Trademark Trump defiant as he tries to set narrative that indictments are political not legal
Donald Trump popped into a waffle restaurant in Columbus, Georgia, on Saturday afternoon.
The idea, presumably, was to create an impromptu moment – to present a man not rattled by the days ahead.
The pre-positioned supporters suggest it was rather more pre-arranged. But there is no question that the former president looked relaxed, confident, and upbeat.
The pit-stop came after his first public appearance since that remarkable indictment was unsealed.
I watched from the “fake news” media pen at the back of the Columbus Convention Center as he delivered a defiant 90-minute speech.
The capacity crowd were the great and the good of Georgia’s Republican Party – gathered for the state’s two-day Republican Convention.
It was trademark Trump.
“They want to use something called the Espionage Act. Doesn’t that sound terrible?” he said facetiously, referring to the charges against him.
“Espionage? We got a box! I got a box! The espionage…” he trailed off. The crowd laughed.
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After a rattle through his greatest hits as president, he got back to the indictment.
“The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration’s weaponised department of injustice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country.
“Many people have said that, the Democrats have even said it.”
“This vicious persecution is a travesty of justice,” he said to applause. At times people stood. Not all, but a good proportion.
“Think of it: Biden is trying to jail his leading political opponent that’s beating him by a lot in the polls just like they do in Stalinist Russia or Communist China. No different.” More applause.
It was a grievance-laced speech. He cast himself as the victim of an establishment out to get him.
“We are going to stand up to the corrupt political establishment, we are going to evict a totally corrupt Joe Biden from the White House…”
The narrative he is setting is that all this is political not legal. It’s Biden trying to stop him in the courts rather than face him at the ballot box.
Deflection and “whataboutism” play very well. And that’s the crux of all this for sections of American society that have been so angered by the indictment.
In the Columbus convention hall I heard it repeatedly: what about Joe Biden and the classified documents found in his Delaware garage, next to his Corvette? Hilary Clinton and the classified documents on her email server? Mike Pence and the classified documents found at his home?
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American standards of justice are being questioned by the first federal indictment of a former and possible next president.
There are clear distinctions with those cases: quantity, intent, obstruction.
The number of documents in Trump’s case is far larger. There appears to have been an intent to remove them from the White House and an obstruction of National Archive and FBI attempts to retrieve them.
There is also plain misinformation. Trump talks frequently about the “1850 boxes Biden took”.
He is referring to boxes of Biden documents at the University of Delaware. They are papers from his senate career between 1973 to 2009. They are not secret, there is no requirement for him to give them to the National Archives and there is no wrongdoing.
Still, President Biden has been blasé about the documents found in his Corvette garage – his assurance that the “garage was locked” cemented the incredulity.
All of this, not to mention the stories about his son Hunter, reflect a genuine American crisis of distrust.
The 45th president of the United States has been indicted, by the Justice Department of the Biden administration, on 31 of the counts relating to the espionage act – “wilful retention of national defence information”.
That is a massive moment. It is not yet clear quite what it will unleash in America.
Dozens of supporters were outside court as the man accused of fatally shooting the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare made his first appearance.
Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of murder following the 4 December killing of Brian Thompson, 50, outside a midtown Manhattan hotel.
The 26-year-old is accused of ambushing and shooting the executive as he walked to an investor conference.
Luigi Mangione supporters stand outside the Supreme Court. Pic: AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah
Dozens of people who showed up in court to support the suspect including former army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning who was jailed for stealing classified diplomatic cables.
Dozens more queued in the hallway.
Mangione is also facing federal charges that could carry the possibility of the death penalty.
The judge set a deadline of 9 April to submit pre-trial motions.
Luigi Mangione is accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson. Pic: Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP
In addition to the New York cases, Mr Mangione also faces charges of forgery, carrying firearms without a licence, and other counts in Pennsylvania, where authorities arrested him at a McDonald’s.
Police say he was in possession of a gun, bullets, multiple fake IDs and a handwritten document that expressed “ill will” towards corporate America.
He is being held in a Brooklyn jail alongside several other high-profile defendants, including music mogul and rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, and disgraced crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried.
The killing prompted some to voice their resentment at US health insurers, with Mangione attracting a cult following.
A poll taken in the wake of the shooting showed most Americans believe health insurance profits and coverage denials were partly to blame for the incident.
Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have not “done anything” to end the Ukraine war, US President Donald Trump has said.
He called the French president a “friend of mine” and the UK leader a “nice guy” but said Russia had only agreed to negotiate “because of me”.
Mr Trump made the comments days before both leaders visit the White House for a meeting in which they must try to press Ukraine‘s case while keeping the US leader onside.
Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron in Paris: Pic: Number 10/Flickr
The president also continued his criticism of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying he had “no cards” to play.
“I’ve been watching for years, and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards. He has no cards. And you get sick of it. You just get sick of it. And I’ve had it,” he told a Fox radio show.
The comments come after he recently called the Ukrainian leader a “dictator without elections” – apparently in response to Mr Zelenskyy saying his US counterpart was living in a “disinformation space” after Mr Trump claimed Ukraine had started the war.
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Ukraine was also excluded from talks between the top US and Russian diplomats in Riyadh earlier this week.
They were intended to set the stage for future negotiations on ending the war, which started when Russia launched a full-scale invasion three years ago.
Speaking on Friday evening, Mr Trump denied speculation he could visit Moscow for talks on 9 May – the day Russia celebrates its victory over the Nazis.
President Trump speaks in the Oval Office on Friday. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also told reporters the Russian and Ukrainian leaders needed to “work together” to end the war.
However, the US has already dealt a huge blow to Kyiv’s position in any future talks.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that a return to pre-war borders was “unrealistic” and ruled out NATO membership as way to guarantee Kyiv’s security.
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President Zelenskyy has insisted he will not accept any deal that his country is not involved in.
Ukraine’s leader held talks with US envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv on Thursday, describing it later as a “good discussion”.
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Mr Kellogg struck a markedly different tone to President Trump when he called Mr Zelenskyy the “courageous leader of a nation at war”.
However, there are concerns over how much influence Mr Kellogg has, with a Ukrainian source saying there was a sense he had been sidelined.
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