Closing summary
We’re closing the US politics blog now, after covering Donald Trump’s flight from Florida to New York ahead of his historic arraignment on Tuesday on charges he covered up a payment to an adult movie actress.
The former president made his way from LaGuardia airport to Trump Tower in Manhattan, where he will meet lawyers, then spend the night before surrendering to New York state court on Tuesday afternoon.
Judge Juan Merchan is currently weighing whether to allow cameras inside his courtroom tomorrow so Trump’s arraignment, set for late lunchtime, can be broadcast live.
Merchan has also yet to decide if the indictment, believed to include 30-35 charges, can be unsealed before the hearing.
Here are today’s other key developments:
Trump hired a new lead counsel, experienced white-collar crime attorney Todd Blanche, to represent him in the case brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
New York’s Mayor Eric Adams told Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to “behave yourself” while she’s in the city tomorrow protesting Trump’s arraignment with young Republicans.
Commissioner Keechant Sewell said tens of thousands of uniformed New York police department officers would be on duty on Tuesday to keep the peace, if any protests threatened to turn violent. “Violence and destruction are not part of legitimate lawful expression,” she said.
Fox News reported that “multiple secret service agents connected to [the] former president” have received subpoenas to testify Friday to a Washington DC grand jury investigating Trump’s improper handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Republican governor and likely 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill allowing anyone in the state over 18 to carry a concealed firearm without need for a permit or training. Florida is third in the nation for mass shootings.
The blog is closed now, but stick with us for ongoing news coverage of the Trump arraignment. And please join us again tomorrow for what promises to be a momentous day on Tuesday.
And before you go, take a read of Simon Jenkins’ opinion piece on the Trump prosecution:
Joe Biden, speaking about his economic agenda this afternoon in Minnesota, has been completely ignoring the circus of his predecessor’s arrival in New York to face criminal charges.
An upbeat president extolled his administration’s successes during an appearance at a suburban Minneapolis facility of Cummins Inc, an engine maker that is investing more than $1bn in its plants in Indiana, North Carolina and New York.
“We’re turning things around in a big way,” Biden told the audience, listing investments of tens of billions of dollars by large tech and science companies he said were creating “tens of thousands of good-paying jobs.”
Biden has been touring the country in recent months promoting his Invest in America program, which he credits with helping a significant economic turnaround since the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The plan is to invest in America in a literal sense, not overseas, in America. Invest in ourselves, and it’s working. Here’s what it looks like across the country. A record 12,400,000 brand new jobs, including 800,000 manufacturing jobs, just since we came to office,” he said.
Biden mentioned Donald Trump once, but not by name, during a segment in which he claimed credit for reducing the national deficit by $1.7tn in two years. “The last guy who had this job, he increased it by $2tn,” he said.
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