Today's Opinions

Fri May 17 2024

Feels like a good time to catch up on the Trump hush money trial that seems to be all the rage. It was a week of testimony and grandstanding that can only be characterized as...American.

Real quick, Donald Trump is the target of a criminal trial going on right in New York. There are salacious allegations, a disgraced lawyer, protesters and a VIP list of MAGA elites attending to show support. Oh, and the former adult film story that kickstarted all this.

As always, we have thoughts on how things are going.

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and fellow House Republicans address reporters near former President Donald Trump's hush money trial on May 16, 2024, in New York City.

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Trump uses Republican lawmakers to evade gag order in criminal trial

Just a quick reminder that every Republican lawmaker in the House and Senate is required to make at least one day trip to the Manhattan criminal courthouse while our hero and presumptive presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, is being persecuted for doing nothing wrong whatsoever.

Because President Trump is under a (VERY UNFAIR) gag order and we have no understanding whatsoever of how the criminal justice system works, it is incumbent on us to be the former president's loud and aggrieved voice. - Read the latest column from Rex Huppke on the requirement that MAGA politicians show their love.

Will Trump testify? History shows us he is his own worst enemy under oath.

We still don't know if former President Donald Trump will tell the jury his side of the sordid hush-money scheme still unfolding in his New York criminal court case.

But now we know the odds.

The oddsmakers at BetOnline, who have been setting lines on who will or won't show up to support Trump in court, took a look for me and decided there is a 96.2% chance that he'll pass on testifying. - Columnist Chris Brennan looks at the possibility that Trump will testify.

Trump's trial is now the MAGA-verse hub, where Republican leaders defend their king

The greatest show of the 21st century is happening far from the tourists, the theater district and the neon lights of New York's Times Square.

It's happening in the city's Civic Center neighborhood in a stately Manhattan courthouse, surrounded by other stately federal buildings and a few small parks where protesters set up their banners and signs.

It's the fifth week of the buzzworthy Donald J. Trump trial, and things keep getting interesting outside the proceedings. The further we get into the trial, the more MAGA-verse politicians visit to show their support. Earlier this week, for example, House Speaker Mike Johnson visited the former president. - Columnist Sara Pequeñowent to the scene of the trial so the rest of us don't have to.