Trump meets with Mike Johnson at Mar-a-Lago amid looming threats to speaker’s position: Live updates

Justice Juan Merchan has denied Donald Trump’s bid to adjourn his hush money trial due to pre-trial publicity.

The solution to the publicity is “thorough, thoughtful and effective voir dire”, Judge Merchan writes.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates released the following statement about the joint press conference between Speaker Mike Johnson and Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago:

As fact-checkers across the board have made clear, it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. The American people see through today’s stunt, which amounts to House Republicans wasting time on a redundant proposal as they continue to choose fentanyl traffickers over the Border Patrol Union by delaying the toughest bipartisan border security deal in modern history. And as was proven by the midterms, the American people continue to be revolted by the debunked 2020 election conspiracy theories that cost brave police officers their lives; just like they’re revolted by the violent rhetoric that accompanies the repetition of those dangerous lies. Being in Mar-a-Lago does send a message about election integrity and the rule of law — it’s just not a message the Speaker should ever want.

Donald Trump has lashed out at President Joe Biden in a Truth Social video accusing the president of being a “criminal” after he failed to delay an imminent criminal trial in Manhattan. his string of criminal trials.

The former president faces 88 felony counts across four state and federal prosecutions as he campaigns for a return to the White House. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.

Mr Trump continues to baselessly assert that he is the victim of a Democratic-led conspiracy against him, despite the fact that his criminal prosecutions were recommended by grand juries of members of the public. His federal cases are overseen by an independent special counsel under the US Department of Justice.

That hasn’t stopped Mr Trump from accusing his rival of “lawfare” against him.

Martha McHardy and Alex Woodward report:

Donald Trump says he will testify at his New York hush money trial (he won’t).

“That’s not a trial. That’s a scam,” he told reporters at Mar-a-Lago this afternoon.

Asked what he’ll be looking for in jury selection, he said that “jury selection is largely luck.”

“It’s very unfair we’re having a trial there,” he said. His attorneys have tried to move the case out of Manhattan.

Justice Juan Merchan has a “tremendous conflict” at a “level that nobody has seen before, Mr Trump said. His attorneys also are trying to get him to recuse himself from the case because of his daughter’s political consulting work. All of those arguments have been rejected.

“They don’t give us anything. It’s a witch hunt that is taking place in New York,” he said.

“It’s unfortunate that people bring it up because right now we have much bigger problems.”

Alex Woodward previews what to expect from the speaker and the former president today at Mar-a-Lago:

The man who is third in line for the presidency and the potential next president of the US are set to appear behind a lectern bearing Mar-a-Lago’s logo on Friday afternoon to endorse a bogus narrative that American elections are corrupted by fraud.

The event is likely to keep alive bogus conspiracy theories designed to sow doubt about election outcomes in the event Donald Trump loses a second time.

House Speaker Mike Johnson played a central role among members of Congress in rejecting Mr Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, and he took the lead in a brief to the US Supreme Court with 125 other House Republicans to support Mr Trump’s failed legal challenge to overturn President Joe Biden’s victories in several states.

He later voted against certifying Mr Biden’s win during a joint session of Congress on 6 January 2021, even after the Trump-fuelled riots at the Capitol.

There is virtually no evidence that noncitizens are voting in federal elections at a scale that Mr Trump has baselessly alleged, continuing his false narrative of widespread election fraud that paved the way for a mob of his supporters to storm the US Capitol to reject the results by force.

Here, Mr Trump’s ongoing claims that elections are “rigged” against him dovetail with his anti-immigrant platform, as Republicans make US-Mexico border security a central pillar of 2024 campaigns.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene laid into Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Friday, criticising his support for a legislative package that includes funding for Ukraine and accusing him of bothering Donald Trump by meeting with him.

Ariana Baio reports on what else she had to say: