Donald Trump news today: Trump could testify in E Jean Carroll case Monday

Also in Rochester, the Republican front-runner offered this frankly very confused account of the First and Second World Wars, adding to the growing concerns about his mental health and exhausting schedule after a string of high-profile gaffes, including blaming Nikki Haley for the Capitol riot on Friday.

He offered another pretty boggling history lesson on Saturday when he cited the bombing of Hiroshima as justification for his call for absolute presidential immunity.

Trump, of course, insists he is quite well and has “aced” every acuity test going.

Here’s Katie Hawkinson on a matter of growing concern.

Trump will be back in court in New York again on Monday as E Jean Carroll’s defamation trial resumes – and he could even testify, according to the AP.

He actually appeared to defame Carroll AGAIN during a rally appearance in Rochester, New Hampshire, last night, calling her sexual assault accusation against him, for which he was found liable by a jury last year and ordered to pay $5m in compensation, “a totally fabricated story”.

Meanwhile, a lawyer for E Jean Carroll has said Trump’s notorious Access Hollywood tape from 2005 will not be put before the jury considering how much defamation compensation he must pay her after denying in 2022 that the 1996 assault in a department store dressing room ever happened.

The infamous tape depicts the former president joking about grabbing women “by the p****”, as if you’d forgotten.

Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, has told the judge the footage should not be shown to keep the “focus” on the trial.

For that same reason, Kaplan also said she would not be calling fellow accusers Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds as witnesses.

Stoynoff has previously alleged that Trump groped her in the 1970s while Leeds said he had kissed her against her will in 2005.

Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley has warned against the prospect of November’s election becoming a rematch of the 2020 contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, asking: “Do we really want to have two 80-year-olds running for president when we have a country in disarray and a world on fire?”

Speaking at a CNN town hall event at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, ahead of next Tuesday’s state primary, Ms Haley told host Jake Tapper that both the GOP frontrunner and the president were so “distracted by their own investigations and their own grievances” that a renewed contest between them would not be in the best interests of the country.

Mike Bedigan has the story:

The former South Carolina governor said Mr Trump’s personal attacks mean he is feeling “threatened” and “insecure” as they head towards the state’s 2024 GOP presidential contest.

Martha McHardy has the story:

This jury is considering whether Mr Trump owes additional money to Ms Carroll after a previous jury awarded her $5 million when they ruled Mr Trump sexually abused the former columnist in 1996 and later defamed her in 2022.

Now, the former president could testify as soon as Monday, just hours ahead of the New Hampshire primary election on Tuesday, per the AP.

“People don’t think like I do and that’s the situation” could encapsulate the predicament the entire Republican Party faces. For the last few months, we at Inside Washington have said Republicans — all the way down from the squirreliest congress critters to the wealthiest donors to candidates — are engaged in a collective kind of magical thinking. Such wishful thinking has allowed the GOP to behave like they’re living in a world they would prefer, rather than the world as it is.

This week finally shattered that.

Continue reading the full article…

Mr Trump was mocked in an SNL cold open skit over his legal troubles and attorneys, specifically Alina Habba, who is representing the former president in his defamation trial against columnist E Jean Carroll.

In the skit, which premiered on TV on Saturday, Mr Trump’s character, played by James Austin Johnson, refers to his legal team as “the bottom of the barrel, folks. This is who said yes.” He added: “I’m in the lead for president and this is the best I can get. Feels like a red flag, no?”

This week, Ms Habba received criticism of her cross-examination of Ms Carroll, resulting in a sidebar and sustained objections.