Trump Seethes as Judge Rejects His Sad Attempt to Delay Sentencing

Donald Trump was just denied again in his hush-money trial, and predictably, he’s not happy about it.

Trump requested for a third time that Judge Juan Merchan step aside in the trial, claiming that Merchan has a conflict of interest due to his daughter’s political consultancy work, and Merchan declined yet again.

“Defendant has provided nothing new for this Court to consider. Counsel has merely repeated arguments that have already been denied by this and higher courts” and were “rife with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims,” Merchan wrote in a decision posted Wednesday. Merchan also denied similar requests from Trump’s legal team in April and August 2023.

The former president and convicted felon immediately went to Truth Social to complain.

“Judge Merchan just ruled that I, the Republican candidate for President, and leading in the Polls, am still under a Gag Order CONCERNING VERY IMPORTANT THINGS WHICH MUST BE BROUGHT TO LIGHT. I AM NOT ALLOWED TO ANSWER REPORTERS QUESTIONS. Can you believe this?” Trump posted, seemingly complaining that his partial gag order remains in place.

“The New York Courts refuse to act. This is happening right before the voting begins on September 6th. Suppression and manipulation of the vote. Voter interference. This is the real Fascist ‘stuff,’ the old Soviet Union! So much to say, and I’m not allowed to say it. Must get U.S. Supreme Court involved. New York is trying to steal the Election!” The post continued.

In May, Trump was found guilty in his hush-money trial on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. His sentencing was originally scheduled for July 11, but that was delayed to September 18 thanks to the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. To the high court’s credit, earlier this month, they rejected an attempt to delay Trump’s sentencing, paving the way for Trump to maybe face accountability.

Minnesota Senate candidate Royce White won the state’s Republican primary on Tuesday, defeating Navy veteran Joe Fraser and setting White up to run against Senator Amy Klobuchar in November.

But White, a former NBA player who had been an outspoken advocate for mental health in sports, has cultivated some disturbing positions since befriending Steve Bannon in 2021. Those include becoming an ardent Trump supporter with an affinity for antisemitic, misogynistic, and homophobic conspiracies—all of which will only make it that much more difficult for him to unseat the incumbent Democrat, who has maintained the seat since 2007.

After dozens of appearances on Bannon’s show War Room (which a February study crowned as the chief spreader of misinformation among political podcasts), White turned his attention toward women, arguing in May that “women have become too mouthy.”

Minutes later, White claimed that women’s schedules were “too busy,” while elevating a conspiracy that there was an “economic incentive” to the inception of World War II insofar as it related to introducing women to the workplace.

The conservative populist has also been caught cooking up his own misinformation. In June, White shared a map of Minneapolis awash in green, yellow, and red dots, claiming that each data point symbolized crime in the City of Lakes. But a quick fact-check by a reporter for the Minnesota Reformer showed that the map didn’t depict any lawlessness, but rather the distribution of drinking fountains across the city’s public parks.

That same month, a nonpartisan nonprofit filed a complaint against White for allegedly illegally spending tens of thousands of dollars from his failed 2022 congressional campaign on luxury dinners, vacations, and other eyebrow-raising expenses, including a $1,200 night at a Miami strip club.

But White’s character doesn’t look any better beyond his political stunts to appeal to fringe, reactionary voters. In response to an NBC News report on ignoring his child support obligations, White claimed that “liberals really just want to shame people with kids” because they’re “anti-human as fuck.” But financial statements obtained by The Daily Beast from the mother of one of White’s children indicated that the wannabe MAGA politician owed her at least $100,000 in “child support payments for a daughter with whom he is barely involved.”

“Thank God I don’t rely on his support or it would be impossible,” the woman told The Daily Beast.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz handily shredded right-wing attacks over his military record.

Speaking to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union convention in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Walz addressed the right-wing smears, such as those from J.D. Vance, who falsely accused Walz of ending his 24-year term in the Army to avoid being deployed to Iraq. Walz actually retired before his unit was alerted it would be deployed, so he could run for office.

Vance, who served a single four-year enlistment in the public affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, and who, according to his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, was “lucky to escape any real fighting,” has accused Walz of “stolen valor.”

But Walz didn’t buy into the blatant swiftboating.

“And by the way, these guys are even attacking me for my record of service, and I just wanna say, I’m proud to have served my country, and I always will be,” Walz said to massive applause.

Walz explained that he enlisted in the National Guard shortly after turning 17. When he was elected to Congress, he served on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, where Walz said he was a “champion for our men and women in uniform.”

“I’m going to say it again, as clearly as I can: I am damn proud of my service to this country. And I firmly believe that you should never denigrate another person’s service record. Anyone brave enough to put on that uniform for our great country—including my opponent—I just have a few simple words: Thank you for your service and sacrifice,” he said.

Harris’s campaign acknowledged Saturday that Walz had misspoken during a 2018 rally when he claimed to have handled assault weapons “in war.” The campaign had posted a video of this remark, launching a barrage of attacks against Walz, who had never been deployed in a war zone.

Walz has been falsely accused of leaving his unit to run for office only after he was alerted that the team would soon deploy to Iraq. Walz filed to run for Congress in February 2005, long before his unit was notified it could deploy to Iraq, according to CNN. According to the Minnesota National Guard, Walz retired from service in May 2005.

Vance responded to Walz’s Tuesday remarks in a post on X. “Hi Tim, I thank you for your service. But you shouldn’t have lied about it. You shouldn’t have said you went to war when you didn’t,” Vance wrote. “Nor should you have said that you didn’t know your unit was going to Iraq.”

“Happy to discuss more in a debate,” wrote Vance, who absolutely lost it last week when a CNN anchor claimed Vance was wrong to make a meal of his own service record.

During his interview with Elon Musk Monday night, Donald Trump praised the tech CEO for firing organizing workers, drawing the ire of labor unions and those who care about workers’ rights.

It also reflected poorly on Sean O’Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who became the first union leader to speak at the Republican National Convention last month.

“Firing workers for organizing, striking, and exercising their rights as Americans is economic terrorism,” O’Brien said in a statement Tuesday to Politico’s Playbook.

In his conversation with Musk, Trump laughed at Musk’s union-busting practices. “I look at what you do,” Trump told Musk. “You walk in and you just say, ‘You wanna quit?’ They go on strike—I won’t mention the name of the company—but they go on strike and you say, ‘That’s OK. You’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.’”

The Teamsters are one of the only major unions that have not yet endorsed Kamala Harris for president, a surprising stance considering historic Democratic support for labor unions. Pressure is building against O’Brien from within the union’s rank-and-file members, as the Teamsters National Black Caucus voted unanimously to endorse Harris on Tuesday.

In a statement, the caucus said that Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz have an “unwavering commitment to workers and their families.”

“Their records reflect a deep dedication to advancing labor rights and supporting working-class Americans,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the United Auto Workers has not only endorsed Harris, but also filed federal labor charges against Musk and Trump for “illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes.”

O’Brien has said that the union will endorse a presidential candidate after the Democratic National Convention, and has invited all of the candidates for interviews. Harris was invited last month, but has not yet had an interview with the Teamsters. O’Brien said on Tuesday that he had not received an invitation to speak at the Democratic National Convention.

Donald Trump appears to be losing the support of the one demographic that has reliably backed him, and is essential to winning the White House: white voters without a college degree.

CNN’s senior data reporter Harry Enten appeared on Out Front with Erin Burnett Tuesday to discuss what a recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed about Trump’s “core group” of white working class voters—the very same people who helped him break down the blue wall in 2016.

While the poll found that Trump still led among white voters without a college degree, his favorability appeared to have taken a massive hit in light of his new match-up against Vice President Kamala Harris.

In May, Trump was leading President Joe Biden among white voters without a college degree in the swing states Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania by a whopping 25 points. This latest poll shows that Trump’s lead has been nearly cut in half: in August, Trump only leads Harris by 14 points with this demographic in those swing states.

Harris’s apparent surge in support comes just as the vice president has managed to pretty much erase Trump’s edge on the economy, according to a new survey the Financial Times published last week, signaling a crucial shift in momentum for the Democratic candidate. Enten explained that Harris was doing slightly better among those voters, in those key states, than even Biden had in 2020.

“Those are the types of numbers that Kamala Harris needs to put up in order to win. And of course, Joe Biden was like, ‘I don’t want to drop out of the race, because I’m not sure that Kamala Harris can break into the group,’ but it turns out she absolutely can,” Enten said.

“The margin is shrinking, and elections are all about margins,” Enten continued. He explained that these numbers were significant more broadly as well, because non-college educated white voters make up 50 percent of the electorate in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Trump’s advisers previously revealed that the former president tapped J.D. Vance as his running mate to pick up white working class votes. The campaign needed “a white guy to get the white guys we lost,” MAGA political operative Vish Burra told The Bulwark. If this recent polling is any indication, it seems the campaign’s play has yet to pay off.