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The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House
A coterie of Donald Trump’s Republican allies, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, joined the former president at the Manhattan criminal courthouse on Tuesday, in a show of support at one of the most crucial moments in his “hush money” trial.
Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum and Florida congressmen Byron Donalds and Cory Mills filled the rows behind the defence table at which Trump has sat for the past few weeks, as the court heard further testimony from Michael Cohen, one of the prosecution’s star witnesses.
The trial has in recent days attracted a rotating cast of campaign surrogates and possible running mates for the former president, including US senators JD Vance and Tommy Tuberville, New York congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, as well as the attorneys-general of Iowa and Alabama.
The Manhattan proceedings, which Trump is forced to attend in person most days of the week, have limited his ability to hit the campaign trail. However, the presumptive Republican nominee for the White House is nonetheless leading incumbent Democrat Joe Biden in several swing states, according to recent opinion polls, with fewer than six months to go until polling day in November.
“I do have a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully,” said Trump, who is subject to a gag order preventing him from attacking witnesses or jurors in the case, as he arrived at the courthouse on Tuesday. “They come from all over Washington, and they’re highly respected and they think this is the biggest scam they’ve ever seen.”
Speaking outside the courthouse on Tuesday morning, Johnson echoed the former president, calling the New York trial a “sham”.
“It’s all about politics and everybody can see that. President Trump is leading in swing state polls. The American people see right through these politically motivated attacks.”
Inside the courtroom, jurors continued to hear from Cohen, the former president’s one-time fixer and lawyer-turned-nemesis. On Monday Cohen outlined how he orchestrated a scheme on behalf of Trump to buy the silence of people threatening to come forward in the run-up to the 2016 election with allegations of infidelities by his former boss.
Cohen testified that he paid $130,000 of his own money to Stormy Daniels, a porn actor who alleged an extra-marital sexual encounter with Trump, after the then-presidential candidate declared it would be a “disaster” for his campaign if her story was to become public.
Trump is charged with falsifying the records of the subsequent repayments to Cohen, who is likely to be cross-examined by the former president’s lawyer later on Tuesday. Under questioning by prosecutors in the morning session, Cohen authenticated a series of cheques signed by Trump and invoices that he said falsely described payments for legal services.
Members of Trump’s immediate family have largely stayed away from the trial, with the exception of his son Eric, who has attended regularly. Other members of the Trump team, including lawyer Alina Habba and advisers Boris Epshteyn and Jason Miller, have often been present.
“This is the most freakishly bizarre thing in conservative politics I’ve ever seen,” former GOP congressman Reid Ribble, a Trump critic, told the Financial Times. “You would normally be 100 miles away from anybody who’s cheating on his wife . . . You can see who wants to be VP.
“That Republicans — the pro-family values, pro-law and order party historically — would pander to this is just beyond weird to me.”
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