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On Monday, in a courtroom in New York, Donald Trump will become the first ever sitting or former US president to face a criminal trial.

As Hugo Lowell explains to Hannah Moore, it is a case that revolves around alleged payments made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election and, as New York prosecutors argue, the attempts by Trump and his campaign team to then cover them up.

But after so many years of scandal, will this trial or the other three Trump is due to face have any impact on his chances at regaining the presidency in elections this November?

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Stormy Daniels, Donald Trump, and the start of the hush money trial podcast - The Guardian

Speaker Mike Johnson plans on Friday to join former President Donald J. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to make what he called a major announcement on election integrity.

It was not immediately clear what the pair were planning to discuss at their joint appearance, though Mr. Trump has continued to insist falsely that he was the true winner of the 2020 election and groundlessly accuse Democrats of attempting to interfere in the 2024 contest.

Their first public event together since Mr. Johnson was elected to the top job in the House last fall comes at an awkward moment in their relationship.

The embattled speaker is facing a threat for his ouster from one of Mr. Trumps top loyalists in Congress, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Georgia Republican. And even as Mr. Johnson has worked to show enthusiastic support for Mr. Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee is stoking G.O.P. divisions and undermining the speakers legislative agenda in Congress.

The joint billing will come two days after Mr. Trump weighed in against legislation Mr. Johnson put forward to extend an expiring warrantless surveillance law that national security officials say is crucial to fighting terrorism and gathering intelligence. Mr. Trump urged lawmakers to kill the law undergirding the program, and ultraconservatives in the House banded together to block it from coming to the House floor in an embarrassing defeat for Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Johnson also is agonizing over how and when to bring to the floor a bill to send a fresh infusion of American military assistance to Ukraine a move Mr. Trump has long opposed. (Mr. Trump has said it is stupid for the United States to offer foreign aid to countries instead of loans.)

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Johnson to Join Trump at Mar-a-Lago for 'Election Integrity' Announcement - The New York Times

NEW YORK Donald Trumps attorneys failed to persuade an appeals court judge on Wednesday to delay the former presidents New York criminal trial, scheduled to begin next week, by saying the presiding judge was not qualified to oversee the proceedings.

The appeals court judge, Ellen Gesmer, denied Trumps request shortly after it was argued at an emergency session.

It was the Trump attorneys third attempt this week to delay his trial on charges of falsifying business documents to help cover up an affair that allegedly happened a decade before the 2016 election. Trump, the first former president to face criminal prosecution, has been indicted on various charges in three other jurisdictions and has pleaded not guilty to all counts.

Trump lawyer Emil Bove argued in the proceeding before Gesmer that New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan should have recused himself. Merchan denied a motion for his recusal in August after seeking the opinion of an advisory committee that guided his decision.

Last week, Trumps defense filed another motion to Merchan arguing for recusal and citing what Bove called several new developments that require Merchan to exit the case.

Merchan has not issued a ruling on that recusal bid.

Prosecutors and an attorney from the courts for Merchan said a delay in the trial was unwarranted.

Their recusal arguments are completely meritless, said Steven Wu, an attorney for the district attorneys office. The judge rejected them last year and he was right to do so.

Merchan last year declined to step down from the criminal case after Trumps attorneys filed a complaint about the judges daughters profession as a political consultant and the judges small contributions to Joe Bidens 2020 presidential campaign and a progressive group.

Merchans daughter is a part owner of a political consulting and marketing company that has worked on campaign materials for the Biden-Harris campaign, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and other prominent Democrats.

Trumps attorneys recently filed recusal motion cited social media clippings that they argued were proof that Merchans daughters professional success depended at least in part on how Trump does in court. For that reason, they said, Merchan must recuse himself in the interest of fairness.

There is no proof, theres no evidence of [those allegations], and Judge Merchan has gotten an ethics opinion [that said] he can proceed with the trial, said Lisa Evans, a courts lawyer speaking on the judges behalf at the appeals court.

Judges in New York state are supposed to bow out of situations in which there may be an appearance of favoritism.

Gesmer also declined to grant a trial delay based on Trumps inability to raise presidential-immunity-related objections at the trial or because Merchan is not permitting Trumps legal team to file motions as quickly as it wishes to, which it believes will continue once the trial begins.

Jury selection in Trumps Manhattan criminal trial is scheduled to start Monday, marking the first such trial of a former U.S. president. He is the presumptive Republican nominee in the November election.

On Tuesday, a different New York appeals court judge denied Trumps request to delay the trial because a gag order imposed on him by Merchan remained in effect.

Yet another appeals court judge on Monday rejected Trumps attempt to delay the trial while he pursued an appeal to determine whether a change of venue is necessary, citing Manhattans liberal leanings.

Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, made shortly before the 2016 election. Prosecutors have said the payment was intended to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump years earlier.

Prosecutors said Trumps reimbursements to then-attorney Michael Cohen, who made the payment to Daniels, were illegally documented as legal fees despite being carried out to support Trumps campaign. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

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Trump fails to delay N.Y. criminal trial for a third time this week - The Washington Post

President Biden may be down in the polls, but hes way up on Donald Trump when it comes to campaign funds.

Each quarter since the president announced he was running again, Biden has lapped his predecessor in cash. The Biden campaign and its political committees held $192 million at the end of March, more than double the $93 million that Trump, the Republican National Committee and their shared accounts reported. Biden will also benefit from more than $1 billion pledged by independent groups that back his re-election. Trump allies have so far announced only a pittance of the outside money Biden has accrued.

What can a campaign do with this sort of advantage? In todays newsletter, Ill explain how a deluge of cash might matter and why it might not.

There are two main things a political campaign buys: advertising and efforts to get out the vote.

TV and digital ads are by far the biggest expenditures for a national campaign, with staff-heavy field operations the next biggest. The Biden campaign plans to raise $2 billion by November. On screens and airwaves, it will hammer its anti-Trump message in battleground states. While thats happening, it will send campaign workers to find voters in those states, figure out which ones need prodding to return their ballots or drag others to their local precinct.

Campaigns spend their money on these things because they often work. You win this election going out and talking to voters, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood mogul who is a co-chair of the Biden campaign, told me. Thats what our financial advantage allows us to do. One example is abortion policy: The Biden campaign is spending millions to remind voters about Trumps role in the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Its worth remembering that presidential campaign ads are not like commercials for insurance. They are aimed at people who dont follow politics closely and may not have strong opinions about Biden and Trump. Thats a relatively small population, but its large enough to decide any of the eight battleground states.

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Why Biden Raising More Money Than Trump for the 2024 Election Matters - The New York Times

Its no secret that many voters are not looking forward to the election in November.

A New York Times/Siena College poll from February found that 19 percent of voters held an unfavorable view of both President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. And 29 percent of Americans believe that neither candidate would be a good president, according to a March poll from Gallup.

At the same time, the prospect of a new president is exciting for many, and nearly half of Republican primary voters are enthusiastic with Mr. Trump as their nominee, the Times/Siena poll found. About a quarter of Democratic primary voters said the same about Mr. Biden.

Those findings are broad measures of an issue Americans have complex feelings on. To dig a little deeper, we asked respondents in that Times/Siena poll to summarize their feelings about the upcoming rematch in just one word.

We received hundreds of distinct responses from a representative sample of more than 900 registered voters across the country. We combined responses like anxious, apprehensive, concerned and worried into a category we labeled scared; responses under the umbrella of excited and hopeful became happy. Disappointed, annoyed and frustrated were classified as angry.

About a third of voters gave responses indicating anger, disappointment or resignation. And nearly as many respondents 30 percent replied with words indicating that they were scared or apprehensive.

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How Voters Describe the 2024 Election in One Word - The New York Times