Trump’s Idiot Lawyers Screw Themselves Over by Being Competent Once

Donald Trump’s January 6 trial finally got underway again Thursday, and his attorneys have already managed to trip themselves up.

While deliberating the trial schedule, Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro argued that they would need “significant time” to parse through what elements of the case would be unsealed, reported NOTUS’s Jose Pagliery.

But that’s not in line with what this same defense team recently accomplished. In July, days after the Supreme Court finally issued its immunity ruling that postponed the federal election interference trial by nearly a year, Blanche issued a whopping 52-page report—and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan took notice.

“Congratulations Mr. Blanche!” Chutkan said with a smile, sending Blanche sinking into his chair while chuckling to himself.

But Trump’s team saw another avenue of attack: Lauro pressed that they would need to start from scratch because the superseding indictment was filed just last week. But Chutkan wasn’t having any of it.

“You say a new indictment, but it’s a slimmed-down version. It’s not more, it’s less,” Chutkan told him.

The pared-down indictment largely focuses on Trump’s private and nonofficial actions, since the Supreme Court granted the former president broad immunity for official acts, thereby nixing them as evidence. As Lauro laid out his argument, it became clear that Trump’s team believed it could be entitled to new evidence in the case as a result, reported Pagliery.

“We have 14 million pages of documents,” Lauro told Chutkan. “We’re still getting discovery in this case … we need to look at this discovery with an eye toward the immunity issues now.”

Prosecutor Thomas Windham, however, explained that his team doesn’t “expect any more disclosures.”

Trump is not at the trial in person. The case hinges on the allegation that Trump knew he had lost the election but still tried to subvert the results, as proven by conversations he had with then–Vice President Mike Pence and his lawyers. Admissions by Trump from just this week—including that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden “by a whisker”—could further damn his chances at trial.

Donald Trump still can’t get over being called weird along with running mate J.D. Vance.

At a Fox News town hall Wednesday night with his confidant Sean Hannity, the Republican presidential nominee said, “J.D. is not weird, he’s a solid rock. I happen to be a very solid rock.”

“We’re not weird. We’re other things, perhaps, but we’re not weird. But [Tim Walz] is a weird guy, he walks on the stage, there’s something wrong with that guy, and he called me weird. And then the fake news media picks it up, that was the word of the day. Weird, weird, weird, they’re all going. But we’re not weird guys,” Trump said as a raucous crowd laughed in support of him.

The Kamala Harris campaign quickly seized on Trump’s answer, posting it to their X account the same night.

It’s pretty clear that the “weird” criticisms, which Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz is credited with inspiring before Kamala Harris even chose him as her running mate, is driving Trump nuts. He can’t stop talking about it, which in turn is giving the word traction and a continued association with him and Vance. His repeated denials only drive the point home even further, and neither he nor Vance has come up with an effective response.

It also doesn’t help that Trump’s own words seem to validate the attack, whether he’s fumbling through a rally speech, seemingly forgetting who he’s running against, or suddenly flip-flopping on major policy positions. And Vance hasn’t helped, either, with his odd views on family, his associations with neo-Nazis, and his complete inability to order donuts like a normal person (which Walz has no problem doing). With Trump’s debate with Harris less than a week away, the convicted felon runs the risk of the entire country seeing his weirdness on live television next to a former prosecutor.

Speaking at a Fox News town hall in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Wednesday night, Donald Trump got weirdly threatening with his voter base.

“You have no choice,” Trump said. “You’ve got to vote for me, even if you don’t like me.”

As Trump continues to get bad news in the polls, it appears he is getting increasingly desperate to escape a prison sentence and reclaim power. The new election threat comes on the heels of him repeatedly telling voters this summer that after this election, they’ll never have to vote again.

During Wednesday’s town hall, hosted by Sean Hannity, Trump couldn’t even take the time to enjoy a friendly crowd without getting worked up about Kamala Harris.

Trump launched into the ominous order to voters after saying Harris will ban fracking nationwide, which is a lie. “If she won, you’re not gonna have any fracking in Pennsylvania,” Trump exclaimed. Though Harris floated limiting fracking during her 2020 campaign for president, she has since aligned with President Joe Biden’s policy position on the issue. She told CNN last week that she now believes that her administration could create a “thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.”

The two candidates appear to be tied in the polls in Pennsylvania, hence Trump’s drumming up fear about the industry in the state and begging for votes.

Just a handful of months ago, Donald Trump glided through New Hampshire’s Republican primary. After his first match-off with President Joe Biden in June, Trump’s campaign was so confident it would carry on with the Granite State’s support in November that it had legitimately spooked Democrats. 

Things could not be more different now.

After a weekend kerfuffle in which a top Trump volunteer released an email indicating that the campaign should back out of its efforts in New Hampshire, Team Trump officials seem all too ready to ignore that they ever thought they had a fighting chance to win the battleground state.

“This election is going to be won in those seven swing states” and not in New Hampshire, the Trump campaign’s New Hampshire co-chair Lou Gargiulo told Politico, referring to Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia. “That’s where the effort’s got to be put.”

Despite making recent promises that his attention was still trained on its voters, Trump has reportedly not visited the Granite State since he won its primary. His campaign has failed to match the energy of Democrats in the state, with no surrogates carrying the torch in his absence.

“The Trump campaign does not appear to be matching or contesting” New Hampshire, according to Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist from the state and former Trump administration appointee who spoke with Politico.

The Trump campaign was caught off guard on Sunday when a top volunteer, Tom Mountain, issued an internal message notifying fellow volunteers that “the campaign has determined that New Hampshire is no longer a battleground state.” Mountain also wrote that internal polling indicated  Trump could lose New Hampshire by a wider margin than he did to Joe Biden in 2020. 

Mountain is reportedly no longer with the campaign, but his message was, apparently, not a one-off. Instead, other New Hampshire Republicans have also signaled that the race in their state is a done deal, according to CNN correspondent Steve Contorno.

Speaking with Erin Burnett on CNN’s OutFront Tuesday night, Contorno argued that the tides have turned for the Trump campaign among New Hampshire voters.

“When I talked to other Republican operatives in the state, they said that this volunteer is painting a pretty clear picture that’s really illustrative of what’s happening there,” Contorno said.

One such Republican was GOP strategist Mike Dennehy, who said that Trump could lose New Hampshire by six to eight percentage points.

J.D. Vance thinks the high cost of daycare can be solved with one easy trick: Just ask your family for help!

At a Turning Point Action event in Mesa, Arizona, Wednesday, conservative pundit Charlie Kirk asked the Republican vice presidential nominee how to lower the cost of childcare. Vance’s answer seemed more than a little tone-deaf.

“One of the ways that you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for daycare is, maybe grandma and grandpa wants to help out a little bit more. Or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more,” Vance said. “If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all of the resources that we’re spending on daycare.”

For parents who do not have access to help from relatives, Vance said that more people have to get training in childcare and that certain certifications have “nothing to do with taking care of kids.” He falsely implied that childcare specialists were forced to have a “six-year college degree” and thus had to charge more for daycare.

Vance’s solutions, if one could call them that, seem out of touch at best. Family help is not a policy solution, nor is it even practical for many parents who do have family willing to help. Childcare certifications also typically don’t require advanced college degrees, or even college degrees at all. While Washington, D.C., has a degree requirement, it’s only for a two-year associate’s degree.

Yet again, Vance seems to have some weird, archaic views on families. In 2020, the Ohio senator agreed with a podcast host who said having grandmothers help raise children is “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female.” He has policy proposals that would make life harder for people without children and has faced heavy criticism for insulting “childless cat ladies.” Perhaps he should just stop talking about children and families, especially since he doesn’t speak well about his own children.