As a slew of Republicans went to the hush-money trial to show their fealty to their boss, the president tried to rise above it

Donald Trump last week turned his New York fraud trial into a political circus and a platform for his election campaign while Joe Biden struggled to persuade voters that they’re wrong about the economy.

Trump engineered a parade of leading Republicans to demonstrate their allegiance outside the courthouse in downtown Manhattan even as his trial laid bare the swamp that is the former US president’s professional and personal life.

Meanwhile, Biden has spent the trial trying to get Americans to pay attention to his claim to have done much more for the economy than Trump ever managed, even though polls show many voters do not believe it.

Trump has been obliged to sit in silence through his trial for allegedly falsifying business records to claim that $130,000 in hush money paid to the porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, after she claimed to have had sex with the then businessman a decade earlier, were legal expenses. A gag order has forced Trump to curb his natural inclination to attack the judge, the judge’s family, the prosecutor and the leading witness against him, his former lawyer Michael Cohen.

But Trump worked his way around the order, while demonstrating the strength of his grip on the Republican party, by summoning a parade of Washington politicians to stand in front of the court and say what he could not.

  • the post of tom joad
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    3614 days ago

    Meanwhile, Biden has spent the trial trying to get Americans to pay attention to his claim to have done much more for the economy than Trump ever managed,

    Said the author covering Trumps trial and not bidens accomplishmens. Kinda a stupid title, Biden wasn’t there. The title did cause me to imagine Biden smashing thru a wall at the trial and yelling ECONOMY OH YEAH! like the kool ade man so that was fun at least

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    314 days ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Donald Trump last week turned his New York fraud trial into a political circus and a platform for his election campaign while Joe Biden struggled to persuade voters that they’re wrong about the economy.

    Trump engineered a parade of leading Republicans to demonstrate their allegiance outside the courthouse in downtown Manhattan even as his trial laid bare the swamp that is the former US president’s professional and personal life.

    JD Vance, the US senator and bestselling author who is reputedly a leading contender for the vice-presidential slot despite once having described Trump as “an idiot”, made an appearance on Monday to back the former president’s claim that the trial is an attempt to stop him running against Biden.

    The US senators Tommy Tuberville and Rick Scott of Florida joined the parade of genuflecting politicians along with the governor of North Dakota and the attorneys general of Texas, Alabama and Iowa.

    The president taunted his predecessor earlier this month by visiting an empty Wisconsin field where Trump once waved a golden shovel and announced construction of the “eighth wonder of the world”, a huge electronics factory by the Taiwanese company Foxconn that would have created 13,000 jobs.

    Meanwhile, Cohen will be back in court on Monday to face further cross-examination about his testimony that Trump told him to pay $130,000 to buy Daniels’s silence ahead of the 2016 election.


    The original article contains 1,052 words, the summary contains 228 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • @[email protected]
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    -314 days ago

    Democratic and Independent members of the house have called on Biden to enact an executive order, to fix the price fixing that the grocery stores are complicit in perpetuating.

    Maybe if Biden did what his party was asking for instead of resting on his laurels and coasting along, he would have more support. Instead of thinking he can predict public opinion, maybe actually listen to it.

    The job doesn’t end because you’re tired of how hard it was, and is.

    • @[email protected]
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      813 days ago

      The President is not supposed to rule via executive orders.

      It is the job of Congress to pass meaningful laws. The issue at hand is that Congress is broken and refuses to pass laws. One party blocks the other and nothing gets done without a majority or supermajority.

      Corporations have captured all of congress via Citizen United and no meaningful laws will ever get passed to reign in price gouging or regulate the markets.

      So stop blaming the President and vote for better state representatives and senators that represent your interests instead of corporations.

      • @[email protected]
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        213 days ago

        Article 2 of the constitution is all about Executive orders and when they’re appropriate.

        When congress and governmental bodies, such as this case the FTC, calls on the president to issue an executive order, that is the most appropriate use of an executive order, a function utilized by nearly all presidents dating back to Washington.

        It’s not ruling through executive orders, it’s using executive orders when appropriate and this is a wholly appropriate situation.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order

      • @[email protected]
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        113 days ago

        We can’t really just vote for better representatives anymore because the corporations have captured control of the political process with PACs.

        The only candidates that can even have a chance of running a winning campaign are the ones with the biggest pockets, and those individuals tend to be candidates that work solely in their business donors interests.

        We need to make a systemic change to allow for the system to proceed as it was designed as the games been twisted. Repealing Citizens United and outlawing/reforming lobbying laws would help, but corporations and the politicians guilty of abusing the system wouldn’t ever want it to change.

        Their livelihoods depend on it.

        • @[email protected]
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          213 days ago

          That is unfortunately true. And those are the steps that are needed but will not happen, no matter the candidate.

  • @NatakuNox
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    14 days ago

    Biden needs to get his head out of his ass and stop acting like the economy is this golden goose that’ll keep him in the Whitehouse. Biden has stopped campaigning because of fears of pro Palestinian protests. In fact out side of the occasional positive news regarding the port or not sending a fraction of the weapons to Israel; Biden has essentially taken a don’t ask don’t tell approach to a genicide. Instead, opting to talk about the economy while the average American can’t afford food, shelter, education, etc. Bro wake up! Or Trump will be in office again! Stop saying the economy is great while Americans are struggling and you’re sending billions to fund a genicide.

  • @anticolonialist
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    -414 days ago

    We are focused on the economy and how much it sucks. Telling us we are ok while the world is on fire isn’t the most convincing argument to earn our vote.