos and the different picture with Lee Harvey Oswald and mashed the two together,” Pecker said. “And that’s how that story was prepared — created, I would say.” Interestingly, Pecker implicated Trump’s disgraced ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, in his tomfoolery.

Pecker, for his part, testified about his work of allegedly catching and killing stories that the Trump campaign would prefer to never see the light of day. He claimed that if women came forward to shop stories about Trump during the 2016 race, he would let Cohen know, with a fairly simple rationale.

“It would help his campaign, but it would also help me,” Pecker claimed. In response, Trump’s lawyers argued that Pecker’s credibility is suspect at best, and that any doings between him and Trump were to protect Trump’s image as distinct from his campaign.

Over in the nation’s capital, Supreme Court oral arguments are continuing apace in Trump’s presidential immunity case, with some signs hinting to a final verdict coming well past November’s elections. At stake here is the future of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump, and whether Trump’s actions in the run-up to January 6 are covered by presidential immunity.

Trump suffered a setback with SCOTUS sounding unlikely to dismiss Smith’s case outright, but remarks from justices such as Neil Gorsuch should give the former president reasons for optimism. “I’m not concerned about this case,” Gorsuch opined, adding, “we’re writing a rule for the ages.”

While Trump certainly is concerned about this case, and when it gets resolved, this week’s developments suggest that with both his so-called hush money case and his Supreme Court case, he’ll have to wait a bit longer.

-Matthew Foldi

On our radar

DOWN TO DEBATE President Joe Biden said he is “happy” to debate his opponent, Donald Trump, contrary to previous hints from the Biden campaign that they wanted to avoid legitimizing the former president as he faces multiple criminal indictments. 

OL’ YELLER South Dakota governor Kristi Noem is being attacked for describing in her new book the moment she put down a puppy. Noem said the dog was unruly and incapable of being trained, making it worthless as a hunting dog. She shot it herself. 

MINTY FRESH The Biden administration is again delaying plans to ban menthol cigarettes as the tobacco lobby opposes the move, and critics say the prohibition would disproportionately affect minorities. 

Deportation ‘vibes’

Most Americans — including a sizable number of Democrats — favor mass deportations of illegal immigrants, a new Axios Vibes survey by the Harris Poll found.

The poll, which Axios posted on Twitter/X under the headline, “Americans are open to Trump’s harshest immigration plans,” reports 51 percent of the general public “[says] they support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants,” with 42 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of Republicans and 46 percent of Independents favoring the policy.

This polling news comes as Americans grow increasingly concerned about the influx of illegal migrants through our porous southern border. Gallup reported in late February that immigration had surged to the top of voters’ “most important problem list” for the first time since 2019, which is obviously bad news for the Biden re-election campaign. Axios further reports: “[W]hen it comes to blame, Biden so far has failed to shift the narrative: 32 percent of respondents say his administration is ‘most responsible’ for the crisis, outranking any other political or structural factor.”

–Teresa Mull

Biden’s new exit strategy

President Joe Biden has changed his White House departure and return routine, Axios reports. Now, in what seems like a clear attempt to avoid the cameras, the president will refrain from trudging across the South Lawn unaccompanied. Instead, when heading to and from Marine One, a crowd of aides will now surround him. The report describes Biden’s new walk as “less formal.” 

The visual effect of the change draws less attention to the much-mocked trips and falls of the eighty-one-year-old president. Axios reports that Biden advisors are “concerned that videos of Biden walking and shuffling alone — especially across the grass — have highlighted his age.”

Mission accomplished? Yes, say the advisors who believe that “the images of Biden’s walks to and from the helicopter are better” ever since the change began in mid-April.

The change comes at a time when the Biden campaign is trying it all to shift the public’s age-related concerns with the president. In a recent campaign ad, the opening line is literally, “Look I’m not a young guy, that’s no secret, but here’s the deal…”

Furthermore, the president has been caught wearing a pair of black extra-support Hoka sneakers — which are meant to help his gait. 

An April 12-16 national NBC News poll shows that for the president, the idea that he “may not have the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term” ranks as the most compelling reason not to vote for Biden, with 23 percent of registered voters citing it. Politically speaking, the new exit strategy makes lots of sense. Will it work? That’s for the voters to decide. 

–Juan P. Villasmil