We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
US Election
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC, shares his perspective on US politics.
This is what we are watching in US Politics this week: Campus protests.
They're happening everywhere. Elite schools, state schools, the Northeast, the Midwest, Southern California, campus protests are a major story this week over the Israeli operation in Gaza and the Biden administration's support for it. These are leading to accusations of anti-Semitism on college campuses, and things like canceling college graduation ceremonies at several schools.
Will this be an issue of the November elections?
Really difficult to say. Everyone remembers in 1968, massive protest at the Democratic National Convention, contributing to President Nixon's message that he was the “law and order” candidate, and the Democrats didn't have control. That could easily be repeated this year if the protests continue and are sustained into August at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, where it also was in 1968. And then, if the protests continue on campus once again, when schools come back in in the fall, right before the November elections.
One thing we're watching is how Donald Trump tries to spin these things. A key campaign message that he's been pushing so far, this cycle, is that everything they're saying about him are the things they're actually doing. They thought he would get the US into a war with Iran, and now President Biden came right up to the verge of that last week. They say, “He's the chaos candidate,” and now you've got wars all over the globe, you've got campus protests, you've got a spike in crime, and you've got a massive immigration problem under President Biden.
So, that message is going to be one that Donald Trump continues to push and will definitely resonate with Republican voters and could potentially resonate with independent voters if the large-scale protests and clashes with police continue into the fall.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Judge Amy Coney Barrett after she was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S. October 26, 2020.
Should a former president be held accountable for crimes committed while in office? That was the basic, yet incredibly weighty, question before the Supreme Court on Thursday when it began hearing oral arguments in a case related to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Trump, who doesn’t want to face trial in the federal Jan. 6 case against him before his expected rematch with President Joe Biden on Election Day, has declared that presidents should have absolute immunity. He’s effectively argued that presidents should be above the law.
What happened? Some of the conservative justices (three of whom were appointed by Trump) expressed concern that allowing former presidents to be criminally prosecuted could present a burden to future commanders-in-chief. They seemed skeptical of Trump’s sweeping claims but appeared open to the idea that presidents should have immunity for some actions. There was a great deal of focus on whether a distinction should be established between official acts and private behavior.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, emphasized that the court was “writing a rule for the ages.” But Justice Amy Coney Barrett, another Trump appointee, agreed with the notion that the ex-president’s legal team was pushing a “radical” idea on presidential immunity.
Meanwhile, liberal justices worried that if the court ruled in Trump’s favor, it could open the door for future presidents to commit crimes. “If there’s no threat of criminal prosecution, what prevents the president from just doing whatever he wants?” asked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
TLDR: The court might rule that presidents should be granted some, but not absolute, immunity from criminal prosecution. This means the case could be kicked back down to the lower courts.
What’s next? Trump’s Jan. 6 trial was postponed to await the court’s ruling, which could come anytime between now and the end of June. Whether that trial occurs before voters go to the polls in November will depend on the timing and nature of the court’s final ruling.
Former US President Donald Trump waits for the start of proceedings in Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in New York.
The US Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on Thursday over whether former President Donald Trump is immune from criminal prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results (spoiler alert: He lost to Joe Biden).
Trump has effectively argued that he should be off the hook for anything he did while in office. The ex-president faces four felony counts in relation to his push to undo Biden’s victory, including conspiracy to defraud the US and obstruction of an official proceeding.
What’s at stake? A lot! This is novel territory for the Supreme Court, given Trump is the first former president in US history to face criminal charges.
The court’s ruling will have major implications for the rule of law in the US and the office of the presidency, with the potential to deal a major blow to the system of checks and balances designed to restrain each branch of the government. That said, legal experts are skeptical the court will fully concur with Trump’s broad assessment that presidents have absolute immunity. Lower courts have already rejected Trump’s immunity claims.
The high court’s decision could also impact whether Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, stands trial in the federal Jan. 6 case in Washington before Election Day – something Trump is eager to avoid. A trial date was originally scheduled for March 4 but was delayed to await the Supreme Court ruling, which is expected to be released by July.
Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media after the first day of opening statements in his trial at Manhattan Criminal Court for falsifying documents related to hush money payments, in New York, NY, on Monday, April 22, 2024.
On Monday, the opening statements were delivered in Donald Trump’s historic “hush money” criminal trial in New York City. Trump is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to protect his 2016 presidential campaign.
What the prosecution said: Prosecutor Matthew Colangelosaid Trump “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” and covered it up by “lying in his New York business records” repeatedly.
What Trump’s side said: Trump's attorney Todd Blanchesaid the former president is “innocent.” He also attacked the character of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, who is poised to be a key witness for the prosecution.
First witness takes the stand: David Pecker, the ex-publisher of the National Enquirer, testified briefly on Monday and spoke about using “checkbook journalism” to pay for stories. He’s accused of killing stories that would’ve been damaging to Trump’s 2016 campaign and allegedly helped broker a deal with Daniels. Pecker is set to testify again on Tuesday.
Big picture: Trump is the first former US president to face a criminal trial. Recent polling suggests that if Trump is convicted, it could cost him at the ballot box.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee complained outside the courtroom that he should be campaigning instead and called the proceedings “election interference.” Trump is expected to be in court for the whole trial, which will be held every weekday except Wednesdays and is expected to last from six to eight weeks. Trump in February said he would face trial during the day, and campaign at night.
FILE PHOTO: Parts of a ghost gun kit are on display at an event held by U.S. President Joe Biden to announce measures to fight ghost gun crime, at the White House in Washington U.S., April 11, 2022.
The US Supreme Court agreed Monday to rule on a challenge to the Biden administration’s efforts to crack down on untraceable “ghost guns.”
What are “ghost guns”? Basically, privately manufactured kits that give customers all the individual parts they need to build a firearm themselves, like a deadly version of IKEA.
Before the Biden administration’s new regulations, customers did not need to pass background checks to buy these kits, and law enforcement struggled to trace the guns when they were used in crimes. Unsurprisingly, a lot of criminals bought these kits. In 2020, law enforcement agencies recovered 19,344 ghost guns from crime scenes, up from just 1,758 in 2016.
What’s the argument? The White House’s regulations don’t ban the sale of gun kits but require manufacturers to put serial numbers on components and conduct background checks. Manufacturers and Second Amendment activists say the government is overstepping its powers in regulating the kits like actual firearms.
What’s the outlook? The court has a 6-3 conservative majority that generally favors expansive Second Amendment rights. That said, two conservatives – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett – joined the liberals to let the White House allow the regulations to take effect temporarily last August. Their votes will be key, with a decision expected after the November election.On the first day of the first criminal trial of a former US president, I couldn’t resist. The courthouse is 15 minutes from my desk here in New York, so I jumped on the 6 Train and headed out to the scrum of protesters, counterprotesters, journalists, police, and other gawkers in Lafayette Park outside the courthouse.
There was lots – lots – of yelling. Just as I arrived, a guy in a “Gays for Trump, You got a problem with that, Bitch!” T-shirt was at the center of a smartphone scrum screaming at a woman holding a “Trump is the Definition of Depravity” sign that she was a “pedophile.”
Before long, content creators from both sides of the national divide were on the scene, livestreaming and shouting at each other about Hunter Biden, about inflation, about child labor, about immigration. Even Triumph the Comic Insult Dog barked into the mix, asking one of several Proud Boys stalking the scene in wraparound shades: “If Trump is convicted, do you think he’ll be sentenced to four years … in the White House?”
The only people not screaming, as I recall, were four elderly Chinese-American ladies in huge sunglasses, sitting on a bench under a leafless sweetgum tree, holding hand-painted signs that read: “Kangaroo Court, Banana Republic.”
It was, in all, the usual performative mayhem about the usual subjects. But the one thing that almost no one was actually yelling about was the thing that was going on inside the building 100 feet away: the trial itself.
All that circus, and hardly a word about the elephant in the ring.
But isn’t that how a lot of us talk about Trump’s trials and titillations these days? We argue about the politics rather than look at the merits. And that’s a bad thing.
For Trump, the political cage matches keep the focus right where he wants it: on the narrative that he, as a popular threat to a corrupt establishment, is the victim of a political witch hunt. That the ruling party is using the justice system to silence a political rival. That those ladies with the big sunglasses under the sweetgum tree are right.
On the other side, people talk about the long-coming legal downfall of a demagogue seen as a threat to the Republic itself. The Capone of politics nabbed on his own kind 0f tax rap.
“People know what verdict they want in this case,” says Richard Klein, a professor of law at Touro Law School and a longtime trial criminal defense lawyer. “But few people are focusing on DA Bragg’s case against Trump. They're focusing on all the noise around it.”
To review, briefly. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg alleges that Trump falsified business records to conceal a payment that was made, in the fall of 2016, to a porn star who says she and Trump had a fling.
“Hush money” is bad, but that’s not actually what the trial is about. Paying someone to keep quiet isn’t necessarily a crime, and fiddling with business records in New York isn’t a felony.
Bragg’s case elevates the charges by arguing that this book-cooking was done with the intention of committing other felonious infractions – including, it seems, a conspiracy to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and commit tax fraud.
To prove this intent, Bragg will bring various witnesses, including Trump’s former lawyer and fixer-in-chief Michael Cohen, who made the payments, as well their recipient, the actress known as “Stormy Daniels.”
Legal scholars like Klein say Bragg’s approach is something of a high-wire act. He is linking dozens of lower-level crimes – some of which Trump appears to have admitted publicly – to harder-to-prove felonious ones, and then asking a jury to decide that Trump did all of this to sway an upcoming election rather than, say, simply to save his marriage or protect his kids from scandal.
The key witnesses, moreover, aren’t exactly folks with an unblemished reputation for truthtelling. Cohen has already admitted to lying under oath previously.
How much does this matter? If Bragg fails to convince the jury, Trump will be vindicated – look, he’ll say, these kangaroo court prosecutors came at me and 12 very good people of New York saw through it. This will color the politics of the other three cases he faces.
If Trump is convicted, of course, it may not move the needle for the 35% of “you got a problem with that bitch!”Americans who are unwaveringly fanatically loyal to him.
But about half of Americans say if Trump is convicted he should not be president again. That includes 14% of Republicans and, perhaps more importantly, a third of independents who say a guilty verdict would sway their vote. In a tight election – and this one will be tight – that could certainly be the difference.
As I went to file this, news broke that the jury has been set for the trial. And so we’re off. I may not be able to resist heading down to Lafayette square for some good mayhem again in the coming weeks – but as a society it’s a mistake to let that political circus distract us from the real drama in the courtroom itself.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro leads the celebration of the 22nd anniversary of late President Hugo Chavez's return to power after a failed coup attempt in 2002, in Caracas, Venezuela April 13, 2024
The Biden administrationannounced this week it will reimpose oil sector sanctions on Venezuela because President Nicolas Maduro’s government has backed away from a commitment to hold a free and fair presidential election this year.
The US lifted sanctions six months ago, but Maduro’s government has since banned opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from running for president and blocked her chosen replacement from running too.
Now for the asterisk: US oil giant Chevron will be permitted to keep a joint venture with Venezuela’s national oil company. Why? Look at the calendar. Biden’s got an election to win in seven months. Venezuela is a major oil producer, and the US wants to avoid giving oil markets any more reason to worry.
After all, the threat of a wider war in the Middle East is creating oil supply jitters while a rapidly recovering Chinese economy is expected to start guzzling more crude again this year.
So while Joe Biden can no longer pretend Venezuela’s people will have a real choice in their election, with US inflation still stubbornly high, he’s got to make some hard choices about his own — and this is one of them.
Latest
Supreme Court divided over Trump’s absolute immunity claims
Is Trump immune? SCOTUS dives into uncharted waters
The Supreme Court takes aim at “ghost guns”
What the Trump trial circus is missing
Biden reimposes sanctions on Venezuela*
