April 12, 2024 - The latest on the 2024 campaign

Former President Donald Trump said Friday he would testify at his New York criminal hush money trial that is set to begin next week.

“Yeah, I would testify,” Trump said at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago as he continued railing against the charges against him.

Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records over the reimbursement of hush money payments made before the 2016 election. The former president has pleaded not guilty. 

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on reproductive freedom at El Rio Neighborhood Center in Tucson, Arizona, on Friday.

Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Donald Trump for his role in rolling back abortion protections across the country and issued a stark warning of what a second Trump term would look like if the former president is reelected in November.

“As much harm as he has already caused, a second Trump term would be even worse,” she told supporters in Tucson, Arizona, on Friday.

The vice president touched on an Arizona Supreme Court ruling earlier this week that reverted the state to an 1864 abortion ban with no exceptions save for the life of the mother, telling the crowd the law now means “the women here live under one of the most extreme abortion bans in our nation.”

All that, she said, stands in contrast to the Biden administration, which she pledged would sign a law codifying abortion protections into law if passed by Congress.

Judge Juan Merchan sits in his chambers in New York on March 14.

Judge Juan Merchan has rejected yet another attempt by Donald Trump to delay his criminal hush money trial set to begin in New York on Monday.

Merchan issued an order Friday denying a motion from the former president’s attorneys to delay the trial due to excessive pretrial publicity. 

The ruling is hardly a surprise, and the latest in a series of decisions by the court this week rejecting Trump’s 11th-hour attempts to stop his first criminal trial. 

Trump’s attorneys had made the request to file the motion at a pretrial hearing last month. Merchan has already denied a similar attempt, but allowed them to file the motion anyway.

“The remedy that Defendant seeks is an indefinite adjournment. This is not tenable,” Merchan wrote Friday.

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records over the reimbursement of hush money payments made before the 2016 election to an adult film star alleging an affair a decade earlier. Trump had pleaded not guilty and denied the affair. 

Jury selection in the trial begins Monday. 

Former President Donald Trump endorsed a Republican opponent to GOP Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington, one of the only remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the January 6 insurrection.

Trump’s endorsement of Jerrod Sessler came moments before Trump took the stage at Mar-a-Lago with Speaker Mike Johnson, who has previously lobbied the former president to support Republican incumbents facing MAGA-fueled primary challenges.

Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, only Newhouse and Rep. David Valadao of California are still in Congress.

In a social media post, Trump called Newhouse a “weak and pathetic RINO” and said he has “to go.”

Lawyers for Donald Trump asked the judge overseeing the criminal hush money case to alter his plans for handling jury selection days before the historic trial is set to get underway next week.

On Monday, Judge Juan Merchan outlined how he would handle jury selection, advising that he would ask the pool of jurors whether anyone felt they couldn’t be fair or impartial or otherwise serve in the case and then excuse those who raised their hands without inquiring further. Trump’s lawyers initially asked the judge for the ability to question each of the jurors, but the judge said that is “unnecessary, time-consuming, and of no benefit.”

In a letter Friday afternoon, Trump’s attorneys said that approach is “inadequate because the plan would not create a sufficient record for the purpose of any necessary appellate review, or a venue-change motion.”

Instead, they are asking the judge to distinguish between jurors who said they can’t be fair and those who are otherwise unable to serve. “That clarity is necessary so that President Trump can present arguments to the First Department, if and when necessary, regarding the number of potential jurors who believed they harbored a disqualifying bias before questioning, as well as the number of additional potential jurors who reveal a disqualifying bias during questioning.” 

The filing comes as Trump is continuing to attempt to build a case for his appeals. Earlier this week Trump’s lawyers tried to stop the trial arguing the former president can’t get a fair trial in Manhattan and have appealed seeking a venue change. Briefs are due later this month.

On Friday Trump’s lawyers also argued the jury questionnaire lacks a question to “identify potential jurors who align with rival political parties that are not necessarily ‘anti-Trump’ but could still support a disqualifying bias that is worth of follow-up inquiry by the defense.”

If the judge doesn’t amend the questions, Trump’s lawyers ask that they be allowed to ask questions to explore any affiliations. 

Former President Donald Trump on Friday said he thought it was “unfortunate that people bring it up” when asked about the procedural tool in the House of Representatives known as the motion to vacate that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to use to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson.

What to know: The motion to vacate the speaker’s chair can trigger a House floor vote to oust the speaker.

As Rep. Kevin McCarthy was trying to secure the speaker’s gavel last year, he and his allies made a series of concessions to conservatives. One major concession was to restore the ability of any one member to offer a motion to vacate. Greene filed a motion to oust Johnson from the speakership last month amid anger about the government funding bill from the House Republican Conference’s right flank. 

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday.

While raising concerns about the security of the border under President Joe Biden’s administration, former President Donald Trump said “millions and millions of people are pouring in” to the US, and that “we probably have 15 million” migrants.

He made the comments during his joint news conference with House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday.

Facts First: Trump’s figure about how many migrants have crossed the border under the Biden administration is inflated. 

As of March, US Customs and Border Protection has recorded nearly 9.4 million border encounters nationwide since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021. 

While millions of people are not “pouring” into the US at one time, the nation continues to grapple with a migrant surge at the southern border.

Former President Donald Trump on Friday said the reason he reversed his position from when he was in office and would no longer sign a federal abortion ban was because in the wake of the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, “we don’t need it any longer.” 

As a 2016 presidential candidate, Trump sent a letter to anti-abortion leaders committing to signing legislation that would have criminalized abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for instances in which the life of the mother is at risk or cases involving rape or incest. Trump reiterated his support for the bill in 2018 when he was president.

Trump said Wednesday he would not sign a national abortion ban if elected to the White House again after saying he thought states and voters should decide how and when to restrict abortion. 

A federal judge appeared dubious of efforts by former President Donald Trump’s two co-defendants in the classified documents case to get the charges against them thrown out and to get more information from prosecutors about the charges.

The hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, in front of US District Judge Aileen Cannon was the first major test of the obstruction case that special counsel Jack Smith has brought against two Trump employees, his valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira.

Even though Cannon wasn’t considering any of Trump’s requests for the case’s dismissal Friday, how she responds to his co-defendants’ arguments about the obstruction charges will likely shape how the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election moves forward with his defense.

During the hearing, Cannon grilled attorneys for Nauta and De Oliveira about their arguments that the charges against their clients lacked adequate clarity. The Trump employees are accused of conspiring to help Trump hide documents at the Florida estate after he left the White House and lying to the FBI in interviews about their alleged involvement in moving the documents. They have pleaded not guilty.

Read more here about today’s hearing in Florida.

Former President Donald Trump on Friday suggested he would consider structuring aid to Ukraine as a loan.

“We’re looking at it right now and they’re talking about it, and we’re thinking about making it in the form of a loan instead of just a gift. We keep handing out gifts of billions and billions of dollars, and we’ll take a look at it,” Trump said in response to a question from CNN during a news conference with House Speaker Mike Johnson at his Mar-a-Lago estate. 

CNN previously reported that Johnson was going to Mar-a-Lago to, in part, feel out the former president on a potential Ukraine aid package. Some of the speaker’s allies have counseled Johnson to keep Trump in the loop with respect to his plans on Ukraine, cognizant that Trump’s backing – or opposition – could make or break the legislation, as well as Johnson’s speakership.

The former president has previously said he believes the US should not provide any foreign aid unless it is structured as a loan.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently said Ukraine “will lose the war” if the United States Congress does not approve military aid to help it resist Russia’s invasion.