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The trial is rigged, according to Trump and his GOP admirers. Justice Merchan is biased against him, because he and his daughters have some ties to the Democratic Party. He should be required to recuse himself.

But when Justice Thomas refuses to recuse himself on January 6 cases in spite of his wife’s activism in favor of Trump, and when Justice Alito flies flags supporting the insurrectionists, do they have a problem with that? No, indeed. Complaining about the behavior of reactionary judges is an attack on the rule of law.

Here are three things the Trump defense team won’t do in their closing statement:

1. They won’t offer a counternarrative. There are no plausible options, and there is no evidence in their favor.
2. They won’t spend a lot of time talking about Stormy Daniels, other than to describe her as a grifter trying to extort money from their client. They don’t have any testimony disproving her story, and it is peripheral to the case in any event.
3. They won’t dare bang on and on about how the case is bogus, and Trump is being crucified by New York liberals. You may hear a little bit of that just to keep the client happy, but emphasizing that narrative is insulting to both the judge and the jury.

The defense will spend the vast majority of their time talking about what an incredible scumbag Michael Cohen is. If the judge’s instructions permit it, they will also make legal arguments about the connection between the records in question and an underlying felony. Those are the two weakest points of the prosecution’s case.

A few years ago, I indicated in a post that analogizing Trump to a mob boss was insulting to mob bosses, because they have to give as well as receive loyalty, and Trump never does. The current hush money trial is a perfect example of this.

A mob boss would have reached out to Cohen and credibly promised to take care of him and his family in exchange for his silence. Trump distanced himself from Cohen and refused to pay his legal bills. What did he think would happen next?

In other words, Trump isn’t Vito Corleone–he’s Fredo.

Kamala Harris has come to the White House to talk campaign strategy.

B: We need to discuss your role in the campaign. It’s going to be very important.

H: That’s good to hear.

B: It isn’t just for this race. Your position as the presumptive leader of the party depends a lot on your performance between now and November. It’s an opportunity to shine and save the country at the same time.

H: I’m up for it. What’s the plan?

B: You’re going to be in charge of rallying the base. We need them to come out and vote in November as if their lives depend on it, because they do. I’ll be the voice of moderation in Washington, running the country competently and appealing to swing voters.

H: Sounds reasonable. What do you want me to focus on?

B: Reproductive rights should be a major issue for us. You’re obviously better positioned to discuss them than I am. It isn’t just abortion–it includes contraception, as well. We need to highlight what Trump is likely to do with the regulations and the Comstock Act even if he somehow tells the truth and doesn’t push for a complete ban. And we need to tie the issue to Republican attacks on other rights, like voting.

H: I’m already on that one.

B: Climate change is another biggie. We need to contrast Republican denialism with our legislative successes with electric cars. We represent the future; they’re the dead and buried past. To make things tangible for people who don’t get it, we need to talk about the rising cost of insurance, and how denying climate change is already causing people financial problems. It isn’t just a matter of protecting our grandchildren; we need to do something for ourselves, right away.

H: Makes sense.

B: Immigration. Thus far, all of the discussion has been about how open the border is. We need to change the terms of the argument to focus on Trump’s plans. Using the military in violation of the law to deport 15 million people. What will that mean for the country? How will we replace all of those workers? And what about the plan to bring family separation back? Not to mention Trump’s efforts to destroy the bipartisan consensus to improve the current situation.

H: All legitimate points.

B: We need to talk about our efforts to reduce costs for everyone, including young people. We are forgiving student debt. We reduced the cost of insulin. We’re making progress on prescription drug prices. We’re exposing shrinkflation. What is Trump doing? Driving up prices with tariffs and causing labor shortages. Does that make sense?

H: Clearly not.

B: On Gaza, we need to tell our people that we’re supporting the elimination of Hamas as a necessary step to a Palestinian state. We’re trying to save as many lives as possible in that process. Trump just wants the Israelis to blow all of Gaza up and then build housing for settlers on it.

H: Anything else?

B: Tell black voters that we have record low unemployment for minorities, and that inequality is being reduced. We also support affirmative action. Trump wants to get rid of what’s left of it and tell black people to just get over hundreds of years of history.

H: Sounds like a plan. (She leaves)

Trump consistently accuses Biden of being responsible for all of the charges against him. That’s a lie, of course, but it’s particularly rich coming from someone who professes to believe in the unitary executive theory. If you accept the logic of that theory, Biden has every right to do what he is being falsely accused of doing.

Think of it as the flip side of Trump’s hypocrisy on the immunity defense, which, if taken seriously, protects Biden from prosecution if he orders Trump’s extrajudicial execution.

It is clear now that Trump does not plan to testify. On balance, this is a wise decision, for the reasons I have listed previously, but it creates some public relations problems with the base, which may view his silence as weakness. How will he deal with this issue?

If he’s somehow acquitted, he’ll say it is proof that the sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels never happened, even though a not guilty verdict would not really establish that. If he winds up with a hung jury, he’ll treat that as an exoneration, even though it won’t be. If he is found guilty, in addition to saying the trial was rigged, he’ll blame his lawyers. If he had only taken the stand, he would have demolished the prosecution’s case and proved his innocence.

There are two points of vulnerability for the prosecution in the Trump case. The first is the lack of corroboration for Cohen on the issue of Trump’s involvement in the reimbursement check scheme; the second concerns the relationship between the allegedly fraudulent records and a separate felony they were intended to further.

The latter point is primarily a legal question; it will be addressed in a jury instruction. Both sides will be fighting to get their legal interpretation of the New York statute included in the instructions. Whoever prevails in that battle, which will take place outside of the jury’s hearing, will probably win the case.

Based on the judge’s previous rulings and his perception of the behavior of the defense team, I’m betting on the prosecution, but we’ll have to wait and see.

You could reasonably say that Trump was the first prominent anti-woke warrior, but he did it with his mouth, not his pen; other than picking reactionary Supreme Court justices, he didn’t actually do much to help the cause. Red state governors and legislatures have subsequently taken practical action in the form of new legislation and regulations to muzzle and oppress the left. What should we expect from Trump 2.0? Will the war on wokeness be extended by the federal government to blue states?

Transgender people didn’t remove Trump from power, and his first priority will be revenge, so it is unlikely that wokeness issues will be at the top of his to-do list. It is virtually certain, however, that his appointees will be ready to pick up the torch and fight wokeness from the minute they take office. In particular, you can expect a federal war on our elite universities. As I’ve noted before, they cannot be “reformed,” but they can be damaged or even destroyed, much to the nation’s detriment.

Michelle Goldberg correctly notes that 2020 was the high-water mark for wokeness. It has been all downhill since then. Will we miss it, as she suggests, and why is it on the run?

There are several reasons for its apparent demise. The most popular platform for the communication of woke views, Twitter, now belongs to a man who despises the far left. Some woke views, particularly on gender, never resonated with the center left. Others, such as “defund the police,” backfired both practically and politically in the real world. The best explanation, however, is that Trump’s outrageous behavior drove the center left into a stronger alliance with the woke warriors; when he left office, the alliance evaporated.

Wokeness isn’t going away completely, however; it is just in hibernation. If Trump wins the election, it will be back with a vengeance. Even if it doesn’t, demographic changes make it likely that a relatively woke candidate will be the Democratic nominee in 2028.

Knowing that Michael Cohen is neither likable nor credible on his own, the prosecution has built a scaffold of corroboration for his testimony. If Donald Trump–the man who told 30,000 lies while in office, according to the WaPo–decides to testify, he won’t have any such support. He will be on his own.

As a result, you have to think that Trump and his lawyers have spent the weekend arguing about whether he should testify or not. Trump thinks he is the smartest man in the world, and the ultimate salesman; he may also feel that the base wants him to vindicate himself. He will want to take the stand. His lawyers know that he will make a terrible witness and will try to explain that to him as tactfully as possible.

Who wins the tug-of-war? We’ll know early next week. One thing is for certain–the entertainment value of a Trump cross-examination would be off the charts.

Forget the noise; the only four points of Michael Cohen’s testimony that are essential to the prosecution are as follows:

1. The hush money payment was made at the direction of Trump. Cohen did not do it for his own purposes;
2. The payment was made to assist the campaign, not to protect Trump’s family;
3. The payments to Cohen were a reimbursement, not compensation for legal services; and
4. Trump personally approved the decision to falsely identify the payments to Cohen as compensation for legal services.

Given Cohen’s limited credibility as a witness, how are these statements corroborated? #1 is consistent with common sense; would Cohen really spend that much of his own money with no expectation of reimbursement? #2 is supported by plenty of testimony from a variety of sources that the campaign was in a panic after the release of the Access Hollywood tape. #3 is corroborated by notes made by the Trump Organization’s accountant. #4 is the shakiest; it is supported only by testimony and written excerpts proving that Trump was a micromanager who took a personal interest in every penny he spent.

If I were a defense lawyer, I would focus on #4 in my cross-examination of Cohen and in my closing argument. The prosecution needs to be prepared for that.

Trump and Biden have agreed to two debates. There will be no audience, and each candidate’s microphone will apparently be turned off automatically if he exceeds the limits on response time. These rules have been described as a win for Biden; they certainly will make the experience more comfortable for him. But will they help him win votes?

Biden has two objectives at the debates: to show the American public, since it appears they forgot, how unhinged Trump can be; and to prove that Trump has no plausible ideas, and does not even care, about policy. The rules help with the latter, but not the former; in a sense, the more obnoxious Trump is, the better. As a result, the rules should be described as a mixed bag, not a clear win for Biden.

Bret Stephens insists that refusing to provide the Israelis with offensive weapons that are essentially intended to cause a disproportionate number of civilian casualties is a blunder. Let’s analyze his reasons for that:

1. DENYING THE WEAPONS MAKES BIDEN LOOK WEAK: Really? Making demands about the use of weapons and having the Israeli government ostentatiously ignore them makes Biden look strong? In what parallel universe is that true?
2. DENYING THE WEAPONS HELPS HAMAS: The American objective, and the objective of the Israeli military (the cabinet is another matter) is to destroy Hamas by first separating the fighters from the innocent civilians. Measures taken to push the Israeli government in that direction do not help Hamas.
3. DENYING THE WEAPONS PROLONGS THE WAR: The fact that Hamas is regrouping in the northern part of Gaza suggests that the current government strategy is not working and that the war will not be over any time soon. In any event, there is every reason to believe that Bibi wants a long war, and sacrificing speed for more ultimate success in creating a viable, moderate Gaza is a good idea.
4. DENYING THE WEAPONS MAKES AMERICA LOOK LIKE AN UNRELIABLE ALLY: Who is being unreliable here? The party that is giving away weapons, but wants them to be used in a particular way, or the party that thinks it is entitled to use the free weapons in a manner inconsistent with the terms of the gift?
5. DENYING THE WEAPONS WILL HAVE UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCES: In reality, having the Israelis abuse our gifts is damaging America’s image in the world and weakening our argument for protecting Ukraine from human rights abuses. Those are the real unforeseen consequences here.

Stephens thinks it would be a good idea for the anti-Zionist demonstrators to take a hard look at their ultimate objectives for the Jews in Israel. What kind of a Palestinian state do they actually want, and how do the Jews fit in it? On that point, we agree completely. Simply mouthing pro-Palestinian slogans without grasping their practical meaning is a fool’s errand.

But Stephens also believes that saving innocent Palestinian lives in Gaza is desirable, but a low priority–an afterthought. He argues that Biden shows strength when he provides offensive weapons to a government that makes a display of ignoring American restrictions on their use. On both of these points, he is wrong. Separating civilians from fighters is the essence of the war, and protecting the former is a necessary step in creating a viable and moderate political entity to run Gaza when it is over. As to the notion that Biden shows strength to the world by refusing to stand up for his principles, that statement practically refutes itself.

Stephens wrote a column in the NYT about a week ago which included a list of reasons why Biden should have continued to let the Israelis ignore American conditions on the use of our offensive weapons. That list will be the subject of my next post.

Michael Cohen’s testimony was clear and persuasive. It was completely consistent with the undisputed facts. From a psychological perspective, his account of his behavior and his motivations made sense. So what does the defense do now?

The Trump team has two options. The first one–typically used when the defendant is guilty–is to poke as many holes in the testimony as possible, keep the defendant off the stand, and argue that the evidence does not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. The second is to create a compelling counternarrative through testimony from Trump that vindicates the man on golf cart. This undoubtedly would be Trump’s preferred alternative.

But how can the facts be spun to vindicate Trump? As far as I can see, he either has to persuade the jury (and the voting public) that he is telling the truth, and that everything the prosecution put on (including the documents and the testimony from the disinterested witnesses) is a lie, or he has to admit the hush money payment, but put all of the blame for it on two rogue employees. In light of the corroborating documents and testimony, the obvious motives of the parties, and Trump’s reputation as a micromanager, does that story really make sense?

I would select the first option, but it will only be used if the Trump defense team has control over the client. Don’t bet the ranch on that.