Trump news live: Judge gives long-awaited update on fraud trial verdict

Ocasio-Cortez stuck up for Joe Biden on CNN last night, the young progressive significantly backing a man with whom she has not always seen eye-to-eye “one on most successful presidents in modern American history.”

More than eight years since his last Daily Show episode, Jon Stewart made his return to the programme this week and did not hold back from an extended bashing of the two main presidential candidates.

Stewart hit out at both Democrats and Republicans alike for trying to defend the advanced ages of President Joe Biden and GOP candidate Donald Trump.

“One thing we know for certain is this: we have two candidates who are chronologically outside the norm of anyone who has run for the presidency of this country in the history of this country,” he said.

“I think we’ve got a new name for our election coverage: Indecision 2024 Antiques Roadshow,” he said, also proposing “Indecision 2024: Electile Dysfunction.”

Donald Trump has formally endorsed North Carolina Republican Party chairman Michael Whatley as his choice to lead the Republican National Committee (RNC) in place of the outgoing Ronna McDaniel.

Trump also proposed his own daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, wife of Eric, as the RNC’s co-chair, as had been widely predicted, and his joint campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, as chief operating officer – representing a near-total potential Maga takeover of the organising committee.

Lara’s been out lobbying for the role on Newsmax (which pays a cool $250,000 a year!) but her candidacy has provoked some rather unkind words from Trump’s estranged former fixer Michael Cohen.

Here’s more on those Trump endorsements and the souring of relations with McDaniel.

Judge Scott McAfee, the presiding justice in the sprawling Fulton County election interference case in Georgia, will hold two days of hearings into the motion to disqualify Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis and lead prosecutor Nathan Wade from the case.

The motion was brought by defendant Michael Roman after allegations of an improper relationship between the two prosecutors came to light, and then joined by several other defendants, including Trump.

Here’s our latest reporting on the case from Alex Woodward.

Molly Crane-Newman of The New York Daily News has reported that the verdict in Trump’s civil fraud trial will be handed down by Judge Arthur Engoron on Friday.

She cites a source familiar with the plans as saying that it will be published “barring unforeseen circumstances”.

The former president could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars and may even be barred from working in real estate in New York state.

His co-defendants from his company include both his adult sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump as well as former senior Trump Organization executives.

The verdict had been expected by the end of January but was delayed.

Here’s Alex Woodward with the latest.

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the special counsel prosecuting Trump on criminal charges of plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss to respond by 20 February to the former president’s bid to freeze a judicial decision rejecting his immunity claim.

The justices, in a brief order told Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith to file a response to Trump’s request by next Tuesday at 4pm. Smith could file his response sooner. He previously asked the justices to resolve Trump’s immunity claim before a lower appeals court had weighed in – a request they denied.

Trump’s lawyers on Monday asked the justices to temporarily block a decision by a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejecting his claim of presidential immunity from prosecution, pending his bid for the full slate of DC Circuit judges to reconsider the case, and, if necessary, a Supreme Court appeal.

The requests risk further delaying Trump’s criminal trial on four criminal counts. A 4 March trial date in federal court in Washington was postponed, with no new date yet set. Trump has pleaded not guilty and has sought to portray the case as politically-motivated.

Given that Trump is the front-runner for the Republican nomination to challenge President Biden again in November’s election, slowing the case could be to Trump’s benefit.

In their filing to the Supreme Court, Trump’s lawyers said a months-long criminal trial of Trump during “at the height of election season will radically disrupt” his ability to campaign against Biden.

They painted a dark picture of what they said would befall future presidents if Trump’s prosecution is permitted to move forward, warning of partisan prosecutions, extortion, blackmail and more.

Here’s Alex Woodward on what they had to say.

Back in the Republican’s social media wormhole, he was up late accusing his GOP presidential rival of hypocrisy over the military (and appears to have got her on this one) and going up absolutely rabid over his old foe Adam Schiff.

He also attempted to blow on the embers of last week’s report by Republican prosecutor Robert Hur into Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, which cleared the president of wrongdoing but contained some very unwelcome and unsolicited remarks about his memory.

Here’s more on the House GOP efforts to make political theatre out of Hur’s hatchet job on the commander-in-chief.

Trump’s suggestion over the weekend that he would abandon America’s Nato allies in the face of Russian aggression if they had not met their financial commitments to the military alliance were slammed by Joe Biden last night, as he called on the House of Representatives to hurry up and pass more Ukraine aid, warning them: “History is watching.”

The president called his predecessor’s comments on Nato “dumb”, “shameful”, “dangerous” and “unAmerican” and tantamount to bowing down to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

You can see his comments in full courtesy of IndyTV.

Donald Trump has hit out at New York Republican congressional candidate Mazi Pilip after she lost the race for George Santos’s old seat to Democrat Tom Suozzi, labelling her a “very foolish woman” for not adopting his MAGA brand.

“Republicans just don’t learn, but maybe she was still a Democrat?” Mr Trump seethed on Truth Social.

“I have an almost 99 per cent Endorsement Success Rate in Primaries, and a very good number in the General Elections, as well, but just watched this very foolish woman, Mazi Melesa Pilip, running in a race where she didn’t endorse me and tried to ‘straddle the fence,’ when she would have easily WON if she understood anything about MODERN DAY politics in America.

“MAGA, WHICH IS MOST OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, STAYED HOME – AND IT ALWAYS WILL, UNLESS IT IS TREATED WITH THE RESPECT THAT IT DESERVES.”

He may not be taking the right lesson from last night’s result, however…

Here’s Bevan Hurley on Suozzi’s big win.

On Monday, Mr Trump’s attorneys filed their expected request following last week’s appellate court ruling that rejected his “immunity” from charges connected to his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“This threat will hang like a millstone around every future President’s neck, distorting Presidential decisionmaking, undermining the President’s independence, and clouding the President’s ability ‘to deal fearlessly and impartially with’ the duties of his office,’” according to Mr Trump’s attorneys.

“Without immunity from criminal prosecution, the Presidency as we know it will cease to exist,” they wrote.

Alex Woodward has the details: