Trump’s lifelong battle with the law
The former president is in unparalleled legal peril, but he has mastered the ability to grind down the legal system to his advantage. It’s already changing our democracy.
In November, Donald Trump took the witness stand in Room 300 of the New York County Courthouse in lower Manhattan and savaged the judge (“very hostile”), the prosecutor (he should be “ashamed”), the attorney general (“a political hack”), the trial (“crazy”) and the very legal system itself. The judge almost pleaded with Trump’s attorneys to control him. “If you can’t,” the judge said, “I will.”
It would have been shocking, but it was Donald Trump — a man who has used and abused the courts for decades. ”Trump and his allies say he is the victim of the weaponization of the justice system, but the reality is exactly the opposite,” writes Michael Kruse in this week’s Friday Read. “For literally more than 50 years, according to thousands of pages of court records and hundreds of interviews with lawyers and legal experts, people who have worked for Trump, against Trump or both, and many of the myriad litigants who’ve been caught in the crossfire, Trump has taught himself how to use and abuse the legal system for his own advantage and aims.”
Trump’s avoidance of legal accountability for actions even his own party’s leaders have condemned has confounded a country riven with political divisions and distrust in institutions. The only way to make sense of it, Kruse writes, is to view Trump in a new way: “not as a businessman-turned-celebrity-turned-politician, or as a nationalist populist demagogue, or as the epochal leader of a right-wing movement, but rather as a legal combatant.”
“Just as he had upended the norms inside the New York courtroom, Trump has altered the very way we view the justice system as a whole. This is not something he began to do once he won elected office. It has been a lifelong project.”
“She’s got this problem with ballistic podiatry: shooting herself in the foot.”
Can you guess who said this about former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley this week? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**
Yes, You Need to Read About Dean Phillips … Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips is “appalled.” And “disappointed.” And “disgusted.” Not once in the 77 days since he announced his run against President Joe Biden to top the Democratic ticket has he scored a single measly interview on MSNBC — and he blames the Biden campaign for pressuring liberal media into giving him the cold shoulder. It’s hardly novel for a candidate running far, far behind to complain of insufficient coverage. But before you roll your eyes and move on, read Michael Schaffer’s latest Capital City column. “I think Phillips’ complaint is worth taking seriously,” he writes, “not for what it says about anyone’s campaign tactics, but for what it says about the information ecosystem of today’s Washington.”
The Trump-less GOP debates trundled on this week, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley savaging each other at the CNN debate in Des Moines, Iowa. Didn’t tune in? Not to worry — when you’re talking politics this weekend, these lines will give you some fodder. (From POLITICO’s Adam Wren)
- Lament the death of retail politics in early states like Iowa, where Trump is up by double digits despite not eating Casey’s breakfast pizza or hitting every Pizza Ranch in the state. After all, that’s what DeSantis did on the stage. “He comes in here every now and then, he does his spiel and then he leaves,” DeSantis said. “I’ve shown up to all 99 counties because it’s important.”
- Hanging with Haley stans? Talk up her criticism of DeSantis’ campaign turmoil. “If you can’t manage a campaign, how are you going to manage the country?” Bazinga!
- Need to impress DeSantis fans? Compliment the governor’s set piece, saying, “You can take the ambassador out of the United Nations but you can’t take the United Nations out of the ambassador.” DeSantis and Trump have both accused Haley of being a globalist this week.
- Talk about who the real winner was: Donald Trump, who skipped the debate for a Fox News town hall — a sign that he and the network are finally making up after a rocky post-2020 relationship.
Body Language Tells From the GOP Debate … DeSantis and Haley lobbed plenty of words at one another in their last-minute debate in Iowa this week, with just days until the caucuses on Monday. But former FBI agent Joe Navarro was more interested in their body language than their soundbites. He picked apart their subtle tells — nasalis contractions, precision grips, something called the “Merkel rhombus” — to reveal what they were really feeling onstage.
The President Called Him a ‘Prick.’ He Doesn’t Mind … Former Barack Obama advisor David Axelrod has been withering in his criticism of President Biden, pointing out his perceived weaknesses as a candidate and communicator. Unlike most of his Democrats, he’s been clear that Biden’s lackluster poll numbers should freak out the party. All of which might be why, as POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin reported in the fall, Biden recently called him a “prick.” But in a new interview, Axelrod tells Ryan Lizza it was no skin off his back: “I’m at a stage in my life where I don’t really give a shit.” Lizza spoke to the 2024 commentator about his problems with the Biden operation, the parallels between now and 2012 and what it’s like to be a critic of your own party in a time of stark polarization.
If Trump Had ‘Negotiated’ the Civil War … Former President and noted historian Donald Trump shared his perspective on the Civil War last weekend. “See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you,” he said. Historian Joshua Zeitz was shocked to find himself in agreement — sort of. “The awfulness in Trump’s argument isn’t that it’s wrong,” he writes. “It’s that it might be right.” He explores the chilling counterfactual history of what might have happened had President Lincoln taken a page from The Art of the Deal.
Should You Say ‘I Do’? … Over the last 50 years, marriage rates in the U.S. declined by 60 percent — and the pundit class has noticed, producing a deluge of columns, blogs and books arguing why we should or should not care. “Why is the marriage conversation so challenging?” asks contributing writer Joanna Weiss. “Maybe because it touches on economic policy, racial history, the culture wars, the long-term effects of the feminist revolution and the intimate contours of everyday life.” She gathered a group of marriage experts, advocates and thinkers with differing perspectives and politics to discuss and debate our newly political divisions over tying the knot.
**Who Dissed answer: It was DeSantis during the debate with Haley in Des Moines, Iowa on Wednesday. The “ballistic podiatry” line has also been used by Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie. Haley criticized DeSantis in the debate for his chumminess with Massie, whom she referred to as an “anti-Israel Republican.” In November, Massie joined Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib in a two-person opposition to the otherwise unified House, voting against a resolution affirming Israel’s right to exist.
