WAUKESHA, Wisconsin: Donald Trump returned briefly to the campaign trail Wednesday and called the judge presiding over his hush money trial “crooked” a day after he was held in contempt of court and threatened with jail time for violating a gag order.
Trump’s remarks at events in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan were being closely watched after he received a $9,000 fine for making public statements about people connected to the criminal case. In imposing the fine for posts on Trump’s Truth Social account and campaign website, Judge Juan M. Merchan said that if Trump continued to violate his orders, he would “impose an incarceratory punishment.”
“There is no crime. I have a crooked judge. He’s a totally conflicted judge,” Trump said speaking to supporters at an event in Waukesha, Wisconsin, claiming again that this and other cases against him are led by the White House to undermine his campaign.
The gag order bars him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to his hush money case. Trump is still free to criticize Merchan.
The former president is trying to achieve a balancing act unprecedented in American history by running for a second term as the presumptive Republican nominee while also fighting felony charges in New York. Trump frequently goes after Merchan, prosecutors and potential witnesses at his rallies and on social media, attack lines that play well with his supporters but that have potentially put him in further legal jeopardy.
Trump insists he is merely exercising his free speech rights, but the offending posts from his Truth Social account and campaign website were taken down. Merchan is weighing other alleged gag-order violations and will hear arguments on Thursday.
Trump has often called this case and other criminal cases against him “election interference,” saying they keep him from campaigning for the presidential election in November.
Attendees agreed he is being unfairly prosecuted, contending the trial and gag order were designed to distract him .
“It’s a trial looking for a crime,” said Ray Hanson, of Hartford. Hanson said he expected Trump’s lawyers would “keep him in line” so he doesn’t violate the gag order, as much as he likely wants to talk about the trial.
Manhattan prosecutors have argued Trump and his associates took part in an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 presidential campaign by purchasing and then burying negative stories. He has pleaded not guilty.
Trump’s visits to Wisconsin and Michigan mark his second trip to the swing states in just a month. For the previous rallies, the former president largely focused on immigration, referring to people who are in the US illegally and who are suspected of crimes as “animals.”
Meanwhile, Democrats are hoping to remind voters ahead of these visits about Trump’s position on abortion, which Trump has been openly concerned about being a political liability for him and Republicans.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan met on Wednesday with half a dozen women, including a family doctor, and warned that a second Trump term would threaten abortion rights even in her state, which enshrined those rights in its state constitution after the Supreme Court overturned national rights to the procedure.
Whitmer appeared with the women at a bookstore in Flint surrounded by signs that read “Stop Trump’s Attacks on Health Care” and “Stop Trump’s Abortion Ban.” She told reporters not to believe Trump’s contention in a Time Magazine interview that Republicans would never have enough votes in the US Senate to pass a national abortion ban.
“We cannot trust anything that Donald Trump says when it comes to abortion. So no one should take any comfort in the fact that, yes, he wants an abortion ban, but he won’t get it because he doesn’t think we’ll have 60 votes in the Senate. Baloney,” she said. “No one would have imagined we’d be here in this moment.”
Wisconsin and Michigan are among a handful of battleground states expected to decide the 2024 election.
For Trump to win both states, he must do well in suburban areas like the areas outside of Milwaukee and Saginaw, Michigan, where he will hold Wednesday’s events. He underperformed in suburban areas during this year’s primary even as he dominated the Republican field overall.
Trump has repeatedly falsely said that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Trump’s losses in battleground states in 2020 have withstood recounts, audits and reviews by the Justice Department and outside observers.
Trump calls judge ‘crooked’ after facing a warning of jail time if he violates a trial gag order
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Trump calls judge ‘crooked’ after facing a warning of jail time if he violates a trial gag order
- The former president is trying to achieve a balancing act unprecedented in American history by running for a second term as the presumptive Republican nominee
Cambodia shuts Thailand border crossings over deadly fighting
- Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Trump “didn’t mention whether we should make a ceasefire” during their Friday phone call
- Across the border, a Cambodian evacuee said she was “sad” the fighting hadn’t stopped despite Trump’s intervention
BANGKOK: Cambodia shut its border crossings with Thailand on Saturday, after Bangkok denied US President Donald Trump’s claim that a truce had been agreed to end days of deadly fighting.
Violence between the Southeast Asian neighbors, which stems from a long-running dispute over the colonial-era demarcation of their 800-kilometer (500-mile) border, has displaced around half a million people on both sides.
At least 25 people have died this week, including four Thai soldiers the defense ministry said were killed in the border area on Saturday.
The latest fatalities were followed by Phnom Penh announcing it would immediately “suspend all entry and exit movements at all Cambodia-Thailand border crossings,” the interior ministry said.
Each side blamed the other for reigniting the conflict, before Trump said a truce had been agreed.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Trump “didn’t mention whether we should make a ceasefire” during their Friday phone call.
The two leaders “didn’t discuss” the issue, Anutin told journalists on Saturday.
Trump had hailed his “very good conversation” with Anutin and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Friday.
“They have agreed to CEASE all shooting effective this evening, and go back to the original Peace Accord” agreed in July, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
The United States, China and Malaysia, as chair of the regional bloc ASEAN, brokered a ceasefire in July after an initial five-day spate of violence.
In October, Trump backed a follow-on joint declaration between Thailand and Cambodia, touting new trade deals after they agreed to prolong their truce.
But Thailand suspended the agreement the following month after Thai soldiers were wounded by land mines at the border.
In Thailand, evacuee Kanyapat Saopria said she doesn’t “trust Cambodia anymore.”
“The last round of peace efforts didn’t work out... I don’t know if this one will either,” the 39-year-old told AFP.
Across the border, a Cambodian evacuee said she was “sad” the fighting hadn’t stopped despite Trump’s intervention.
“I am not happy with brutal acts,” said Vy Rina, 43.
- Trading blame over civilians -
Bangkok and Phnom Penh have traded accusations of attacks against civilians, with the Thai army reporting six wounded on Saturday by Cambodian rockets.
Cambodia’s information minister, Neth Pheaktra, meanwhile said Thai forces had “expanded their attacks to include civilian infrastructure and Cambodian civilians.”
A Thai navy spokesman said the air force “successfully destroyed” two Cambodian bridges used to transport weapons to the conflict zone.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Saturday urged both sides to “cease all forms of hostilities and refrain from any further military actions.”
Thailand has reported 14 soldiers killed and seven civilian deaths, while Cambodia said four civilians were killed earlier this week.
At a camp in Thailand’s Buriram, AFP journalists saw displaced residents calling relatives near the border who reported that fighting was ongoing.
Thailand’s prime minister has vowed to “continue to perform military actions until we feel no more harm and threats to our land and people.”
After the call with Trump, Anutin said “the one who violated the agreement needs to fix (the situation).”
Cambodia’s Hun Manet, meanwhile, said his country “has always been adhering to peaceful means for dispute resolutions.”
