memeorandum: The next president may be chosen by indifference (Philip Bump/Washington Post)

12:15 PM ET, April 22, 2024

Top Items:

Live updates Opening statements expected in Trump hush money trial — NEW YORK — Opening statements are expected Monday morning in Donald Trump's trial for allegedly falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment during the 2016 presidential election campaign.

Discussion: Business Insider, CBS News, USA Today, Forbes, WTTG-TV, Fox News, Alternet.org and abc7NY

David Axelrod / The Atlantic:

What Donald Trump Fears Most — Donald Trump's biographers all seem to agree that he didn't get a lot of love from his father. But what Fred Trump did impart to his son was an indelible lesson: There are two kinds of people in the world—killers and losers—and like his father, Donald had to be a killer.

Timothy L. O'Brien / Bloomberg:

Trump's Trial Is the Reality Show He Never Wanted — The former president faces weeks of challenging witnesses and tawdry stories. — Prosecutors and defense attorneys will make opening statements today in a criminal fraud trial in New York that Donald Trump has tried mightily, and unsuccessfully, to delay.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Axios, CNN, New York Post, Raw Story and New York Times

Stephen Collinson / CNN:
Opening statements to show the stark personal and political stakes of Trump's first criminal trial

Discussion: Salon, Raw Story and The Hill

Josh Gerstein / Politico:
Prosecutors say Trump's hush money was ‘election interference.’ Will jurors — and voters — believe it?

Discussion: Washington Times

Liz Cheney / New York Times:

The Supreme Court Should Rule Swiftly on Trump's Immunity Claim — On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Donald Trump's arguments that he is immune from prosecution for his efforts to steal the 2020 presidential election. It is likely that all — or nearly all …

Discussion: The Hill, Bloomberg, Washington Examiner, The Guardian, New Jersey Online, HuffPost, Raw Story, Plain Dealer, WHDH-TV and Alternet.org

CNN:

Columbia University faces full-blown crisis as rabbi calls for Jewish students to ‘return home’ — Columbia University is facing a full-blown crisis heading into Passover as a rabbi linked to the Ivy League school urged Jewish students to stay home and tense confrontations on campus sparked condemnation …

Jessica Costescu / Washington Free Beacon:
Columbia University Campus Unravels in Face of Escalating Anti-Semitic, Eliminationist Protests

Discussion: New York Magazine, Fox News, Al Jazeera, The Daily Caller, Power Line, Committee on Education & …, RedState and New York Post

Fox News:
White House condemns ‘blatantly antisemitic’ protests as agitators engulf Columbia University

Discussion: USA Today, The Daily Caller, Caitlin Johnstone, CBS News, Mediaite, The Times of Israel, Breitbart, Al Jazeera, The Daily Beast, New York Daily News, The Hill, RedState, Raw Story, Washington Examiner, Twin Cities and New York Post

Marc Elias / Democracy Docket:

Republicans Are Suing for the Right To Harass Election Workers — You might think that even in today's highly polarized election environment there would be a bipartisan consensus to protect election workers from intimidation and harassment. If you thought so, you would be wrong.

Will Bunch / The Philadelphia Inquirer:

‘Civil War’ is terrifying not for what it says about America, but about journalism — Around 2 p.m. on Friday, I opened my laptop and bought a ticket on Fandango for that night's showing of Civil War, the No. 1 movie in America that depicts a not-too-distant U.S. future of killing fields, refugee camps and bombed-out shopping malls.

Discussion: Scripting News and Variety

Washington Post:

How Trump has become angrier and more isolated on Truth Social — For years, Donald Trump was among Twitter's loudest and most inescapable voices: a brash, bomb-throwing businessman turned president who could capture the global news cycle with a single tweet.

Discussion: Raw Story

Cheyanne M. Daniels / The Hill:

John Legend says Trump believes ‘to his core’ that ‘Black people are inferior’ — Singer John Legend says former President Trump is a racist down “to his core.” — Speaking to MSNBC's Jen Psaki on Sunday, Legend spoke of Trump's response to the Black Lives Matter protests following the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

Discussion: MSNBC and The Daily Beast

Yale Daily News:

LIVE: Over 45 pro-divestment protesters arrested on Beinecke Plaza — At the intersection, organizers announced their intent to stay. — “We don't need Beinecke to occupy,” a protester announced. “Let's get performances going, let's get speakers going.”

Discussion: Washington Post, Washington Examiner, CNN, Axios, RedState, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Hartford Courant and WHDH-TV

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

The next president may be chosen by indifference — Those born in 1995 or after have never been able to vote in a presidential general election for any Republican besides Donald Trump. If you were born four years after that, your choices between the two major parties have only been Trump and Joe Biden.

Discussion: Marist Poll, PJ Media, New Jersey Online and NBC News

Pluralistic:

Paying for it doesn't make it a market (permalink) — Anyone who says “If you're not paying for the product, you're the product” has been suckered in by Big Tech, whose cargo-cult version of markets and the discipline they impose on companies. — Here's the way that story goes …

Ana Ceballos / Miami Herald:

Some migrants flown by DeSantis to Martha's Vineyard qualify for victim visas, feds say — Some of the 49 migrants flown to Martha's Vineyard by the state of Florida are now able to legally work in the United States and have temporary protections from deportation — because they are considered victims …

Discussion: Sacramento Bee

Associated Press:

Papua New Guinea leader takes offense after Biden implies an uncle was eaten by cannibals — MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape accused Joe Biden of disparaging the South Pacific island nation by implying that an uncle of the U.S. president had been eaten by …

Discussion: Reuters, The Hill, New York Times, New York Post, Breitbart, Forbes, Washington Examiner and Politico

Juliegrace Brufke / Axios:

House Republicans blame Greene and Freedom Caucus for lack of border wins … - GOP leadership brought up border security provisions alongside their foreign aid package — but the package was blocked by Republicans from reaching the House floor under normal rules.

Discussion: New York Times and The Hill

New York Post:

Ilhan Omar's daughter, Isra Hirsi, says she's homeless, cries poverty after suspension from $90K-per-year college over anti-Israel protests — The privileged daughter of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar amazingly claims she's homeless and can't get food after being kicked out of her prestigious $90 …

Discussion: Exposing the role … and RedState

Lex McMenamin / Teen Vogue:
Isra Hirsi, Ilhan Omar's Daughter, On Columbia Arrests, Barnard Suspension, Palestine Protests

Discussion: The Hill, HotAir, Associated Press, Fox News, The Gateway Pundit, Twitchy and The Daily Beast

Brian Beutler / Off Message:

No Strange New Respect For Mike Johnson — At least not until he explains why he sacrificed thousands of lives, swaths of territory, and perhaps the future of Ukraine for nothing. — ∙ Paid — A weekend of important news has quickly overshadowed something striking that led up to it …

Discussion: The Dworkin Report, Rick Wilson's Substack, Washington Post, Axios and Alternet.org

Austin Sarat / The Hill:

Americans who want to protect democracy need to stand up for public libraries — Public libraries, once considered the backbone of America's civic infrastructure, are now under attack in many places across the country. Every day, librarians are harassed, threatened and intimidated for doing …

William Kristol / The Bulwark:

How Biden Can Press His Ukraine Advantage — A great new spot from our pals at Republican Voters Against Trump is out this morning. “I was wondering if you guys are hiring right now,” the narrator toting the hidden camera asks a sequence of mall-store managers. “I'm currently facing 88 felonies.

Discussion: Center for Security Policy and Wall Street Journal

Julian Borger / The Guardian:

Israel has yet to provide evidence of Unrwa staff terrorist links, Colonna report says — Exclusive: Review finds government has yet to substantiate claims UN relief agency staff have ties to Hamas or Islamic Jihad — Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of its claims that employees …

Discussion: Reuters and RTÉ

Lawrence Hurley / NBC News:

Supreme Court to decide if Biden administration can regulate ‘ghost guns’ — The latest gun rights dispute concerns the Biden administration's effort to regulate gun-making kits the same way as commercially available firearms. — WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed …

Discussion: USA Today, Politico, Fox News, Axios, Associated Press, The Hill, ABC News, Roll Call, UPI, WHDH-TV, New York Times, CBS News and Daily Caller News Foundation

Associated Press:

Biden is marking Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal solar power grants — WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is marking Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal grants for residential solar projects serving 900,000-plus households in low- and middle-income communities.

Discussion: Reuters, US EPA, Washington Examiner, UPI and The White House

Amanda Marcotte / Salon:

Marjorie Taylor Greene's “space lasers” show how the GOP gets away with escalating violence — From Kari Lake's “strap on a Glock” to the Supreme Court coddling Capitol rioters, GOP threat levels are growing — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sure knows how to get the attention she craves by saying something incredibly stupid.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog