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Trump trial: day five
In their opening statement prosecutors framed the case against Donald Trump as “election fraud, pure and simple”. Matthew Colangelo, of the Manhattan district attorney’s office, accused Mr Trump of a “co-ordinated, long-running conspiracy” to influence the 2016 vote, involving illegal campaign expenditures and doctored records to conceal them. Todd Blanche, one of Mr Trump’s defence lawyers, said his client had nothing to do with the Trump Organisation’s record-keeping and that prosecutors’ main witnesses were motivated by money and revenge. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election; it’s called democracy,” added Mr Blanche. He also told jurors to see Mr Trump as a “husband, a father, a person just like you and me”. Afterwards David Pecker, a former tabloid publisher, took the stand as the first witness. The trial is expected to last about six weeks.
Some Democrats hinted that they would back Mike Johnson, the House speaker, if his fellow Republicans try to sack him for passing aid for Ukraine with Democratic votes. “He deserves to keep his job till the end of his term,” said Ro Khanna of California. The House finally approved a foreign-aid package worth $95bn, including $61bn for Ukraine, on Saturday despite a majority of Republicans voting against the Ukraine provisions.
Police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters at Yale University, days after more than 100 demonstrators were detained at Columbia University for trespassing. Joe Biden issued a statement saying that “blatant antisemitism” had “absolutely no place on college campuses”, seemingly referring to reports of harassment at Columbia’s protests. On Monday Minouche Shafik, the school’s president, announced that classes would be held virtually.
Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted to join the United Auto Workers, marking a significant win for unions in the historically anti-union South. Nearly three-quarters of some 3,600 workers voted for it. Joe Biden praised the decision. The victory signifies a shift in the South’s labour landscape and sets the stage for further organising efforts in the region, including an upcoming vote at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama.
Robert F. Kennedy junior, who is running a third-party campaign for president, will appear on the ballot in Michigan, a critical swing state. Last week Michigan’s top election officials confirmed that Mr Kennedy secured the nomination of the Natural Law Party, a minor party that has preserved state ballot access for more than two decades. Mr Kennedy would otherwise have had to secure thousands of signatures.
The notion that Israel must show restraint following Iran’s attack mistakenly presumes that Israel is not already in a regional war, wrote Ruth Wasserman Lande, a former politician in Israel’s Knesset, in an open letter to Joe Biden in the Jerusalem Post on April 19th. Could Mr Biden imagine America not responding to a similar attack? Doing nothing also has “far-reaching consequences”, she argued.
Seeking to tackle a growing “vagrancy problem”, the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, banned sleeping and camping in public places. On Monday the policy will be taken up by the Supreme Court. The question at the heart of the case is whether penalising homeless people for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go counts as cruel and unusual punishment, which is banned by the Eighth Amendment.
One-third, the share of its population that Alexander County, Illinois, lost in the decade to 2020, making it the fastest-shrinking place in the country. Read our briefing about why America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population.
The race between the two candidates remains stubbornly stable. Judging from our poll tracker, which is updated daily and shows an average of the latest polls, the race between Mr Biden and Mr Trump is shaping up to be a dead heat.
Monday: Which state has the most college students?
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If you enjoyed this week’s questions, play Dateline, The Economist’s new history game.
—Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican congresswoman from Florida, admonished Democrats for waving Ukrainian flags in the chamber on April 20th.
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Read all of our recent coverage of the 2024 election. Confused about a term? Check out our A-Z of American politics.
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In brief
Our daily political update, featuring the stories that matter
In brief
Our daily political update, featuring the stories that matter
In brief
Our daily political update, featuring the stories that matter
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