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What’s up with Trump’s criminal cases now that he’s president-elect?
Former President Donald Trump attends court during closing arguments in his civil business fraud trial at the New York Supreme Court on Jan. 11, 2024.
It’s against Justice Department policy to prosecute a sitting president, and officials are reportedly already taking steps to wind down the federal cases Trump faces that were brought forward by special counsel Jack Smith — one regarding Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and another for holding on to classified documents after leaving office.
Trump, who has consistently dismissed these cases as being politically motivated, has pledged to fire Smith “within two seconds.” But Smith and his team reportedly plan to resign before Trump’s inauguration in January.
Trump could theoretically pardon himself in federal cases, but not those at the state level. He was convicted of 34 felony counts in New York earlier this year in relation to a hush money payment he made to former adult film star Stormy Daniels and is awaiting sentencing.
Sentencing in that case was set to occur on Nov. 26, but it’s now up in the air. It’s possible the judge could wait until Trump leaves office to move things forward or dismiss the case entirely. Even before his election win, legal experts doubted Trump would get prison time given he’s a first-time offender and this wasn’t a violent crime. Under the law in New York, Trump faces a number of possible sentences, including up to four years in prison, a fine, or probation.
Trump’s lawyers have made the case that the verdict should be thrown out based on the Supreme Court’s decision granting presidents immunity for official acts. His attorneys have also pushed for the case to be moved to federal court, which could make it easier for Trump to kill it.
The other state-level case Trump faces is in Georgia and concerns his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the southern state. This case is in limbo as an appeals court considers whether to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting it over a previous romantic relationship she had with a prosecutor on her staff. Trump’s electoral win raises the possibility of more delays, and his lawyers are laying the groundwork to push for the case’s dismissal.There are times in life when it is important to listen to Mike Tyson. For the Democrats, right now is one of those times.
As some of you may know, the fearsome former heavyweight champ is about to fight Jake Paul, a 27-year-old boxing-curious YouTube star 30 years his junior. It will be Iron Mike’s first real fight in almost 20 years.
For anyone who remembers watching Tyson in the ring – or even challenging him on “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!” as a child – it seems obvious that Iron Mike, even at 57, is going to kill Glass Jake, isn’t it?
But I’m not a boxing analyst, I’m a political analyst, and so what sticks with me is the way Tyson, in a recently released Netflix documentary entitled “Countdown Paul vs. Tyson,” explains the difference between himself and Paul.
“He’s a manufactured killer,” Tyson says, watching as Paul claims to be the new face of boxing. “Television and papers made him a killer. I’m a natural-born killer.”
Manufactured killers versus natural-born killers. This distinction is on my mind these days as I’m reading the post-mortems on Kamala Harris’ election loss to Donald Trump. In particular, the ones that focus on how Trump’s deft engagement with non-traditional media – in particular, podcasts popular with young men – helped him win.
The Democrats, some are saying, need to “build their own Joe Rogan.” The reference, of course, is to “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the most listened-to podcast in America. Rogan, a former UFC fight commentator and one-time Bernie-bro, has become a celebrated voice in MAGAland, and a hugely influential figure among the millions of young men (of all races) who flocked to Trump at the polls.
Trump spent three hours with Rogan and his 11 million regular listeners, while Harris refused, reportedly because she was worried about backlash from some of her progressive staffers. This has become a microcosm of the ways Democrats failed to get out of the mainstream media bubble to engage with voters who were either undecided or disillusioned.
The problem for the Democrats isn’t that they don’t have a media ecosystem of their own. They do – it’s just that it’s mostly the mass media, precisely the kinds of outlets that are suffering a slow-motion knockout as Americans’ trust in legacy media plummets.
The data on that score are stark: Only about a third of Americans trust mass media now. The partisan splits on it are glaring. Some 54% of Democrats still trust the mainstream, but only half as many independents agree. Among Republicans, the mark is just 12%.
Podcasters and streamers have leaped into this vacuum of trust. Over the past 15 years, the share of Americans who regularly listen to pods has quintupled to nearly 50%. That doesn’t even capture the millions of hours people spend getting news and views from streamers on YouTube, Rumble, and other video platforms.
Conservative activists and campaigns have exploited this space particularly well, with 1%-funders like the Kochs, the Wilkses, or Peter Thiel pouring huge amounts of money into finding and elevating young influencers who have audiences – and credibility – of their own.
Countering that from the left, if the Democrats want to, won’t be easy. As some have pointed out, many young, left-wing influencers are at a disadvantage. The right-wing influencer set is funded by a whole constellation of conservative billionaires, but left-of-center activists with a more overtly “soak the rich” message might find it harder to get similar funding from Democrat-aligned one-percenters.
Democrats certainly need a better media strategy. But the biggest mistake they could make would be to believe it’s possible to “build” a Joe Rogan or even a series of Joe Rogans. You can’t build that any more than you can grow a Mike Tyson in a laboratory.
To get out of the wilderness, the Democrats need to get out of their bubble. They need to go find – and support – some natural-born killers of their own. Trying to simply manufacture them, in a deeply anti-establishment era, would only lead to more knockouts at the ballot box.
Republican U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz speaks at a campaign rally for Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump in Henderson, Nevada U.S. October 31, 2024.
President-elect Donald Trump’s unconventional picks for a number of important Cabinet positions in his second administration have set him on a collision course with the GOP-led Senate.
Trump tapped GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz to be attorney general. Gaetz is a controversial figure on Capitol Hill who is unpopular with Democrats and Republicans alike. Some Republican senators have already signaled Gaetz will struggle to get confirmed. “I do not see him as a serious candidate,” said GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Gaetz, who was investigated by the Justice Department over sex trafficking allegations, abruptly resigned from the House on Wednesday. The resignation ended a House Ethics Committee inquiry of him over allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, and Senate Republicans are now pushing for access to the findings of the probe.
Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Fox News host Pete Hegseth, is also unorthodox. Though Hegseth is an Army veteran, he has no government experience and is unknown by many in Washington. And Trump’s selection for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is also controversial. She has no experience in the intelligence community and has faced allegations of parroting Kremlin propaganda.
The president-elect has also tappedRobert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, to be his health secretary. Kennedy — who does not have a medical or public health degree — has divisive views on an array of health issues, including advocating for the removal of fluoride from drinking water. If confirmed, Kennedy would have control over America’s health agencies. He’s threatened to fire experts and eliminate entire departments.
What’s Trump playing at? “Gaetz and Gabbard are unlikely to be confirmed by the Senate,” says Clayton Allen, Eurasia Group’s US director. “But the battle over their confirmations will force a battle with institutionalists that was likely coming at some point, and it will serve as a litmus test that either proves Trump’s hold over Republicans in Congress or sets up a concerted effort to work around moderate holdouts.”
Accompanied by tugs, the LNG tanker "Hellas Diana" transports a cargo of LNG to the "Deutsche Ostsee" energy terminal.
Danke, but no danke. The German government has reportedly ordered its ports to reject all cargoes of liquefied natural gas, aka LNG, coming from Russia, according to the Financial Times.
The move completes a striking turnaround for Germany, which for decades was the world’s largest importer of Russian gas. But since Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, piped gas shipments have been cut by both sides. Germany now imports zero gas directly from Russia.
The US angle: Geopolitical considerations are afoot. While other countries in Europe still import small amounts of Russian LNG under long-term contracts, the EU broadly is looking to import more of the stuff from the growing American market.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyenraised this issue with Trump during her post-election phone call to him last week. The EU is likely hoping that increased purchases of American LNG could mollify Trump’s pledge to impose blanket tariffs of up to 20% on all US imports.
Xi arriving at APEC
At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Lima, Peru, this week, the specter of Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs is looming large over the proceedings.
Trump, who believes import duties are a way to gain leverage over adversaries while spurring domestic manufacturing, has threatened tariffs as high as 60% against China and universal 10%-20% tariffs for other US trade partners. He has also appointed a series of China hawks to his Cabinet.
China is preparing aggressive countermeasures, including using an “anti-foreign sanctions law,” which allows Beijing to match measures taken by other countries and to place US companies on an “unreliable entity list” for foreign companies that have national interests. It is also expected to implement export controls on resources like rare earth minerals and lithium, which are critical components in modern technologies.
Joe Biden will attend the summit on Friday and Saturday, and his message of America’s desire to cooperate on trade, climate change, and poverty is likely to fall on deaf ears as members prepare for Trump 2.o. On Saturday, Biden — who kept most of Trump’s China tariffs in place and is expected to further tighten semiconductor restrictions before leaving office — will meet with President Xi Jinping. But with just a few weeks left of his presidency, expectations are low that much will come from the meeting.
“The reality is that Biden and Xi made meaningful progress in at least stabilizing the decline in the bilateral relationship, if not improving it,” says Eurasia Group’s China director, Lauren Gloudeman. “But the biggest initial risk once Trump takes office is that all of those channels that were restored for bilateral communication under Biden will most likely be frozen as soon as the new administration comes in.”
We will also be watching to see if Biden meets with Taiwan’s representative on the sidelines. Taiwan’s fate is uncertain under Trump, and Gloudeman says it’s unclear “whether he’s going to seek to pressure Taiwan to increase its own defense spending, or whether he sees Taiwan as almost a bargaining chip in some kind of broader negotiations with China.”
German gas line
Danke, but no danke. The German government has reportedly ordered its ports to reject all cargoes of liquefied natural gas, aka LNG, coming from Russia, according to the Financial Times.
The move completes a striking turnaround for Germany, which for decades was the world’s largest importer of Russian gas. But since Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, piped gas shipments have been cut by both sides. Germany now imports zero gas directly from Russia.
The US angle: Geopolitical considerations are afoot. While other countries in Europe still import small amounts of Russian LNG under long-term contracts, the EU broadly is looking to import more of the stuff from the growing American market.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyenraised this issue with Trump during her post-election phone call to him last week. The EU is likely hoping that increased purchases of American LNG could mollify Trump’s pledge to impose blanket tariffs of up to 20% on all US imports.
Cop29
Tensions are high at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.
France’s top climate official is shunning the UN climate talks after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev criticized its handling of deadly protests in New Caledonia, a French overseas territory, earlier this year. Aliyev also characterized France’s Pacific island territories as “colonies.”
Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election is also at the forefront of discussions at the summit.
“Trump’s win is a dominating conversation. However, it’s not the same mood as in 2016, when people were more in shock and processing,” says Shari Friedman, Eurasia Group’s managing director for climate and sustainability
“This time, the world has gone through this before” and “plans to move forward, as they did last time,” adds Friedman.
The president-elect has repeatedly suggested that climate change is a hoax, and his pick to oversee the EPA, Lee Zeldin, has vowed to “roll back regulations” he said are causing US businesses to “struggle.”
Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement on climate change — a global pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — during his first term. The Biden administration rejoined the accord, but Trump has pledged to pull the US out once again. Interestingly, Israel, one of Trump’s top allies on the global stage, at COP29 cautioned the president-elect against yanking the US from the Paris Agreement.
Meanwhile, Argentina’s delegation was abruptly ordered to leave the two-week summit on Wednesday. This comes amid reports that Argentina’s Trump-friendly president, Javier Milei, is considering withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. Milei was set to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday.
We’ll be watching to see how Trump’s win continues to shape conversations at COP29 in the days ahead — and how it impacts US climate policy in the months and years to come.