Trump trial kicks off with mixed rulings

Apr 15, 2024

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THE CATCH-UP

The first day of Donald Trump's criminal trial in New York.

Early courtroom disputes offered a preview of some of the key arguments both sides will mount during Donald Trump's trial. | Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO

SPOTTED reporting for jury duty this morning: BEN BERNANKE … in D.C., not Manhattan.

THE TRUMP TRIAL, DAY ONE — The historic criminal trial of DONALD TRUMP kicked off today, and we haven’t even gotten to jury selection yet. (That’ll begin shortly, after the parties return from lunch.) Instead, the prosecution and defense tussled over an array of legal questions, with Justice JUAN MERCHAN’s decisions cutting in each team’s favor at different points. Keep up with live POLITICO updates all day

The early disputes offered a preview of some of the key arguments both sides will mount during the trial, at which Trump stands accused of falsifying documents for a hush-money payment to hide an affair with STORMY DANIELS during the 2016 election. The former president sat and watched (and posted) throughout the proceedings, after telling reporters this morning that the trial was “an assault on America.”

Wins for the prosecution:

Merchan refused to recuse himself from the case, as Trump had requested.

He also ruled that KAREN McDOUGAL, who says she had an affair with Trump, can testify, and that National Enquirer stories from 2016 slamming Trump’s opponents can be introduced as evidence. Those could help bolster the prosecution’s case that Trump’s campaign was trying to bury bad stories about him.

Wins for the defense:

Merchan ruled that prosecutors can’t play tapes of his infamous “Access Hollywood” “grab them by the pussy” comments (though they can introduce evidence of what he said) nor E. JEAN CARROLL’s defamation deposition of Trump. And he said prosecutors could not talk to jurors about the many subsequent accusations of sexual assault that Trump faced that year.

Those rulings could restrict the prosecution’s narrative, which will seek to argue that Trump paid off Daniels because the campaign was worried about his standing with female voters. Merchan also won’t allow evidence that MELANIA TRUMP was pregnant when he had an affair with McDougal.

Prosecutors said they plan to ask Merchan whether Trump’s recent comments attacking MICHAEL COHEN amount to a violation of his gag order in the case: They want Trump to be fined and forced to remove the posts. Trump’s attorney argued the posts didn’t violate the order.

This could take a while: By Kyle Cheney’s math, live testimony and even opening arguments may not begin until May. In one reminder of how slowly the criminal justice system can move, Trump himself briefly appeared to fall asleep in court, per NYT’s Maggie Haberman.

IN OTHER TRUMP NEWS — Today is the deadline for Trump to prove the legitimacy/financial stability of the $175 million bond he got for the whopping civil fraud judgment against him, WSJ’s James Fanelli and Corinne Ramey report.

Meanwhile, Trump Media’s stock continued to nosedive today, with shares falling more than 15% this morning, per Bloomberg. (ICYMI: WaPo’s Drew Harwell talked to the Trump true believers who are plowing their savings into the stock — and still have faith.)

SCOTUS ROUNDUP — Justice CLARENCE THOMAS missed oral arguments today, and the Supreme Court didn’t provide an explanation, though it said he would fully participate in the cases, per NBC. … The high court today rejected an appeal from Reps. ANDREW CLYDE (R-Ga.) and LLOYD SMUCKER (R-Pa.) and former Rep. LOUIE GOHMERT (R-Texas) over their fines for ignoring the House’s post-Jan. 6 metal detectors, per USA Today. … It also refused to take another look at SIDNEY POWELL’s sanctions in Michigan. … And today, the court is hearing another appeal in a public corruption conviction, WSJ’s Jan Wolfe and C. Ryan Barber previewed.

PARTY UNITY — JASON PALMER, the only Democrat besides President JOE BIDEN to win a caucus or primary, today endorsed the president.

Good Monday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com.

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9 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

The Commerce Department says that over five years, a Samsung project in Texas will generate 4,500 jobs in manufacturing and 17,000 in construction. | Lee Jin-man, File/AP Photo

1. DIPPING INTO CHIPS: In the latest Biden administration award to spur semiconductor manufacturing in America, the Commerce Department announced today it will give Samsung $6.4 billion for chip-making near Austin, Texas, per WaPo’s Gerrit De Vynck. That will help the South Korean company upgrade a factory already in the works and build multiple more facilities. The administration has now doled out about $23 billion of $39 billion in subsidies that were included in the CHIPS and Science Act. Commerce says that over five years, this project will generate 4,500 jobs in manufacturing and 17,000 in construction.

2. NEW AT THE TOP: “Barry Diller Bets on Media Veterans to Turn Around The Daily Beast,” by NYT’s Benjamin Mullin: BARRY DILLER “brought in BEN SHERWOOD, the former president of Disney ABC Television Group, and JOANNA COLES, the former chief content officer of Hearst Magazines, to help. Mr. Sherwood and Ms. Coles will be granted an equity stake equivalent to roughly half of The Daily Beast … Mr. Sherwood, 60, will be its chief executive and publisher, and Ms. Coles, 61, will be chief creative and content officer. … [T]he plan for revitalizing The Daily Beast would take inspiration from other publications that have achieved profitability through a mix of subscriptions, advertising and events.”

3. THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD: NBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald has a juicy look at the intense and personal rivalry between Third Way and No Labels, which rent the ranks of Washington centrists as Third Way ultimately triumphed in preventing No Labels from launching a third-party presidential bid. No Labels’ allies say the cost of Third Way’s victory, which protected Biden from a potential spoiler candidate, is a “gaping wound at the center of what’s left of American centrism.” As former friends turned on each other, Third Way marshaled prominent voices from the CLINTON-era moderate left — including BILL and HILLARY themselves — in concert with some progressives and Republicans to stop No Labels. NANCY JACOBSON reportedly felt betrayed.

4. BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO: “Chinese Company Under Congressional Scrutiny Makes Key U.S. Drugs,” by NYT’s Christina Jewett: “Lawmakers raising national security concerns and seeking to disconnect a major Chinese firm from U.S. pharmaceutical interests have rattled the biotech industry. The firm is deeply involved in development and manufacturing of crucial therapies for cancer, cystic fibrosis, H.I.V. and other illnesses.”

POLITICO IS BACK AT THE 2024 MILKEN INSTITUTE GLOBAL CONFERENCE: POLITICO will again be your eyes and ears at the 27th Annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles from May 5-8 with exclusive, daily, reporting in our Global Playbook newsletter. Suzanne Lynch will be on the ground covering the biggest moments, behind-the-scenes buzz and on-stage insights from global leaders in health, finance, tech, philanthropy and beyond. Get a front-row seat to where the most interesting minds and top global leaders confront the world’s most pressing and complex challenges — subscribe today.

5. TENSIONS WITH KYIV: The U.S. has been urging Ukraine not to attack Russian oil refineries, worried that such strikes would worsen the war and drive up energy prices, WaPo’s John Hudson reports. But despite in-person entreaties from VP KAMALA HARRIS, national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN and others, Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY’s administration has strongly disagreed and kept attacking the facilities, seeing it “as a rare bright spot” for Ukraine in the war. “The incidents have exacerbated tensions in a strained relationship” between the allies, and some Republicans accuse the White House of prioritizing domestic politics. U.S. officials say it’s more layered than that.

6. STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: “Big Oil Companies Warm to Biden After Years of Bad Blood,” by WSJ’s Collin Eaton: “[T]op executives from Exxon Mobil, Occidental Petroleum and other producers say they have enjoyed cozier relations with the White House, spending more time discussing — and sometimes influencing — the administration’s thinking on climate investments, energy policy and global oil markets with top Biden officials.”

7. DeJOY OF SPENDING: The U.S. Postal Service is back in dire financial straits two years after a financial aid infusion from Congress, and now amid chronic service/delivery issues, the agency is due to ask the White House for more monetary help, WaPo’s Jacob Bogage reports. USPS is seeking $14 billion more in relief, and “[t]hat request may only be an opening entreaty … The Postal Service said a financial adjustment of that magnitude could dramatically improve its delivery performance,” particularly as advocates raise concerns about mail issues ahead of the election. Postmaster General LOUIS DeJOY is due before Congress tomorrow.

8. THE MAN WHO WOULD BE PRESIDENT: “Gavin Newsom Can’t Help Himself,” by The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich: “By the time we met at the end of March, [California Gov. GAVIN] NEWSOM had fashioned himself as a kind of presidential super-surrogate — a chief alleviator of fears about Biden’s lagging poll numbers, advanced age, and ability to again defeat Donald Trump. But being a super-surrogate requires a performative humility, subordinating one’s own ambition to the candidate’s. This is not something that comes naturally to a restless dazzler such as Newsom.” Plus: Newsom on whether Biden should take Prevagen.

9. WHAT’S IN A NAME: Leery of the political baggage attached to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, DHS’ investigations branch is rebranding this week, WaPo’s Nick Miroff reports. Homeland Security Investigations will now have its own badge, website and email addresses, emphasizing DHS rather than ICE, because officials say the ICE stigma in left-leaning “sanctuary cities” has made their work combating crime across borders harder.

THE GOLD STANDARD OF POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. POLITICO Pro dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries—finance, defense, technology, healthcare, energy—equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists. Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other—with teams embedded in the world’s most active legislative and regulatory power centers. From Brussels to Washington, New York to London, Sacramento to Paris, we bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY.

PLAYBOOKERS

Ken Griffin donated $4 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund.

George Santos has raised $0 for his planned comeback congressional campaign.

Lai Ching-te’s new administration in Taiwan is sending reassuring signals to D.C.

Steven Bradford jumped into the California lieutenant governor race.

Bob Menendez’s prosecutors want to delay his trial.

Troy Nehls thinks Donald Trump is never wrong.

IN MEMORIAM — “Beverly LaHaye, influential evangelical activist, dies at 94,” by WaPo’s Harrison Smith: “As the founder of Concerned Women for America, she organized an army of ‘kitchen-table lobbyists’ to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion and gay rights.”

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Former “Saturday Night Live” cast member Rob Schneider delivered a comedy set so off-color and off-putting to a group of prominent Republicans late last year that the host cut the performance short and later apologized to attendees, Daniel Lippman reports.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) walked out during Schneider’s performance, which occurred at the holiday gala hosted at the Waldorf Astoria by the Senate Working Group, a networking group for senior GOP Hill staffers, downtown alumni and other corporate and individual members.

The show was supposed to last at least a half-hour, but SWG executive director James Kimmey stopped it within 10 minutes after the comedian made “raunchy” and inappropriate jokes, people present for or familiar with the performance said, including some aimed at Asian people, including a crack about “Korean whore-houses.”

Schneider’s set was “gross and vulgar,” Hyde-Smith’s spokesperson said. “She didn’t have to listen to it and so she got up and left.”

The approximately 150 attendees, which included more than 40 Senate chiefs of staff, received an apology email the next day: “While we do our best to ensure every aspect of our program is professional, courteous, and appropriate, we sincerely regret that the entertainment at last night’s program fell short of that goal,” it said.

SWG said in a statement that Schneider disregarded a verbal agreement he'd made with Kimmey to keep his set relatively clean. Still, Schneider's brand of edgy-approaching-tasteless comedy has been well documented: Schneider has a “long history of perpetuating racial stereotypes,” according to a 2017 Daily Beast story.

Representatives for Schneider did not respond to a request for comment.

MEDIA MOVE — Jennifer Forsyth is joining the NYT as investigations editor in Washington. She previously was deputy chief of investigations at the WSJ.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Melanie Lawhorn, comms director for Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and Donovan Lawhorn, a lead associate at Fannie Mae, welcomed Harper Elizabeth Lawhorn on Wednesday.

— Meryl Harold, legislative director and deputy chief of staff for Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.), and Jon Bosscher, research director at House Majority PAC, welcomed Nolan August Bosscher on March 27. Pic … Another pic

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