| | | | |  | | By Brakkton Booker | With help from JC Whittington, Katherine Long, Rishika Dugyala and Charlie Mahtesian
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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis looks on during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case, on March 1, 2024, in Atlanta. | POLITICO illustration/Photo by AP | Programming Note: We’ll be off this Monday for Memorial Day but will be back in your inboxes on Wednesday. What up, Recast fam! The U.S. offers condolences to Iran following the deadly helicopter crash that claimed the lives of that nation's president, foreign minister and others. Nikki Haley is set to deliver a foreign policy speech and former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial nears its conclusion. First, we focus on the Georgia DA overseeing the 2020 election interference investigation. Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney prosecuting former President Donald Trump’s election interference case, will go before Atlanta-area voters today to ask for another four-year term. While she certainly brought the heat during her time in the spotlight — including when she clapped back at defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant during a hearing aimed at trying to remove her from the case — Willis has also opened herself to criticism from Republicans looking to, if not get her removed from the case, at least embarrass her along the way. Her own personal relationship with a subordinate leading to the allegations of misconduct, and jeopardizing how quickly a trial can proceed, are issues voters should not take lightly. And today she’ll find out how her constituents feel about her time in office that’s brought both incredible notoriety but also lots of humiliation. She faces off today against Christian Wise Smith, a former Fulton prosecutor who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for Georgia attorney general two years ago. Wise Smith vowed to bring a fresh approach to the Trump case, if elected, and has seized on the criticism of Willis’ decision to bring on outside counsel to help with legal proceedings.
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| | | | “When you pay one attorney $1 million to handle a case, it hurts everyone else in Fulton County,” Wise Smith said last month, according to Georgia Public Broadcasting. “We have to see [the Trump case] through while addressing everything else affecting Fulton.” Willis is expected to beat Wise Smith, and according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the outcome may not be close. “The question Willis’ supporters are posing ahead of Tuesday is not whether she’ll defeat Christian Wise Smith in the Democratic primary. It’s what margin will she win,” write the AJC’s Greg Bluestein and Tamar Hallerman. Her romantic relationship with now former special prosecutor Nathan Wade has been referred to as a "tremendous lapse in judgment," by Judge Scott McAfee, the Fulton County Superior Court judge overseeing the case, who also is seeking reelection Tuesday. In March, McAfee allowed Willis to remain on the case, so long as Wade withdrew from the case. He did hours later. The focus on Willis’ sex life comes as Republicans are largely calling into question the merits of court proceedings several hundreds of miles away in Manhattan where prosecutors are weighing if a crime was committed in a case rooted in an alleged dalliance between Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels. In that case, of course, the issue is whether Trump, just before he was elected president in 2016, falsified records of a hush money payment to keep her from sharing details of the affair. Should Willis survive a primary challenge, the months heading into election day will likely be chock full of reminders of what some Trump’s supporters say is a double standard. Willis will likely face off with Courtney Kramer, a lawyer who was an intern in the Trump White House and who is linked to Republican-led efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia that helped deliver the presidency to Joe Biden. We’ll keep tabs on this and will certainly keep tabs on how the general election race for this must-watch DA race pans out. All the best, The Recast Team
| | | BALTIMORE'S COAL DUST PROBLEM
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Tugboats escort the cargo ship Dali after it was refloated in Baltimore, on May 20, 2024. | Matt Rourke/AP | | The container ship Dali, responsible for the catastrophic collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge, was refloated and returned to port Monday — a major step towards fully reopening the Port of Baltimore by the end of this month. “We knew from the moment of the collapse that our mission to bring closure to the families, clear wreckage, move the ship, open the channel, and support all those affected would be remarkably complex and dangerous,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) said in a statement. “Seven weeks later, we have recovered all six individuals who lost their lives, enacted bipartisan legislation to support workers and businesses, and, as of today, successfully refloated the Dali.” POLITICO’s JC Whittington has this breakdown and a video explainer of that fateful morning in late March when the 984-foot-long and 158-foot-wide container ship collided with the bridge and spent nearly two months impeding passage through one of the nation’s busiest ports.
|  | | The bridge collapse is causing a monthslong slow down in coal exports, leaving the industry scrambling to figure out how to move the fossil fuel as stockpiles grow. In the small industrial town of Baltimore’s Curtis Bay the slowdown exacerbates an existing air quality issue: inhaling coal dust from an open-air coal pile that freight rail giant CSX has maintained there for over 140 years. David Jones, a resident of Curtis Bay, alleges that CSX’s coal pile has polluted the air and made it hard to breathe. “I try to take a deep breath. I don't get fresh air. I get nothing but coal dust and all the other particulate matters from the industries, and I start choking and coughing,” he said. CSX said they are committed to working with the community on improving dust control but denies that they are responsible for air pollution. Federal officials want the Port of Baltimore back to business as usual. The rebuild of the bridge could take up to four years and cost up to $1.9 billion, all of which President Joe Biden promised the federal government would pay for. Earlier this month the National Transportation Safety Board released its preliminary report saying the Dali lost power twice before colliding with the bridge.
| | | NIKKI HALEY RETURNS TO THE SPOTLIGHT
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Republican presidential candidate former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley gestures to the audience as she concludes a speech at a caucus night party in West Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 15, 2024. | Abbie Parr/AP | Former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley is set to deliver what is being billed as a “special address” Wednesday on U.S. foreign policy in the midst of ongoing wars in Gaza and in Ukraine, as well as rising tensions in Asia. This will be Haley’s first speech since accepting a position in April as the Walter P. Stern chairperson of the Hudson Institute, a right-leaning think tank that specializes in foreign policy. The former United Nations ambassador’s speech will come on a day where her former boss, Donald Trump, will not be walled off inside a Manhattan courtroom where he is accused of falsifying records to cover up hush money payments to an adult film actress. So in theory he could react to her remarks in real time, firing off missives from his Truth Social account. Haley continues to be a subject of piqued curiosity as she remains mum on whether she’ll endorse Trump’s latest bid for the White House. Haley, who ended her own presidential bid in March, looms as an outsized figure in this year’s election. She continues to rack up notable vote shares in state primaries even though Trump wrapped up the nomination two months ago. Earlier this month following the GOP primary in Indiana, Haley received 21 percent of the vote. It suggests some level of discontent within the GOP over Trump, with voters registering their version of the “uncommitted” vote that has emerged on the Democratic side for voters to show their displeasure with President Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Earlier this month, Trump quashed any speculation that her electoral success would lead to some vice presidential consideration. A day after Axios reported she was under consideration, Trump (one day before Mother's Day) wrote on his social media platform: “Nikki Haley is not under consideration for the V.P. slot, but I wish her well! DJT” All of this is attracting more attention to Haley’s Wednesday afternoon remarks. As Nick Catoggio points out in a recent post over at The Dispatch, “Trump denies a lot of things that turn out to be true.” We’ll also be watching to see if Haley, the former South Carolina governor, softens her tone a bit on Trump. As you recall, a few months back when she was still a candidate, she said in an interview with NBC News that Trump “was not qualified to be president.”
| | | ICYMI @ POLITICO
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Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown, right, speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on May 20, 2024. | Kevin Wolf/AP | Biden’s top military officer chides Israel — Gen. C.Q. Brown, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared to offer a rare critique of an ally, warning that Israeli military forces' failure to hold ground taken from Hamas in northern Gaza could have detrimental long-term effects. POLITICO’s Paul McLeary and Lara Seligman report. Prolific GOP donor keeps giving to RFK Jr. super PAC — POLITICO’s Brittany Gibson and Jessica Piper report that Tim Mellon, a GOP megadonor, has given America Values 2024, a super PAC supporter Kennedy’s long-shot independent White House run a whopping $25 million this cycle, which includes a $5 million donation last month. The blame game of Iran’s helicopter crash — The U.S. State Department offered its “official condolences” following the helicopter crash deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian, and other members of their delegation. The Biden administration, POLITICO reports, is keeping a close on how Iran reacts, raising concerns that if that nation’s leaders suspect foul play, it could escalate tensions with Israel.
| | | THE RECAST RECOMMENDS Ryan Guzman, of American Idol and television’s 9-1-1, opens up about his challenges with mental health. Cardi B ain’t feeling Biden — The “WAP” rapper recently let it be known in a Rolling Stone article that she’s not voting for Trump or Biden this time around after endorsing Joe Biden in 2020 (after initially backing Bernie Sanders). Sticking with the theme of rappers making news, let’s put a spotlight on CNN’s Abby Phillips for her poise under pressure during her interview with the “Hey Ma” emcee Cam’ron to discuss Diddy. It’s a must watch:
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| Finally, another former Biden backer who has expressed frustration with the commander-in-chief, influential radio host Charlamagne tha God, is out with his latest book today, “Get Honest or Die Lying: Why Small Talk Sucks.” TikTok of the Week: When the alarm goes off
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