Closing summary
The Biden campaign launched a new attack against Donald Trump, accusing him of racism after a former producer on The Apprentice said he used an anti-Black slur on the set. Meanwhile, jury deliberations are ongoing in Trump’s business fraud trial in New York City, and a verdict could be delivered at anytime. Earlier in the day, the supreme court released a batch of new opinions, covering topics from banking regulation to free speech rights. But the conservative-dominated court did not yet weigh in on Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution over the 2020 election, or two abortion-related cases, all of which remain pending before the justices. Another batch of opinions is expected next Thursday.
Here’s what else happened today:
Jamie Raskin, a Democratic congressman and Trump antagonist, proposed a way to force conservative justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from January 6 cases.
John Roberts, the supreme court’s chief justice, declined a request for a meeting from two Democratic senators concerned over Alito’s flag flap.
Do swing state voters care if Trump is convicted in his New York business fraud trial? Our reporters searched for the answer.
Most evidence in the New York case seems to point to Trump’s guilt, but the jury could reach a variety of conclusions.
Trump can sue his niece Mary Trump for potentially violating the terms of a settlement over his father’s estate, a New York state appeals court ruled.
Updated
Should Donald Trump win the November election, the Guardian’s Robert Tait reports that his ally, speaker of the House Mike Johnson, is prepared to move quickly to pass his agenda through Congress. Here’s what Johnson told Semafor he is looking at:
Mike Johnson, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, is planning a sweeping ideological legislative drive that aims to make Donald Trump “the most consequential president of the modern era” if the Republicans win power in November.
A far-reaching bill containing a range of policy priorities at once – including tax cuts worth trillions, border security and rolling back Obamacare – is being prepared to avoid the mistakes the GOP believed happened early in Trump’s first term, when Johnson says the party wasted time because its victory over Hillary Clinton took it by surprise.
In an interview with Semafor, Johnson said he had already spoken to Trump about introducing an omnibus package immediately after he retakes office.
“I told him that I believe he can be the most consequential president of the modern era, if we are focused on a policy and agenda-driven administration and Congress – and that’s our intention,” Johnson said.
“We don’t want to make the mistake that we made in the past. Back in the 2017 timeframe and in previous years, we Republicans kind of took a single-subject approach. We did one round of healthcare reform, one round of tax reform. But for [fiscal year 2025], we want to have a much larger scope, multiple issues to address in addition to the expiration of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.”
