Did Alina Habba Pay Attention in Law School?

Donald Trump’s defense lawyer Alina Habba isn’t impressing anyone during the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial—least of all Judge Lewis Kaplan, who has become increasingly fed up with the showy attorney and the rest of Trump’s team, regularly glowering and crossing his arms while complaining about their conduct bench-side.

On Thursday, Habba got into another kerfuffle with Kaplan when she flubbed a line of questioning against Carroll, asking the columnist if she “makes a good amount of money” from her Substack.

“What’s ‘a good amount of money?’” interjected Kaplan, stopping Habba. “This is Evidence 101.”

The outburst is the result of days of questioning by Habba that has at times been redundant, unfounded, or inappropriate, leading to countless objections by Carroll’s legal team and interruptions by Judge Kaplan himself.

In another exchange on Thursday, Kaplan blew past a line of questioning pushed by Habba over Carroll’s Substack subscriber count.

“That was definitely asked yesterday,” Kaplan said.

“Number of subscribers?” Habba insisted.

“Eighteen hundred. Move on,” Kaplan retorted.

The two butted heads even more on Wednesday, when Kaplan corrected Habba more than a dozen times, per Business Insider. At one point, Habba interrupted Carroll’s direct testimony to explain what Trump’s team intended to do later.

“The last I heard, Ms. Habba, I do not need announcements from counsel on what they intend to do,” Kaplan threw back.

“And I make the rulings here, not the lawyers,” Kaplan added, before telling Habba to sit down.

During another explosive moment, Kaplan threatened to throw Trump himself out of the courtroom when his comments during Carroll’s testimony could be heard by jurors.

“Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial,” Kaplan warned, noting that his right to attend the trial could be revoked if he continued to be disruptive.

“I would love it! I would love it!” Trump spat back, throwing his hands up in disapproval.

Trump’s lawyers have been walking on eggshells in the trial after Kaplan issued an order last week barring Trump and anyone on his legal team from exploring certain lines of questioning or making certain comments, including about Carroll’s “past romantic relationships, sexual disposition, and prior sexual experiences.” They also cannot argue that Trump—who has already been found liable by a jury for sexual abuse against Carroll—did not sexually abuse, rape, or act with actual malice when defaming the former Elle journalist.

Donald Trump’s legal strategy in his defamation trial apparently hinges on reading mean tweets aloud in the courtroom.

Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba finished cross-examining E. Jean Carroll on Thursday. Presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan has already ruled that Trump defamed Carroll after sexually assaulting her, so the trial is just to determine how much Trump owes her in damages. Carroll is seeking at least $10 million.

During her cross-examination, Habba sought to prove that people began abusing Carroll online before Trump made his defamatory comments. To back up her argument, Habba repeatedly read aloud mean tweets about Carroll.

Habba read out a comment that accused Carroll of “making up fake news” when she revealed that Trump had sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s. Another tweet said, “Drop this lie.”

Another tweet called Carroll a “lying sack of shit,” and a fourth referred to her as a “pathetic liar.” Habba read each of these tweets one by one.

Kaplan clearly grew tired of Habba’s strategy, eventually saying he would just admit the rest into evidence if there were no objections. “You’ve taken enough time on this,” he said.

But Habba pressed on, reading out a tweet that said, “You’re a joke, no one would [willingly] touch your ugly ass.”

When Kaplan told her to move on, Habba pushed back. “I can’t ask about them?” she said. “With all due respect—”

“With all due respect,” Kaplan cut her off, “when I rule, you go on.”

This is the third time in as many days that Habba has irritated Kaplan. The two repeatedly butted heads on Wednesday over Habba’s disruptive behavior in the courtroom. And during opening statements on Tuesday, Habba almost immediately violated the rules Kaplan had set about what Trump’s team can and cannot say.

Kaplan issued an order last week barring Trump and his lawyers from saying certain things. They are prohibited from making comments about Carroll’s “past romantic relationships, sexual disposition, and prior sexual experiences,” and they cannot argue that Trump did not sexually abuse or rape Carroll or act with actual malice when making his comments about her.

Donald Trump appeared to admit Thursday that some of his actions “cross the line” of legality, but claimed he should be shielded from repercussions because of presidential immunity.

Trump has repeatedly insisted that he cannot be prosecuted for trying to overturn the 2020 election—or for anything else for that matter—because presidential immunity protects him against criminal proceedings.

He presented his own case for immunity on Truth Social in the early morning hours. “A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MUST HAVE FULL IMMUNITY, WITHOUT WHICH IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM/HER TO PROPERLY FUNCTION. ANY MISTAKE, EVEN IF WELL INTENDED, WOULD BE MET WITH ALMOST CERTAIN INDICTMENT BY THE OPPOSING PARTY AT TERM END,” he wrote. “EVEN EVENTS THAT ‘CROSS THE LINE’ MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD.”

“YOU CAN’T STOP POLICE FROM DOING THE JOB OF STRONG & EFFECTIVE CRIME PREVENTION BECAUSE YOU WANT TO GUARD AGAINST THE OCCASIONAL ‘ROGUE COP’ OR ‘BAD APPLE.’ SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH ‘GREAT BUT SLIGHTLY IMPERFECT.’”

This is far from the first time that Trump and his legal team have appeared to insist that the former president should be allowed to get away with breaking the law. While trying to appeal the charges in Trump’s January 6 insurrection case, lawyer John Sauro said that even if a president ordered the assassination of a political opponent, he could only be criminally prosecuted if he was impeached first.

If the president was acquitted during the impeachment, Sauro argued, then he should not have to face criminal proceedings.

And in early January, Trump lawyer Christina Bobb argued that anyone can be president, “whether they are guilty of insurrection or not,” so long as they were elected.

Donald Trump’s hands didn’t look too good on Wednesday, leading to a flurry of theories about the current state of the GOP front-runner’s mental and physical health.

Political advisers and voters alike speculated across the spectrum as to the origin of the dark, red spots on Trump’s hand, arguing that the marks’ origin could be anything from syphilis to ink splotches.

“They don’t look like cuts to me, they look like sores,” said Bill Clinton’s former presidential campaign strategist James Carville, during a livestream. “I’ve asked a number of M.D.s what medical condition manifests itself through hand sores, and the answer is immediate and unanimous: secondary syphilis.”

Earlier on Wednesday, syphilis was trending on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Others pondered whether the mysterious condition emerged due to a rash, dry skin, or even as the result of some emotionally charged tantrum.

“Is it magic marker? Because it looks like he has a sore on his index finger there,” said Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

“There was a point in time during the day where Trump, very frustrated with Judge Kaplan, banged his hands down on the table. I doubt that the blisters or marks that were seen there come from that. But could they be exacerbated by that? Perhaps,” speculated MSNBC’s Lisa Rubin.

“Like a toddler having a tantrum, perhaps, and causing bleeding into his hand?” responded Willie Geist.

Some online posters noticed that the emergence of Trump’s mysterious hand condition coincided with a bizarre speech Wednesday night, theorizing that Trump’s cluttered and nonsensical speech could be a symptom of late-stage syphilis. 

“We’re also going to place strong protections to stop banks and regulators from trying to debank you from your—you know, your political beliefs what they do. They want to debank you, and we’re going to debank—think of this. They want to take away your rights, they want to take away your country, the things you’re doing,” Trump said during a New Hampshire campaign rally, immediately before diving into a rant about electric cars.

Florida state Republicans have advanced a bill that would ban schools and government buildings from displaying Pride flags, Black Lives Matter flags, and the Palestinian flag.

House Bill 901 passed the state House Constitutional Rights, Rule of Law & Government Operations Subcommittee on Wednesday by a vote of 9–5, along party lines. The bill must pass one more committee before going before the full chamber.

The measure bans all government entities from displaying flags that represent “a political viewpoint, including, but not limited to, a politically partisan, racial, sexual orientation and gender, or political ideology viewpoint.” Government employees would be banned from wearing lapel pins that express these ideologies.

Bill sponsor David Borrero said this would also prohibit flags of countries that the United States does not recognize as sovereign nations, such as Palestine.

“Public classrooms should not be the place where our kids go to be radicalized and evangelized into accepting these partisan, radical ideologies,” Borrero said. “It’s wholly inappropriate to be putting those types of flags in front of public school students and in government buildings.”

The bill applies to state and local government buildings, and all schools in the Florida public school system. This includes state colleges and universities, which detracts significantly from Borrero’s main argument. College and university students are legally adults, so this bill isn’t really about protecting children.

The bill is “not about indoctrination,” Democratic Representative Johanna Lopez said. “It’s about discrimination.”

Several Democratic state lawmakers fly Pride or Black Lives Matter flags in their offices. If the bill becomes law, they would be required to take those banners down—although they are already saying they won’t.

Democratic Representative Michele Rayner, who is Black and lesbian, lamented the fact that “once again we’re focusing on things nobody has asked us to focus on.”

Rayner has rainbow “Protect LGBTQ+ Students” flyers in her office and a “Black Voters Matter” sign hanging outside. “It will remain outside my office regardless of what bill they pass because there’s a thing called the First Amendment,” she said.

Democratic Senator Shevrin Jones slammed the bill as “authoritarianism” and “fascism at its best.” Jones is Black and gay, and he has multiple Pride symbols in his office, including a rainbow “Pride at the Capitol” poster.

“How I was raised, the rainbow meant hope … I can promise you it wasn’t that that made me gay,” Jones said. “I’m not taking a damn thing down. I want everybody to see it.”