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US Monthly Headline News April 2024 - Page 1
By CEDAR ATTANASIO, JAKE OFFENHARTZ and STEFANIE DAZIO

NEW YORK (AP) — Police officers carrying zip ties and riot shields stormed a Columbia University building being occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters, streaming in through a window late Tuesday and arresting dozens of of people.

The protesters had seized the administration building, known as Hamilton Hall, more than 20 hours earlier in a major escalation as demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war spread on college campuses nationwide.

A statement released by a Columbia spokesperson said officers entered the campus after the university requested help. A tent encampment on the school’s grounds began nearly two weeks ago to protest the Israel-Hamas war.

“After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school said. “The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing. We have made it clear that the life of campus cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate the rules and the law.”
Sean Piccoli

UPDATE: The lawyer for Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels further outlined the hush money deals made to his clients, including his suspicion that Donald Trump was “the one” who ultimately funded the Daniels payoff.

Lawyer Keith Davidson said on Tuesday that he did not enjoy having to deal with Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen.

The tension went back to a hostile phone call in 2011 after a gossip site called TheDirty blogged about rumors of a sexual liaison between adult film star Daniels and Trump. “Before I could barely get my name out, I was met with a hostile barrage of insults and allegations,” Davidson testified in Trump’s hush-money trial in Manhattan.  
Cohen was “just screaming,” Davidson said, and he accused Davidson’s clients, Daniels and her manager, Gina Rodriguez, of leaking the claim to TheDirty. “Finally, after he finished,” Davidson recalled, he assured Cohen that Daniels didn’t want the story publicized. Davidson wound up agreeing to call TheDirty with a cease and desist order, and the publication pulled the post, he testified.

Before that call, Rodriguez warned Davidson that “some jerk,” meaning Cohen, had called her threatening to sue over the gossip item, Davidson testified.
Cannabis is currently classified along with drugs like heroin and LSD. The administration is expected to reschedule it in a category that includes steroids and Tylenol with codeine.
By Julie Tsirkin and Monica Alba

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will take a historic step toward easing federal restrictions on cannabis, with plans to announce an interim rule soon reclassifying the drug for the first time since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted more than 50 years ago, four sources with knowledge of the decision said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is expected to approve an opinion by the Department of Health and Human Services that marijuana should be reclassified from the strictest Schedule I to the less stringent Schedule III. It would be the first time that the U.S. government has acknowledged its potential medical benefits and begun studying them in earnest.

Attorney General Merrick Garland submitted the rescheduling proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday afternoon, a source familiar with the situation confirmed.

Any reclassification is still months from going into effect. After the proposal is published in the Federal Register, there will be a 60-day public comment period. The proposal will then be reviewed by an administrative law judge, who could decide to hold a hearing before the rule is approved.
Story by Matthew Medsger, Boston Herald

People don’t seem to mind the idea of former President Donald Trump acting as a dictator, he told Time magazine in an interview that drew swift rebuke from the Biden-Harris campaign.

In a wide ranging interview given to the magazine — and shared by the 45th President Tuesday morning via his Truth Social media platform — Trump was asked to explain comments he made to Fox News host Sean Hannity, in which the former president said he would become a dictator on his first day in office.

“A lot of people like it,” Trump reportedly told Time.

As might be expected, President Joe Biden’s reelection team was quick to note the revelations contained in the interview and respond.

“Not since the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today – because of Donald Trump. Trump is willing to throw away the very idea of America to put himself in power,” Biden-Harris 2024 Spokesperson James Singer said in a statement.

“In his own words, he is promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one,’ use the military against the American people, punish those who stand against him, condone violence done on his behalf, and put his own revenge and retribution ahead of what is best for America. Bottom line: Trump is a danger to the Constitution and a threat to our democracy,” Singer continued.
Story by Lee Moran

Sarah Matthews, a former press aide in Donald Trump’s White House, has called out Republicans who slammed the former president but have now come crawling back to him with their endorsements.

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Inside With Jen Psaki,” Matthews ripped former Trump White House Attorney General Bill Barr in particular.

Barr became a fierce critic of Trump following the latter’s 2020 election defeat to President Joe Biden. But last week Barr said Biden and presumptive GOP nominee Trump were “two bad choices” and revealed he’d vote for the Republican ticket because of conservative values and policies.
Story by mhall@businessinsider.com (Madison Hall)

Former President Donald Trump said in a new interview that he's not ruling out the possibility of election-related violence if he loses to President Joe Biden in November.

TIME released a lengthy interview with the former president on Tuesday conducted mostly on April 12 at his Mar-a-Lago Club. The conversation focuses on his ambitions in a possible second term, like mass deportations, getting rid of "bad people" in government, and how he might fire his attorney general if they refused to prosecute someone at his command.

When first pressed about the prospect of "political violence" resulting from the upcoming presidential election, Trump ruled out the possibility.

"I think we're gonna have a big victory," he said. "And I think there will be no violence."

Two weeks later, Trump spoke with the TIME reporter for a follow-up and the reporter asked specifically if violence might erupt if he doesn't defeat Biden.

"I think we're going to win," he said. "And if we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election."
Story by Jack Queen and Jody Godoy

By Jack Queen and Jody Godoy

(Reuters) - The judge overseeing Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial fined the former U.S. president $9,000 on Tuesday for statements that he found violated a gag order in the case.

Justice Juan Merchan's order came as Trump's trial was due to resume in New York with testimony from a banker familiar with accounts involved in the former U.S. president's alleged scheme to influence the 2016 election by covering up a sex scandal.

Trump, the Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election, is charged with falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump in 2006.
“We urge those in the encampment to voluntarily disperse. We are consulting with a broader group in our community to explore alternative internal options to end this crisis," Minouche Shafik said.
By Marlene Lenthang

Columbia University’s president said Monday that talks with student organizers had failed to reach an agreement, and that the university will not divest from Israel — a demand that has sparked protests on college campuses across the country.

Minouche Shafik asked for those in encampment protests on campus to voluntarily disperse, saying the demonstration had created “an unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty,” that “external actors” have contributed to a “hostile environment” around university gates, and it had become a “noisy distraction” for students.

Shafik also cited the May 15 commencement, saying, “We also do not want to deprive thousands of students and their families and friends of a graduation celebration.”
Republicans put party before country

Story by Ed Mazza

A Republican organization opposed to Donald Trump slammed conservative figures who recognize the danger posed by the former president but plan to vote for him anyway.

The video from Republican Voters Against Trump is an update of a 2022 spot from the organization that resembles the old ASPCA ads featuring singer Sarah McLachlan.

Instead of urging viewers to help save animals, the spokesperson here warns of prominent Trump supporters suffering from “partisan derangement syndrome.”

That list includes former Attorney General Bill Barr, who has called Trump a “horror show,” dismissed his claims of election fraud as “bullshit” and said he grew “detached from reality” after losing in 2020.
Story by John Bowden

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will vote for the man he holds personally responsible for leading a “violent insurrection” at his workplace, the US Capitol, Congress’s senior Republican declared on Sunday.

It was an affirmation of both previous statements the senator has made as well as the modern state of the GOP: utterly loyal to the man who, three years ago, he and others were roundly denouncing after a violent assault on the seat of American democracy left dozens of cops wounded and several dead including members of law enforcement and rioters.

The statement was also a fitting end to the career of Mr McConnell, 82, who will be replaced as head of the Senate Republican caucus in the months ahead after he steps down in November. A persistent ideological check to the former president within the Republican Party, the Senate GOP leader has like his colleagues been forced to continue publicly supporting a candidate now facing 88 felony counts and set to be the first nominee of a major party to be under threat of prison time.

During an interview with Meet the Press, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) does not say whether he regrets voting to acquit former President Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial after the January 6 Capitol attack.
Story by Amanda Marcotte

Because Donald Trump himself wasn't indicted, there was a surprisingly muted response to the announcement, late on Wednesday, that Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes had indicted a school bus full of Republican activists and operatives on felony charges related to Trump's efforts to steal the 2020 election. There's a real "Trump himself or it doesn't count" bar regarding interest levels in coup-related cases. The previous indictment for the same scheme in Georgia did include the former president, leading to his infamous mug shot from the Fulton County Jail. Plus, Trump himself is on trial in New York on charges of cheating in the 2016 election, leading to a stream of images of him looking bedraggled as he goes in and out of court. Hearing that Rudy Giuliani is getting arrested again just can't compete.

But it's time to take a longer look at these Arizona charges because they will have a major impact on Trump personally, even if he is not indicted (yet) for his role. These charges further erode his already-collapsing support system. Trump goes to court most days without family or friends, just his lawyers and security, people who are paid to be there. Despite his endless pleading, he can't get his followers to show up to demonstrate outside the courthouse. The people who were willing to commit crimes to keep him in office in 2020 now have to face the real possibility that sticking by Trump's side raises their chances of going to prison. Even those foolish enough to take that risk, I suspect, are going to be too busy trying to fend off criminal charges from the last attempted coup to have much time to help Trump with planning the next one.
"Obviously, I don't think that," the Senate minority leader said.
By Josephine Harvey

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday presidents should not be immune from criminal prosecution for actions taken in office, as the Supreme Court considers the issue.

“Obviously, I don’t think that,” McConnell told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker when asked about the assertion, which former President Donald Trump has brought to the nation’s highest court.

“But it’s not up to me to make that decision,” he continued. “The president clearly needs some kind of immunity, or he’d be in court all the time. So we’ll see how the Supreme Court deals with it.”

In 2021, McConnell said there was “no question” Trump was to blame for the U.S. Capitol riot, but he voted nonetheless to acquit Trump after he was impeached by the House. But McConnell argued that Trump “didn’t get away with anything, yet.”

“We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being [held] accountable by either one,” he said.
Story by Ben Blanchet

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) suggested that the Republican National Committee headquarters could house the Supreme Court after conservative justices appeared open to recognizing some form of presidential immunity as it heard from former President Donald Trump’s lawyers on Thursday.

Raskin, in an appearance on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut,” weighed in after Trump lawyer D. John Sauer argued that the president could order an assassination of a political rival or order the military to stage a coup without facing prosecution for the actions.

Host Joy Reid, who noted that Trump’s federal election interference case could be remanded back to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and thus further delay the trial past Election Day, called the Supreme Court majority “so clearly politicians” before looping in Raskin.

Story by Nicholas Liu

Wisconsin GOP operative Carlton Huffman is blowing the whistle on what he claims was an effort to suppress Black votes ahead of the 2020 election. While unproven confessions from a disgraced figure accused of sexual assault may be viewed with suspicion, the text messages he revealed to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel implicate new Wisconsin GOP executive director Andrew Iverson in an apparent 2020 election plot to sabotage "Souls to the Polls," a Black-led voter turnout group.

"Can Mario [Herrera, head of Hispanic outreach for Trump Victory] help get some Trump supporters to participate in Souls to the Polls?" Iverson texted Huffman on Election Day. "'Can't wait to go vote for President Trump!' Wearing [sic] MAGA hat or something."

The then-Wisconsin state head of Trump Victory continued: "I'm excited about this. Wreak havoc."

Iverson released a statement claiming that the text messages were jokes not meant to be taken seriously. But Huffman said that he didn't take them as such at the time. He told the Journal-Sentinel that Iverson was trying to suppress the Black vote by forcing Souls to the Polls to divert valuable resources on Trump supporters.
Story by Ewan Palmer

The indictment in the Arizona fake electors plot unsealed on Wednesday contains one piece of "gold" evidence for prosecutors, a legal expert has said.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes' office has charged 18 people, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, lawyer Jenna Ellis and longtime Donald Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn in connection with a plot to allegedly falsely claim that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election in Arizona. The former president has not been charged as part of the probe but is referred to as "Unindicted Coconspirator 1" throughout the indictment.

Former Pentagon special counsel Ryan Goodman noted one section of the indictment suggesting that those close to Donald Trump were aware of a plan to certify "illegal votes" as part of their alleged scheme.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Goodman highlighted a section of the indictment that discussed how some members of Trump's inner circle refused to support the alleged fake electors scheme.

The rape conviction of movie producer Harvey Weinstein has been overturned by New York's highest court.

The New York Court of Appeals, in a scathing 4-3 opinion, overturned Weinstein's conviction on sex crimes against three women, finding the trial judge "erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes."

The court said that testimony "served no material non-propensity purpose" and "portrayed defendant in a highly prejudicial light."

Ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker detailed the plot to “help” the Trump campaign during his bombshell testimony in Donald Trump’s criminal trial. Former SDNY attorney Maya Wiley and Lachlan Cartwright, former Executive Editor with American Media Inc, join MSNBC’s Katie Phang.
ABC News

Former President Donald Trump, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Rudy Giuliani are unindicted co-conspirators in the Michigan attorney general's case against the state's so-called "fake electors" in the 2020 election, a state investigator revealed in court on Wednesday.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged 16 Republicans last year with forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery for allegedly attempting to replace Michigan's electoral votes for Joe Biden with electoral votes for Trump at the certification of the vote on Jan. 6, 2021.
An array of former associates described Trump's treatment of government secrets.
By Katherine Faulders, Mike Levine, and Alexander Mallin

In the summer of 2019, only hours after an Iranian rocket accidentally exploded at one of Iran's own launch sites, senior U.S. officials met with then-president Donald Trump and shared a sharply detailed, highly classified image of the blast's catastrophic aftermath.

The image was captured by a U.S. satellite whose true capabilities were a tightly guarded secret. But Trump wanted to share it with the world -- he thought it was especially "sexy" because it was marked classified, one of his former advisers later recalled to special counsel Jack Smith's investigators, according to sources familiar with the former adviser's statements.

Worried that the image becoming public could hurt national security efforts, intelligence officials urged Trump to hold off until more knowledgeable experts were able to weigh in, the sources said. But less than an hour later, while at least one of those intelligence officials was in another building scrambling to get more information, Trump posted the image to Twitter.
Story by Josh Marcus

A grand jury indicted 11 Arizona Republicans and seven others for their role in an alleged scheme to keep Donald Trump in the White House by falsely certifying the state’s 2020 election results as a Trump win.

The indictment accuses the group of trying to prevent “the lawful transfer of the presidency of the United States, keeping President Donald J. Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”

According to the indictment, one month after the election, 11 Trump-supporting Republicans convened at the state’s GOP headquarters in Phoenix to sign certificates claiming the state’s electoral college votes.

The meeting was recorded on video.
Story by Andrew Stanton

Mike Davis, an ally to former President Donald Trump, has listed several legal analysts as "potential targets" for investigation if Trump beats President Joe Biden in the November presidential election.

Himself a lawyer, Davis is president of the conservative group Article III Project that supports "Constitutionalist" judges. He took to X, formerly Twitter, following a Politico report that analysts who have been critical of Trump regularly gather on Zoom calls for "off the record" discussions on the latest developments in the former president's myriad legal cases.

Mitch McConnell slams Trump for not wanting to close the border and blames Tucker Carlson for 'demonizing' Ukraine aid.
David Knowles

In what amounted to incredibly damning testimony, Pecker laid out the 2015 deal he reached with Trump “to help the campaign.” Pecker called the arrangement to publish stories to make Trump look good — and to smear his political rivals — “highly, highly confidential.” Trump’s then lawyer Michael Cohen fed the tabloid negative stories about rivals like Sen. Ted Cruz when they sensed him gaining momentum on Trump in the GOP primary, Pecker testified. Steve Bannon also pitched negative stories about Hillary Clinton to Pecker that the Enquirer published.

“Catch and kill”: Pecker also testified about the Enquirer’s efforts regarding “catch and kill,” the practice of buying the exclusive rights to a story only to make sure it would never be published. The Enquirer paid $30,000 to a Trump Tower doorman named Dino Sajudin for a story about Trump fathering an out-of-wedlock child. Though the story turned out not to be true, Pecker said, “I made the decision to buy the story because of the potential embarrassment it would have to the campaign and Mr. Trump.” A second catch-and-kill example involved former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who was shopping a story about a sexual relationship she said she had with Trump. “I think you should buy it,” Pecker said he told Trump, who was married at the time, during the 2016 campaign.
By Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling

A former associate of Rudy Giuliani is still dishing out the dirt on the inner machinations of Donald Trump’s administration.

Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian American businessman, helped Giuliani connect with Ukrainian officials in his effort to “find dirt on the Bidens” that could potentially hurt then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s chances at taking the White House. That included connecting the Trump administration with an assortment of Ukrainian leaders, including the former Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko.

Parnas dropped an eyebrow-raising story about Lutsenko Monday night, revealing how twisted international affairs became under the Trump administration.

“Lutsenko told me, ‘I’m the General Prosecutor of Ukraine, I want to meet A.G. Barr,’ so, I tell that to Rudy and he’s like, ‘Look, you want to meet Attorney General [Bill] Barr, the way things work here is you pay a lobbyist and they will get you in there, so you can pay me $200,000 and I will introduce you to Attorney General Bill Barr,’” Parnas told MediasTouch in a sprawling story about Giuliani’s meeting with the Ukrainian official.
David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc., described blocking scandalous stories about Trump even if they weren't true.
Bart Jansen | USA TODAY

Former National Enquirer boss David Pecker's testimony Tuesday at Donald Trump’s hush-money trial illustrated the prosecution’s argument that Trump participated in a conspiracy to kill unflattering news stories specifically to influence the 2016 election, rather than − as Trump's defense team has claimed − to spare his family embarrassment.

That intent on part is key to the prosecution's contention that hush money payments were part of an illegal campaign contribution.

Pecker, the former head of National Enquirer’s parent company, testified that the publication paid two sources to kill two scandalous stories about Trump before the 2016 election

In one case, Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc., said the supermarket tabloid paid $30,000 to silence a doorman at Trump Tower, Dino Sajudin, who was shopping a story alleging Trump fathered an illegitimate child – even though Pecker believed the story was false. Pecker called it potentially the biggest story "since the death of Elvis Presley."
Story by Nick Visser

Walt Nauta, one of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants in his classified documents case, was allegedly told he would receive a pardon even if he was charged with lying to the FBI, according to newly unsealed court documents.

The detail was revealed Monday in a redacted interview conducted with a witness in the federal case centered on Trump’s handling of classified files after he left the White House. Trump, Nauta and a third defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, have been charged with dozens of federal crimes in Florida, where the former president kept boxes of documents at his Mar-a-Lago club.

In an interview with the FBI, the witness — only identified as “Person 16” and someone who worked in the Trump White House — told investigators Nauta had been promised a pardon if the former president was reelected in November.

“NAUTA was told by FPOTUS’ people that his investigation was not going anywhere, that it was politically motivated and ‘much ado about nothing,’” a summary of the interview reads, using an acronym for “former president of the United States.”

“NAUTA was also told that even if he gets charged with lying to the FBI, FPOTUS will pardon him in 2024.”

Yale University History Professor Timothy Snyder joins MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart to discuss why pro-Putin propaganda is so prevalent in the Republican Party.
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