Trump Falls Asleep on His First Day in Court
Sleepy Don is the Day 1 trial moment America needed.
Hey fam, it’s JVL. I’ll be sitting in for Jim this week with an abbreviated Overtime. Thanks for keeping the Swift family in your prayers.
The Newsletters:
Kristol & Egger: Play to win with Iran.
Trump on Trial: Day 1
That’s right: The old man fell asleep in the courtroom before the lunch break on day 1 of his first trial. This thing is already everything we could have hoped for.
Philip Rotner has the legal table-setter you need:
Don’t let the yawn-inducing concept of a trial about business records fool you—this case will be packed with drama, some of it quite salacious. And the stakes couldn’t be higher. The trial could expose Trump to a much wider audience as a liar and a cheater utterly lacking in decency and moral character. It could cripple his presidential candidacy, and even land him in jail. . . .
The entire case revolves around a single set of payments made by him or his company to reimburse his former attorney Michael Cohen for hush-money payments he made on Trump’s behalf to keep porn star Stormy Daniels from going public with her story about Trump’s infidelity. All of the counts allege that he violated the same New York criminal statute . . .
Everything will come down to proving four essential facts:
The Trump Organization falsely recorded payments made to reimburse Michael Cohen for hush-money payments he made on Trump’s behalf as fees paid for legal services;
Trump personally either made or caused those false entries to be made;
Trump acted with intent to defraud; and
Trump’s intent to defraud included an intent to commit, aid, or conceal the commission of another crime.
If Bragg can prove these four facts, Trump will be convicted. Let’s take a look at each of them.
I guess Jim asks people to subscribe to The Bulwark if they aren’t already members of Bulwark+? I’m going to do that now before you get to the end because you guys are going to hate the final section today . . .
So I guess it’s a great time to join Bulwark+ I’m Ron Burgundy?
The Focus Group
Sarah sat down with Pod Save America’s Kenyon’s Tommy Vietor to talk about Democratic voters who are still “undecided.” Sigh.
So Your Uncle Is a Crank?
Jill Lawrence talks about how the Kennedys are just like us: They, too, have a crank in the family.
What would you do if your brother or sister or cousin went off the rails in a way that conflicted with your values and undercut the trust you needed to do your own job? That threatened your family’s legacy and maybe even your nation’s future? And did it from public platforms that can’t be ignored?
Kerry Kennedy, president of the nonprofit Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization, has tried multiple times to establish distance from her older brother. When he entered the presidential race a year ago, she said she did not “share or endorse” his opinions on “the COVID pandemic, vaccinations, and the role of social media platforms in policing false information.” She added that the human rights group named for their father and his priorities does not reflect “Bobby’s views,” nor do his views influence its mission or work. . . .
Jack Schlossberg, John F. Kennedy’s grandson, endorsed Biden on Instagram that same month and scored RFK Jr. for running against a president who has delivered on jobs, judges, infrastructure, and green energy, and “ended” the war in Afghanistan, the COVID pandemic, and Donald Trump. “If my cousin Bobby Kennedy Jr. cared about any of them, he would support Joe Biden, too. Instead, he’s trading in on Camelot, celebrity, conspiracy theories, and conflict for personal fame and gain. I’ve listened to him. I know him. I have no idea why anyone thinks he should be president.”
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Oh boy, with Jim out I’m like a kid in a candy store. And you know what that means:
Watch Talk!
(Only for today. No watch talk tomorrow. I promise.)
Watches & Wonders was last week and for me, the winner was IWC with this stunning technical achievement:
IWC calls it an “eternal calendar.” It’s like a perpetual calendar—meaning that the watch knows what day of the month it is, even on leap years—but better. Most perpetual calendars need to be adjusted every century. This calendar function doesn’t need adjustment for 400 years.
But that’s not the hotness! The hotness is that this piece also has a moonphase complication that will be accurate for 45,000,000 years. Not a typo.
I am very much a Grand Seiko guy and also very much not a Rolex guy. But Grand Seiko didn’t launch anything that caught my interest and Rolex did: A solid gold Submariner Deepsea.
#RealTalk: I don’t (in general) like Rolex. I don’t love Submariners. And I’ve never liked gold watches. Also, having a solid-gold watch made to dive to 3,900 meters is just stupid. It’s like having an anchor on your wrist.
Also, I really hate the font Rolex uses for the Deepsea badging on the dial.1
And yet, put together this entire package . . . works for me?
That blue and yellow-gold combo is hotness. And because it’s a Deepsea, there’s no cyclops window forking up the watch.
See you tomorrow for a watch-free Tuesday. —JVL
Did Rolex let James Cameron choose the font?