Manhattan D.A. Slams Trump’s Desperate Attempt to Toss Conviction

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is fighting back against Donald Trump’s move to throw out his hush-money convictions.

After the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have immunity for “official acts” last month, Trump asked the state of New York to throw out his 34 felony convictions. Bragg’s office replied with a legal filing of its own asking the state to reject Trump’s bid, arguing that even if official acts were excluded, they were “only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof” the jury saw before voting to convict Trump.

The filing, made public Thursday, stated that the evidence Trump’s lawyers are challenging isn’t protected, citing a footnote in the Supreme Court’s ruling that includes a “public records exception” for introducing evidence from protected official acts. Even if protected evidence was introduced, “any error was harmless in light of other overwhelming evidence of defendant’s guilt.”

“The Supreme Court has long recognized that a President can act in an unofficial, personal capacity,” the filing, written by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo, states. “Nothing in the Court’s recent immunity decision changes that basic fact.… This case involved evidence of defendant’s personal conduct, not his official acts.”

In May, Trump was convicted of falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in the first degree by using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels under the rug before the 2016 presidential election. He has long alleged that the case, along with his other criminal and civil cases, is part of a plot against him by those opposed to his presidency.

Judge Juan Merchan is expected to rule on Trump’s immunity in early September. If he rules in favor of the district attorney’s office, sentencing for Trump’s conviction will take place on September 18, possibly leading to the first prison sentence ever for a former president.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks Elon Musk shouldn’t throw stones in a glass house.

When Ocasio-Cortez pointed out Wednesday that the more than 100 empty seats in Congress were being filled by nonmembers “in order to project the appearance of full attendance and support” at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech, Musk took it upon himself to attack the politician.

Musk must have been feeling personally offended, as he was one of those butts in seats, having been personally invited to Capitol Hill by Netanyahu.

“The Democratic Party has become openly & boldly antisemitic,” he replied to Ocasio-Cortez.

Ocasio-Cortez was quick to point out that Musk should probably be careful with accusations of antisemitism, considering his repeated enabling of antisemites on his social media platform. She posted a screenshot of a Wall Street Journal article about Musk agreeing with a post last year stating that Jewish people hold a “dialectical hatred” of white people.

“Hmm 🤔 sometimes being quiet is free and good for you,” Ocasio-Cortez responded.

At the time of the incident last year, the Anti-Defamation League said Musk was using his “influence to validate and promote antisemitic theories.”

In response, Musk doubled down. “I am deeply offended by ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind,” he said. “I’m sick of it. Stop now.”

Similarly, even after getting embarrassed by Ocasio-Cortez, Musk continued to post about it late into the night. “People who have been lifelong Democrats refuse to accept the clear reality that the Democratic Party is rapidly become openly antisemitic,” Musk wrote. “This trend is accelerating, not slowing down.”

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called out Senator J.D. Vance for calling Democrats “childless cat ladies” on MSNBC Wednesday night, saying he doesn’t “think it will work” for one big reason.

“My God, they went after ‘cat people,’ good luck with that! Turn on the internet and see what cat people do when you go after ’em,” Walz said, drawing laughter from The 11th Hour’s Stephanie Ruhle. “It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.”

Walz has been discussed as a potential running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris, and endearing himself to cat people is a surefire way to help his chances. He’s not wrong when he talks about the power of cat people on the internet, and he would know: He and his family own an orange and white cat named Honey.

Vance has also been criticized by Democratic lawmakers and even celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, putting him in the internet’s doghouse as Harris’s popularity continues to spawn memes about coconut trees and Charli XCX’s album “Brat.” 

Walz, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and Senator Mark Kelly are among the many names being discussed as vice presidential candidates. Walz already made a successful appearance on Fox News Tuesday morning, angering Donald Trump. If he keeps landing blows like this against Vance and Trump, he might quickly become the internet’s favorite for V.P., if not Harris’s.

Elon Musk just declared he’d fight Mark Zuckerberg “any place, any time, any rules.” Déjà vu much?

While Musk was at Capitol Hill on Wednesday as a guest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an ABC News reporter asked him if he was still considering fighting the Meta CEO.

Last year, the two tech billionaires floated the idea of a televised fight after Musk tweeted that he would be “up for a cage fight” against Zuckerberg. “I have this great move that I call ‘The Walrus,’ where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing,” said Musk at the time.

Zuckerberg, on the other hand, is trained in Brazilian jiujitsu.

The cage fight served as a strange proxy for the feuding tech bosses’ social media companies and additionally distracted from Musk’s billion-dollar losses that year across his portfolio.

After going back and forth for more than a month, determining location and hyping up the event in August, Zuckerberg suddenly said it was “time to move on” from the cage fight idea.

Zuckerberg still seems over the fight idea. “Are we really doing this again?” he wrote Wednesday on Threads, Meta’s response to X (formerly Twitter), in response to a post about Musk’s comment.

Zuckerberg’s disinterested tone is probably representative of how most Americans feel about the fight.

Recently, Musk and Zuckerberg have both spent their free time sucking up to presidential candidate Donald Trump. Musk reportedly pledged to donate $45 million a month to Trump’s campaign, a promise he is now trying to walk back. Zuckerberg said he thought Trump was “badass” when he raised his fist after a bullet grazed his ear.

With these tech billionaires meddling in politics, it begs the question: Can you really fight if you’re on the same team?

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear issued a heartfelt apology Thursday after going “over the line” into divisive politics and simmering culture wars.

“I’ve wanted to make sure that I set the record straight,” he said during a press conference Thursday. “So, I do owe an apology … to Diet Mountain Dew.”

Beshear solemnly pulled out a plastic bottle of the bright green zero-sugar soda.

“Ale8One is definitely the soft drink of Kentucky, but I don’t believe the government should be making your decisions,” Beshear said.

“So, if you enjoy Diet Mountain Dew, uh, you be you. We want to support you. And to Diet Mountain Dew, very sorry. Didn’t mean to say negative things about you. Just remember, I am from here, just like everybody else that’s speaking out.”

Beshear’s trolling comes just days after Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance joked during a rally Monday that Democrats would think it was “racist” that he’d been drinking Diet Mountain Dew. It was an absurd idea that made him laugh really hard, and made plenty of Americans laugh really hard at him.

On Monday, Beshear had robustly condemned Vance’s comment, calling it “weird.”

“Who drinks Diet Mountain Dew?” the Kentucky governor asked on CNN, noting that Vance “ain’t from here.”

Beshear, a popular Democratic leader in an otherwise red state, is in the process of being vetted as a possible running mate, according to the Courier-Journal. In the past week, Beshear has repeatedly gone after Vance for being a “phony,” and seems to be subtly hinting at the Republican’s stance on abortion in his slight about the government “making your decisions” for you.

Meanwhile, Vance has been linked to plenty of ideas that are way more divisive than liking diet soda, but like his running mate Donald Trump, he’s proving to be prone to gaffes as well.