How much dirt and how much did Trump have to blackmail these congressman to get them to come to his trial and spew his bs messages? How little spine do these republicans have?
its not fuckstick. its the base. they want to keep they seat the occupy.
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you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
How much dirt and how much did Trump have to blackmail these congressman to get them to come to his trial and spew his bs messages? How little spine do these republicans have?
You're giving them way too much credit... they don't need to be blackmailed into acting like this.
Retaining power is all that matters.
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The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,389
How much dirt and how much did Trump have to blackmail these congressman to get them to come to his trial and spew his bs messages? How little spine do these republicans have?
You're giving them way too much credit... they don't need to be blackmailed into acting like this.
How much dirt and how much did Trump have to blackmail these congressman to get them to come to his trial and spew his bs messages? How little spine do these republicans have?
You're giving them way too much credit... they don't need to be blackmailed into acting like this.
Retaining power is all that matters.
Disagree. All of a sudden they are showing up a few weeks into the trial? he's threatening them with something. that's his MO. No one stands with him on his merit. I think it also shows the orange one is scared of a conviction.
Could be a fun Memorial Day Weekend. Think the trial wraps up before then.
How much dirt and how much did Trump have to blackmail these congressman to get them to come to his trial and spew his bs messages? How little spine do these republicans have?
You're giving them way too much credit... they don't need to be blackmailed into acting like this.
Retaining power is all that matters.
I'm pretty sure Johnson cut a deal or otherwise committed to debasing himself in NY, in exchange for cover on the bills he moved through the House.
How much dirt and how much did Trump have to blackmail these congressman to get them to come to his trial and spew his bs messages? How little spine do these republicans have?
You're giving them way too much credit... they don't need to be blackmailed into acting like this.
Retaining power is all that matters.
Disagree. All of a sudden they are showing up a few weeks into the trial? he's threatening them with something. that's his MO. No one stands with him on his merit. I think it also shows the orange one is scared of a conviction.
Could be a fun Memorial Day Weekend. Think the trial wraps up before then.
I agree on the boldfaced part... I think a lot of this bloviating is trying to get in front of a conviction in terms of public opinion.
I maintain that the prospect of an R in the white house is all they care about... Party over country, blackmail isn't needed.
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The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,389
How much dirt and how much did Trump have to blackmail these congressman to get them to come to his trial and spew his bs messages? How little spine do these republicans have?
You're giving them way too much credit... they don't need to be blackmailed into acting like this.
Retaining power is all that matters.
Disagree. All of a sudden they are showing up a few weeks into the trial? he's threatening them with something. that's his MO. No one stands with him on his merit. I think it also shows the orange one is scared of a conviction.
Could be a fun Memorial Day Weekend. Think the trial wraps up before then.
I agree on the boldfaced part... I think a lot of this bloviating is trying to get in front of a conviction in terms of public opinion.
I maintain that the prospect of an R in the white house is all they care about... Party over country, blackmail isn't needed.
I think those clowns were there this week specifically to try and drown out Cohen's testimony to the right wing echo chamber consumers.
Unfortunately, since the other trials are delayed, a lot hinges on Michael Cohen this week. That is fucking crazy to think about.
How much dirt and how much did Trump have to blackmail these congressman to get them to come to his trial and spew his bs messages? How little spine do these republicans have?
You're giving them way too much credit... they don't need to be blackmailed into acting like this.
Retaining power is all that matters.
Disagree. All of a sudden they are showing up a few weeks into the trial? he's threatening them with something. that's his MO. No one stands with him on his merit. I think it also shows the orange one is scared of a conviction.
Could be a fun Memorial Day Weekend. Think the trial wraps up before then.
I agree on the boldfaced part... I think a lot of this bloviating is trying to get in front of a conviction in terms of public opinion.
I maintain that the prospect of an R in the white house is all they care about... Party over country, blackmail isn't needed.
I think those clowns were there this week specifically to try and drown out Cohen's testimony to the right wing echo chamber consumers.
Unfortunately, since the other trials are delayed, a lot hinges on Michael Cohen this week. That is fucking crazy to think about.
The full court press is on from the GOP to undermine the United States justice system.
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,153
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,153
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,153
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memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
But would you wear a suit like this? Does the Michelin man live inside that thing? Jebus Christmas POOTWH must fall down and go boom a lot because how else do you explain all that padding? Hamburders? Suckers.m
Did Trump’s lawyers catch Michael Cohen in a ‘lie?’ Let’s take a look. By Aaron Blake May 17, 2024 at 11:15 ET Prosecutors took care to emphasize at the start of former president Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial last month that their credibility-challenged witness Michael Cohen’s testimony would be corroborated by evidence. The message: You don’t have to take his word for it. But on some key aspects of the case, they’ve still been forced to rely on Cohen’s say-so. That made the cross-examination of Cohen this week the most high-stakes moment of the trial. On Thursday, after extensive grilling of Cohen, Trump’s lawyers finally drew blood. But how much did it undermine Cohen’s credibility — and potentially the prosecution itself? Trump’s lawyer adamantly claimed he had caught Cohen in a lie from just days earlier. That’s not quite so clear, but there is no question that what transpired Thursday could cause jurors to second-guess key claims from Cohen, a witness they’ll be well aware has admitted to lying in proceedings before (on Trump’s behalf). Given the importance of the exchange, it’s worth a parsing. The focal point of the dispute is an 8:02 p.m. phone call on Oct. 24, 2016, during which Cohen discussed the Stormy Daniels hush money payment with Trump, he testified. Prosecutors briefly broached the 8:02 p.m. call Monday during Cohen’s first day of testimony. Cohen said he had reached out to Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, “to discuss the Stormy Daniels matter and the resolution of it.” The prosecutor asked whether the conversation included having “resolved that you were moving forward to fund the deal.” Cohen replied: “Yes.” But Trump’s lawyers suggested Thursday that this never happened. And they presented evidence that would suggest that the purpose of the call was entirely different. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche noted that, shortly before the phone call, Cohen had been texting with Schiller about another matter: harassing phone calls he had been receiving, including from a phone whose user identified themselves as 14 years old. Here’s the timeline: 7:48 p.m. Oct. 24: Cohen texts Schiller, “Who can I speak to regarding harassing calls to myself and office, the dope forgot to block his call on one of them.”
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you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Many years and multiple threads about trump getting j ducted, and almost no comments regarding his likely only trial before Election Day?
Not sure the prosecution proved that trump knew his CFO classified the payments to cohen falsely as legal fees.
were you in the courtroom? if not, how would you know? it wasn't televised, except for his daily post court whine sessions, which you should know by now is all bs.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
Judge in Trump's hush money trial threatened to remove witness from court for behavior on stand
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JENNIFER PELTZ, JAKE OFFENHARTZ and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
Yesterday
NEW YORK (AP) — The judge in Donald Trump's hush money trial cleared the courtroom of reporters Monday and then threatened to remove the defense's witness from the trial altogether because of his behavior on the stand, which included making comments under his breath and rolling his eyes, a court transcript showed.
Judge Juan M. Merchan told Robert Costello, a former federal prosecutor, that his conduct during testimony was contemptuous. Costello aggravated Merchan repeatedly in part by continuing to speak after objections were sustained — a signal to witnesses to stop talking. At one point, Costello remarked “jeez” when he was cut off by an objection. He also called the whole exercise “ridiculous.”
The exchange came toward the end of a heated day that included the prosecution’s star witness admitting to stealing tens of thousands of dollars from Trump’s company. Trump’s lawyers also pressed Merchan to dismiss the case after prosecutors concluded their presentation of evidence. The judge didn’t immediately rule on that request.
But the most tense moments happened with Costello on the witness stand. Merchan first sent the jury out of the courtroom to discuss proper decorum. He chided Costello for remarking “jeez” when he was cut off by a sustained objection and, at another point, “strike it." Merchan told him: "I’m the only one that can strike testimony in the courtroom. Do you understand that?”
“And then if you don’t like my ruling, you don’t give me side eye and you don’t roll your eyes.”
Merchan was about to bring the jury back in when he asked Costello, “Are you staring me down right now?” and then kicked out the press to further admonish him.
“I’m putting you on notice that your conduct is contemptuous," Merchan said, according to the transcript of the conversation that occurred when the press was out of the room. ”If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand."
Costello didn’t return a message seeking comment Monday night.
When Merchan brought the press back in, Costello's testimony continued and it will resume Tuesday. The defense is using him in an effort to attack the credibility of Trump attorney-turned-adversary, Michael Cohen.
After jurors left for the day, defense attorney Todd Blanche told the judge that prosecutors failed to prove their case and that it should be thrown out immediately. Blanche beseeched the judge to “not let this case go to the jury relying on Mr. Cohen’s testimony.”
The judge appeared unmoved by the argument, asking the defense attorney whether he believed that “as a matter of law, this person’s so not worthy of belief that it shouldn’t even be considered by the jury?”
“You said his lies are irrefutable,” the judge replied. “But you think he’s going to fool 12 New Yorkers into believing this lie?”
Cohen was the last witness — at least for now — for prosecutors, who are trying to prove that Trump sought to bury unflattering stories about himself and then falsified internal business records to cover it up as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election. The defense has painted Cohen as a media-obsessed liar who is on a revenge mission aimed at taking down Trump.
The defense called Costello because of his role as a Cohen antagonist and critic in the years since their professional relationship splintered in spectacular fashion.
Costello had offered to represent Cohen soon after the lawyer’s hotel room, office and home were raided and as Cohen faced a decision about whether to remain defiant in the face of a criminal investigation or to cooperate with authorities in hopes of securing more lenient treatment.
Costello testified that Cohen told him Trump “knew nothing” about the $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels that's at the center of the case.
“Michael Cohen said numerous times that President Trump knew nothing about those payments, that he did this on his own, and he repeated that numerous times,” Costello told jurors.
Trump lawyer Emil Bove told the judge that the defense does not plan to call any other witnesses after Costello, though they may still call campaign-finance expert Bradley A. Smith for limited testimony. They have not said definitively that Trump won’t testify, but that’s the clearest indication yet that he will waive his right to take the stand in his own defense.
Back on the witness stand for a fourth day, Cohen told jurors earlier Monday that he stole from the Trump Organization after his 2016 holiday bonus was slashed to $50,000 from the $150,000 he usually received.
Cohen claimed to have paid $50,000 to a technology firm for its work artificially boosting Trump's standing in a CNBC online poll about famous businessmen. Cohen said he gave the firm only $20,000 in cash in a brown paper bag, but he sought reimbursement from Trump for the full amount, pocketing the difference.
Cohen said he never paid the Trump Organization back. Cohen has never been charged with stealing from Trump’s company.
Cohen is a key witness but also a complicated one. He admitted on the witness stand to a number of past lies, many of which he claims were meant to protect Trump. Cohen also served prison time after pleading guilty to various federal charges, including lying to Congress and a bank and engaging in campaign-finance violations related to the hush money scheme.
But when pushed by Blanche, Cohen stood by his recollection of conversations with Trump about the hush money payment to Daniels. Cohen testified that he spoke with Trump more than 20 times about the matter in October 2016.
“No doubt in your mind?” Blanche asked about whether Cohen specifically recalled having conversations with Trump about the Daniels matter. No doubt, Cohen said.
After more than four weeks of testimony, jurors could begin deliberating as soon as next week to decide whether Trump is guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.
The charges stem from internal Trump Organization records where payments to Cohen were marked as legal expenses. Prosecutors say they were really reimbursements for the payment to Daniels to keep her from going public before the 2016 election with claims of a sexual encounter with Trump. Trump says nothing sexual happened between them.
Trump has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers say there was nothing criminal about the Daniels deal or the way Cohen was paid.
"There’s no crime," Trump told reporters after arriving at the courthouse Monday. “We paid a legal expense. You know what it’s marked down as? A legal expense."
Prosecutors will have have an opportunity to call rebuttal witnesses once Trump's witnesses are done. The judge, citing scheduling issues, said he expects closing arguments to happen May 28, the Tuesday after Memorial Day.
____
Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Jill Colvin and Michelle Price in New York; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,153
Trump's social media account shares a campaign video with a headline about a 'unified Reich'
By MICHELLE L. PRICE
Yesterday
NEW YORK (AP) — A video posted to Donald Trump's account on his social media network Monday included references to a “unified Reich” among hypothetical news headlines if he wins the election in November.
The headline appears among messages flashing across the screen such as “Trump wins!!” and “Economy booms!” Other headlines appear to be references to World War I.
The word “Reich” is often largely associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich, though the references in the video Trump shared appear to be a reference to the formation of the modern pan-German nation, unifying smaller states into a single Reich, or empire, in 1871.
The 30-second video appeared on Trump's account at a time when the presumptive Republican nominee for president, while seeking to portray President Joe Biden as soft on antisemitism, has himself repeatedly faced criticism for using language and rhetoric associated with Nazi Germany.
It was posted and shared on the former president's Truth Social account while he was on a lunch break from his Manhattan hush money trial.
“This was not a campaign video, it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word, while the President was in court," Karoline Leavitt, the campaign press secretary, said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Trump said at a fundraiser that Biden is running a “Gestapo administration,” referring to the secret Nazi police force.
Trump previously used rhetoric echoing Adolf Hitler when he said immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and called his opponents “vermin.”
At least one of the headlines flashing in the video appears to be text that is copied verbatim from a Wikipedia entry on World War I: “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich.”
In one image, the headlines “Border Is Closed” and “15 Million Illegal Aliens Deported” appear above smaller text with the start and end dates of World War I.
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,153
Trump Media and Technology Group posts more than $300 million net loss in first public quarter
Yesterday
SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) — Trump Media and Technology Group, the owner of former President Donald Trump's social networking site Truth Social, lost more than $300 million last quarter, according to its first earnings report as a publicly traded company.
For the three-month period that ended March 31, the company posted a loss of $327.6 million, which it said included $311 million in non-cash expenses related to its merger with a company called Digital World Acquisition Corp., which was essentially a pile of cash looking for a target to merge with. It’s an example of what’s called a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, which can give young companies quicker and easier routes to getting their shares trading publicly.
A year earlier, Trump Media posted a loss of $210,300.
Trump Media said collected $770,500 in revenue in the first quarter, largely from its “nascent advertising initiative." That was down from $1.1 million a year earlier.
“At this early stage in the Company’s development, TMTG remains focused on long-term product development, rather than quarterly revenue,” Trump Media said in its earnings news release.
Earlier this month, the company fired an auditor that federal regulators recently charged with “massive fraud.” The former president’s media company dismissed BF Borgers as its independent public accounting firm on May 3, delaying the filing of the quarterly earnings report, according to a securities filings.
Trump Media had previously cycled through at least two other auditors — one that resigned in July 2023, and another that was terminated its the board in March, just as it was re-hiring BF Borgers.
Shares of Trump Media climbed 36 cents to $48.74 in after-hours trading. The stock, which trades under the ticker symbol “DJT,” began trading on Nasdaq in March and peaked at nearly $80 in late March.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
POOTWH not testifying? Whaaaaaa? After all that complaining about being silenced and gagged and not allowed to talk? Whaaaaaaa? Thought for sure that the most innocent person ever persecuted would have had a few words, under oath. Suckers.
Defense rests without ex-President Trump taking the witness stand in his New York hush money trial
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JAKE OFFENHARTZ, JILL COLVIN and COLLEEN LONG
11 mins ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s lawyers rested their defense Tuesday without the former president taking the witness stand in his New York hush money criminal trial, moving the case closer to the moment when the jury will begin deciding his fate.
“Your honor, the defense rests,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge. Trump's team concluded with testimony from a former federal prosecutor who had been called to attack the credibility of the prosecution’s key witness, one of two people summoned to the stand by the defense. The Manhattan district attorney's office called 20 witnesses over 15 days of testimony before resting its case Monday.
The jury was sent home for a week, until May 28, when closing arguments are expected, but the attorneys returned to the courtroom to discuss how the judge will instruct jurors on deliberations, a sort of road map meant to help them apply the law to the evidence and testimony. The two sides haggled over word choices, legal phrases and descriptions of campaign-related issues.
Trump, the first former American president to be tried criminally, did not answer questions about why he did not testify.
Trump had previously said he wanted to take the witness stand in his own defense, but there was no requirement or even expectation that he do so. Defendants routinely decline to testify. His attorneys, instead of mounting an effort to demonstrate Trump’s innocence to jurors, focused on attacking the credibility of the prosecution witnesses. That’s a routine defense strategy; the burden of proof in a criminal case lies with the prosecution. The defense doesn’t have to prove a thing.
Yet even as Trump denounces the trial as a politically motivated travesty of justice, he has been working to turn the proceedings into an offshoot of his presidential campaign. He’s capitalized on the trial as a fundraising pitch, used his time in front of the cameras to criticize President Joe Biden and showcased a parade of his own political supporters.
Prosecutors have accused the presumptive Republican presidential nominee of a scheme to scoop up and bury negative stories in an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. It's the first of Trump's four criminal cases to go to trial, and quite possibly the only one before the 2024 presidential election.
“They have no case,” Trump said Tuesday morning before court adjourned. “There’s no crime.”
And they sat intently in the jury box as Trump's former-lawyer-turned-foe Michel Cohen placed Trump in the middle of the scheme to buy Daniels' story to keep it from going public in the waning weeks before the 2016 presidential election. During that time, Republicans were wringing their hands in distress over the potential political fallout from the infamous “Access Hollywood" tape.
But the crux of the prosecution's case centers not on the spectacle but on business transactions, including internal Trump Organization records in which payments to Cohen were falsely labeled legal expenses. Prosecutors argued that those payments were really reimbursements to Cohen doled out in chunks, for a $130,000 payment he made on Trump's behalf to keep Daniels quiet. Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. The offense is in the lowest tier of felony charges in New York state, and it is punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction would result in prison time.
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. defended his father’s decision not to testify.
“There’d be absolutely no reason, no justification to do that whatsoever. Everyone sees it for the sham that it is,” the younger Trump said as he left a news conference Tuesday with supporters of the former president outside the courthouse.
The judge has yet to rule on a defense request to throw out the charges before jurors even begin deliberating based on the argument that prosecutors have failed to prove their case. Such long-shot requests are often made in criminal cases but are rarely granted.
The final witness was Robert Costello, a former federal prosecutor, who was first called Monday afternoon and who angered the judge by rolling his eyes and talking under his breath. The judge cleared the courtroom and threatened to remove Costello if he didn’t show more respect.
Tuesday's testimony was absent the same kind of drama as Trump's lawyers sought to use Costello to undermine Cohen's credibility. The two had a professional relationship that splintered in spectacular fashion. Costello had offered to represent Cohen soon after the lawyer’s hotel room, office and home were raided and as Cohen faced a decision about whether to remain defiant in the face of a criminal investigation or to cooperate with authorities in hopes of securing more lenient treatment.
Costello bristled as he insisted to prosecutors that he did not feel animosity toward Cohen and did not try to intimidate him. “Ridiculous. No,” he said to the latter.
But Costello has repeatedly maligned Cohen’s credibility and was even a witness before last year’s grand jury that indicted Trump, offering testimony designed to undermine Cohen’s account. In a Fox News Channel interview last week, Costello accused Cohen of lying to the jury and using the case to “monetize” himself.
Prosecutors sought to show that Costello was part of a pressure campaign to manipulate and arm-twist Cohen in order to keep him in Trump’s corner once he came under federal investigation. Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Costello about a 2018 email in which he assured Cohen that he was “loved” by Trump’s camp, “they are in our corner” and “you have friends in high places.”
Asked who those “friends in high places” were, Costello said he was talking about Trump, then the president.
Trump lawyer Emil Bove tried to undo that portrayal.
“Did you ever pressure Michael Cohen to do anything?” Bove asked.
“No,” Costello replied.
After the defense rested, Judge Merchan dismissed the jurors and looked ahead to closing arguments — the last time the jury will hear from either side. Deliberations could begin as early as next Wednesday, giving the panel their first chance to talk about the case. Until then, they're barred from discussing it.
“I’ll see you in a week,” Merchan told the jury.
___
Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz and Michelle Price in New York; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C.; and Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.
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The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,389
Trump campaign calls 'The Apprentice' film 'blatantly false,' director offers to screen it for him
By JAKE COYLE
1 hour ago
CANNES, France (AP) — Donald Trump’s reelection campaign called “The Apprentice,” a film about the former U.S. president in the 1980s, “pure fiction” and vowed legal action following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. But director Ali Abbasi is offering to privately screen the film for Trump.
Following its premiere Monday in Cannes, Steven Cheung, Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement that the Trump team will file a lawsuit “to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers."
“This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked," Cheung said.
“The Apprentice” stars Sebastian Stan as Trump. The central relationship of the movie is between Trump and Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), the defense attorney who was chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy’s 1950s Senate investigations of suspected communists.
Asked about the Trump campaign's statement Tuesday in Cannes, Abbasi told reporters: “Everybody talks about him suing a lot of people — they don’t talk about his success rate though, you know?”
But the Iranian Danish director also struck a less combative tone as he discussed the film at its festival press conference. He offered to screen “The Apprentice” for Trump and talk it over.
“I don’t necessarily think that this is a movie he would dislike," said Abbasi. “I don’t necessarily think he would like it. I think he would be surprised, you know? And like I’ve said before, I would offer to go and meet him wherever he wants and talk about the context of the movie, have a screening and have a chat afterwards, if that’s interesting to anyone at the Trump campaign.”
In the film, Cohn is depicted as a longtime mentor to Trump, coaching him in the ruthlessness of New York City politics and business. Early on, Cohn aided the Trump Organization when it was being sued by the federal government for racial discrimination in housing.
“The Apprentice,” which is labeled as inspired by true events, portrays Trump’s dealings with Cohn as a Faustian bargain that guided his rise as a businessman and, later, as a politician. Stan’s Trump is initially a more naive real estate striver, soon transformed by Cohn’s education.
The film notably contains a scene depicting Trump raping his wife, Ivana Trump (played by Maria Bakalova ). In Ivana Trump’s 1990 divorce deposition, she stated that Trump raped her. Trump denied the allegation and Ivana Trump later said she didn’t mean it literally, but rather that she had felt violated.
That scene and others make “The Apprentice” a potentially explosive big-screen drama in the midst of the U.S. presidential election. The film is for sale in Cannes, so it doesn’t yet have a release date.
After the premiere, Abbasi addressed the Cannes audience, saying “there is no nice metaphorical way to deal with the rising wave of fascism.”
“The good people have been quiet for too long,” he said. "So I think it’s time to make movies relevant. It’s time to make movies political again.”
Listing wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, Abbasi, whose previous film " Holy Spider " depicted a serial killer murdering women in Iran, warned of trouble ahead.
“In the time of turmoil, there's this tendency to look inwards, to bury your head deep in the sand, look inside and hope for the best — hope for the best, hope for the storm to get away,” Abbasi said. “But the storm is not going to get away. The storm is coming. The worst times are coming.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
POOTWH not testifying? Whaaaaaa? After all that complaining about being silenced and gagged and not allowed to talk? Whaaaaaaa? Thought for sure that the most innocent person ever persecuted would have had a few words, under oath. Suckers.
but he's gagged though, silly.
in all seriousness, i do not believe he understands that a gag order does not apply to testimony in a trial. his followers certainly do not understand that, so i guess no harm, no foul.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
POOTWH not testifying? Whaaaaaa? After all that complaining about being silenced and gagged and not allowed to talk? Whaaaaaaa? Thought for sure that the most innocent person ever persecuted would have had a few words, under oath. Suckers.
but he's gagged though, silly.
in all seriousness, i do not believe he understands that a gag order does not apply to testimony in a trial. his followers certainly do not understand that, so i guess no harm, no foul.
He has lawyers for a reason (supposedly).
'05 - TO, '06 - TO 1, '08 - NYC 1 & 2, '09 - TO, Chi 1 & 2, '10 - Buffalo, NYC 1 & 2, '11 - TO 1 & 2, Hamilton, '13 - Buffalo, Brooklyn 1 & 2, '15 - Global Citizen, '16 - TO 1 & 2, Chi 2
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
Many years and multiple threads about trump getting j ducted, and almost no comments regarding his likely only trial before Election Day?
Not sure the prosecution proved that trump knew his CFO classified the payments to cohen falsely as legal fees.
Hmmmmmm, sure.
Was there supposed to be evidence in that comment? Just curious if there is a smoking gun that will get twelve jurors to vote for conviction beyond doubt. I hope they do but not seeing anything beyond a mistrial. I have seen the paper trail and not sure they have trump tied to the fraud. And cohen blew up on the stand. Twice.
Many years and multiple threads about trump getting j ducted, and almost no comments regarding his likely only trial before Election Day?
Not sure the prosecution proved that trump knew his CFO classified the payments to cohen falsely as legal fees.
Hmmmmmm, sure.
Was there supposed to be evidence in that comment? Just curious if there is a smoking gun that will get twelve jurors to vote for conviction beyond doubt. I hope they do but not seeing anything beyond a mistrial. I have seen the paper trail and not sure they have trump tied to the fraud. And cohen blew up on the stand. Twice.
I don't think Cohen blew up at all...depends on what you believe I guess. The defense's last witness was a disaster (Costello).
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
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its not fuckstick. its the base. they want to keep they seat the occupy.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Retaining power is all that matters.
God help us.
Could be a fun Memorial Day Weekend. Think the trial wraps up before then.
I maintain that the prospect of an R in the white house is all they care about... Party over country, blackmail isn't needed.
Unfortunately, since the other trials are delayed, a lot hinges on Michael Cohen this week. That is fucking crazy to think about.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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By Aaron Blake
May 17, 2024 at 11:15 ET
Prosecutors took care to emphasize at the start of former president Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial last month that their credibility-challenged witness Michael Cohen’s testimony would be corroborated by evidence. The message: You don’t have to take his word for it.
But on some key aspects of the case, they’ve still been forced to rely on Cohen’s say-so. That made the cross-examination of Cohen this week the most high-stakes moment of the trial.
On Thursday, after extensive grilling of Cohen, Trump’s lawyers finally drew blood.
But how much did it undermine Cohen’s credibility — and potentially the prosecution itself?
Trump’s lawyer adamantly claimed he had caught Cohen in a lie from just days earlier. That’s not quite so clear, but there is no question that what transpired Thursday could cause jurors to second-guess key claims from Cohen, a witness they’ll be well aware has admitted to lying in proceedings before (on Trump’s behalf).
Given the importance of the exchange, it’s worth a parsing.
The focal point of the dispute is an 8:02 p.m. phone call on Oct. 24, 2016, during which Cohen discussed the Stormy Daniels hush money payment with Trump, he testified.
Prosecutors briefly broached the 8:02 p.m. call Monday during Cohen’s first day of testimony. Cohen said he had reached out to Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, “to discuss the Stormy Daniels matter and the resolution of it.”
The prosecutor asked whether the conversation included having “resolved that you were moving forward to fund the deal.”
Cohen replied: “Yes.”
But Trump’s lawyers suggested Thursday that this never happened. And they presented evidence that would suggest that the purpose of the call was entirely different.
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche noted that, shortly before the phone call, Cohen had been texting with Schiller about another matter: harassing phone calls he had been receiving, including from a phone whose user identified themselves as 14 years old.
Here’s the timeline:
7:48 p.m. Oct. 24: Cohen texts Schiller, “Who can I speak to regarding harassing calls to myself and office, the dope forgot to block his call on one of them.”
8:01 p.m.: Schiller leaves Cohen a voice mail.
8:02 p.m.: Schiller texts Cohen, “Call me.”
8:02 p.m.: Cohen calls Schiller. The call lasts 1 minute 36 seconds.
8:04 p.m.: Cohen texts Schiller the 14-year-old’s number.
7:58 a.m. Oct. 25: Cohen texts Schiller, asking if Schiller reached the family.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not sure the prosecution proved that trump knew his CFO classified the payments to cohen falsely as legal fees.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
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NEW YORK (AP) — The judge in Donald Trump's hush money trial cleared the courtroom of reporters Monday and then threatened to remove the defense's witness from the trial altogether because of his behavior on the stand, which included making comments under his breath and rolling his eyes, a court transcript showed.
Judge Juan M. Merchan told Robert Costello, a former federal prosecutor, that his conduct during testimony was contemptuous. Costello aggravated Merchan repeatedly in part by continuing to speak after objections were sustained — a signal to witnesses to stop talking. At one point, Costello remarked “jeez” when he was cut off by an objection. He also called the whole exercise “ridiculous.”
The exchange came toward the end of a heated day that included the prosecution’s star witness admitting to stealing tens of thousands of dollars from Trump’s company. Trump’s lawyers also pressed Merchan to dismiss the case after prosecutors concluded their presentation of evidence. The judge didn’t immediately rule on that request.
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But the most tense moments happened with Costello on the witness stand. Merchan first sent the jury out of the courtroom to discuss proper decorum. He chided Costello for remarking “jeez” when he was cut off by a sustained objection and, at another point, “strike it." Merchan told him: "I’m the only one that can strike testimony in the courtroom. Do you understand that?”
“And then if you don’t like my ruling, you don’t give me side eye and you don’t roll your eyes.”
Merchan was about to bring the jury back in when he asked Costello, “Are you staring me down right now?” and then kicked out the press to further admonish him.
“I’m putting you on notice that your conduct is contemptuous," Merchan said, according to the transcript of the conversation that occurred when the press was out of the room. ”If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand."
Costello didn’t return a message seeking comment Monday night.
When Merchan brought the press back in, Costello's testimony continued and it will resume Tuesday. The defense is using him in an effort to attack the credibility of Trump attorney-turned-adversary, Michael Cohen.
After jurors left for the day, defense attorney Todd Blanche told the judge that prosecutors failed to prove their case and that it should be thrown out immediately. Blanche beseeched the judge to “not let this case go to the jury relying on Mr. Cohen’s testimony.”
The judge appeared unmoved by the argument, asking the defense attorney whether he believed that “as a matter of law, this person’s so not worthy of belief that it shouldn’t even be considered by the jury?”
“You said his lies are irrefutable,” the judge replied. “But you think he’s going to fool 12 New Yorkers into believing this lie?”
Cohen was the last witness — at least for now — for prosecutors, who are trying to prove that Trump sought to bury unflattering stories about himself and then falsified internal business records to cover it up as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election. The defense has painted Cohen as a media-obsessed liar who is on a revenge mission aimed at taking down Trump.
The defense called Costello because of his role as a Cohen antagonist and critic in the years since their professional relationship splintered in spectacular fashion.
Costello had offered to represent Cohen soon after the lawyer’s hotel room, office and home were raided and as Cohen faced a decision about whether to remain defiant in the face of a criminal investigation or to cooperate with authorities in hopes of securing more lenient treatment.
Costello testified that Cohen told him Trump “knew nothing” about the $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels that's at the center of the case.
“Michael Cohen said numerous times that President Trump knew nothing about those payments, that he did this on his own, and he repeated that numerous times,” Costello told jurors.
Trump lawyer Emil Bove told the judge that the defense does not plan to call any other witnesses after Costello, though they may still call campaign-finance expert Bradley A. Smith for limited testimony. They have not said definitively that Trump won’t testify, but that’s the clearest indication yet that he will waive his right to take the stand in his own defense.
Back on the witness stand for a fourth day, Cohen told jurors earlier Monday that he stole from the Trump Organization after his 2016 holiday bonus was slashed to $50,000 from the $150,000 he usually received.
Cohen claimed to have paid $50,000 to a technology firm for its work artificially boosting Trump's standing in a CNBC online poll about famous businessmen. Cohen said he gave the firm only $20,000 in cash in a brown paper bag, but he sought reimbursement from Trump for the full amount, pocketing the difference.
Cohen said he never paid the Trump Organization back. Cohen has never been charged with stealing from Trump’s company.
Cohen is a key witness but also a complicated one. He admitted on the witness stand to a number of past lies, many of which he claims were meant to protect Trump. Cohen also served prison time after pleading guilty to various federal charges, including lying to Congress and a bank and engaging in campaign-finance violations related to the hush money scheme.
But when pushed by Blanche, Cohen stood by his recollection of conversations with Trump about the hush money payment to Daniels. Cohen testified that he spoke with Trump more than 20 times about the matter in October 2016.
“No doubt in your mind?” Blanche asked about whether Cohen specifically recalled having conversations with Trump about the Daniels matter. No doubt, Cohen said.
After more than four weeks of testimony, jurors could begin deliberating as soon as next week to decide whether Trump is guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.
The charges stem from internal Trump Organization records where payments to Cohen were marked as legal expenses. Prosecutors say they were really reimbursements for the payment to Daniels to keep her from going public before the 2016 election with claims of a sexual encounter with Trump. Trump says nothing sexual happened between them.
Trump has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers say there was nothing criminal about the Daniels deal or the way Cohen was paid.
"There’s no crime," Trump told reporters after arriving at the courthouse Monday. “We paid a legal expense. You know what it’s marked down as? A legal expense."
Prosecutors will have have an opportunity to call rebuttal witnesses once Trump's witnesses are done. The judge, citing scheduling issues, said he expects closing arguments to happen May 28, the Tuesday after Memorial Day.
____
Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Jill Colvin and Michelle Price in New York; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
NEW YORK (AP) — A video posted to Donald Trump's account on his social media network Monday included references to a “unified Reich” among hypothetical news headlines if he wins the election in November.
The headline appears among messages flashing across the screen such as “Trump wins!!” and “Economy booms!” Other headlines appear to be references to World War I.
The word “Reich” is often largely associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich, though the references in the video Trump shared appear to be a reference to the formation of the modern pan-German nation, unifying smaller states into a single Reich, or empire, in 1871.
The 30-second video appeared on Trump's account at a time when the presumptive Republican nominee for president, while seeking to portray President Joe Biden as soft on antisemitism, has himself repeatedly faced criticism for using language and rhetoric associated with Nazi Germany.
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It was posted and shared on the former president's Truth Social account while he was on a lunch break from his Manhattan hush money trial.
“This was not a campaign video, it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word, while the President was in court," Karoline Leavitt, the campaign press secretary, said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Trump said at a fundraiser that Biden is running a “Gestapo administration,” referring to the secret Nazi police force.
Trump previously used rhetoric echoing Adolf Hitler when he said immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and called his opponents “vermin.”
The former president has also drawn wide backlash for having dined with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist in 2022 and for downplaying the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalists chanted “Jews will not replace us!”
At least one of the headlines flashing in the video appears to be text that is copied verbatim from a Wikipedia entry on World War I: “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich.”
In one image, the headlines “Border Is Closed” and “15 Million Illegal Aliens Deported” appear above smaller text with the start and end dates of World War I.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) — Trump Media and Technology Group, the owner of former President Donald Trump's social networking site Truth Social, lost more than $300 million last quarter, according to its first earnings report as a publicly traded company.
For the three-month period that ended March 31, the company posted a loss of $327.6 million, which it said included $311 million in non-cash expenses related to its merger with a company called Digital World Acquisition Corp., which was essentially a pile of cash looking for a target to merge with. It’s an example of what’s called a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, which can give young companies quicker and easier routes to getting their shares trading publicly.
A year earlier, Trump Media posted a loss of $210,300.
Trump Media said collected $770,500 in revenue in the first quarter, largely from its “nascent advertising initiative." That was down from $1.1 million a year earlier.
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“At this early stage in the Company’s development, TMTG remains focused on long-term product development, rather than quarterly revenue,” Trump Media said in its earnings news release.
Earlier this month, the company fired an auditor that federal regulators recently charged with “massive fraud.” The former president’s media company dismissed BF Borgers as its independent public accounting firm on May 3, delaying the filing of the quarterly earnings report, according to a securities filings.
Trump Media had previously cycled through at least two other auditors — one that resigned in July 2023, and another that was terminated its the board in March, just as it was re-hiring BF Borgers.
Shares of Trump Media climbed 36 cents to $48.74 in after-hours trading. The stock, which trades under the ticker symbol “DJT,” began trading on Nasdaq in March and peaked at nearly $80 in late March.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s lawyers rested their defense Tuesday without the former president taking the witness stand in his New York hush money criminal trial, moving the case closer to the moment when the jury will begin deciding his fate.
“Your honor, the defense rests,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge. Trump's team concluded with testimony from a former federal prosecutor who had been called to attack the credibility of the prosecution’s key witness, one of two people summoned to the stand by the defense. The Manhattan district attorney's office called 20 witnesses over 15 days of testimony before resting its case Monday.
The jury was sent home for a week, until May 28, when closing arguments are expected, but the attorneys returned to the courtroom to discuss how the judge will instruct jurors on deliberations, a sort of road map meant to help them apply the law to the evidence and testimony. The two sides haggled over word choices, legal phrases and descriptions of campaign-related issues.
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Trump, the first former American president to be tried criminally, did not answer questions about why he did not testify.
Trump had previously said he wanted to take the witness stand in his own defense, but there was no requirement or even expectation that he do so. Defendants routinely decline to testify. His attorneys, instead of mounting an effort to demonstrate Trump’s innocence to jurors, focused on attacking the credibility of the prosecution witnesses. That’s a routine defense strategy; the burden of proof in a criminal case lies with the prosecution. The defense doesn’t have to prove a thing.
Yet even as Trump denounces the trial as a politically motivated travesty of justice, he has been working to turn the proceedings into an offshoot of his presidential campaign. He’s capitalized on the trial as a fundraising pitch, used his time in front of the cameras to criticize President Joe Biden and showcased a parade of his own political supporters.
Prosecutors have accused the presumptive Republican presidential nominee of a scheme to scoop up and bury negative stories in an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. It's the first of Trump's four criminal cases to go to trial, and quite possibly the only one before the 2024 presidential election.
“They have no case,” Trump said Tuesday morning before court adjourned. “There’s no crime.”
Jurors have been given a lesson on the underbelly of the tabloid business world, where Trump allies at the National Enquirer launched a plan to keep seamy, sometimes outrageous stories about Trump out of the public eye by paying tens of thousands of dollars to “catch and kill” them. They watched as a porn actress, Stormy Daniels, recounted in discomfiting detail an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in a hotel room. Trump says nothing sexual happened between them.
And they sat intently in the jury box as Trump's former-lawyer-turned-foe Michel Cohen placed Trump in the middle of the scheme to buy Daniels' story to keep it from going public in the waning weeks before the 2016 presidential election. During that time, Republicans were wringing their hands in distress over the potential political fallout from the infamous “Access Hollywood" tape.
But the crux of the prosecution's case centers not on the spectacle but on business transactions, including internal Trump Organization records in which payments to Cohen were falsely labeled legal expenses. Prosecutors argued that those payments were really reimbursements to Cohen doled out in chunks, for a $130,000 payment he made on Trump's behalf to keep Daniels quiet. Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. The offense is in the lowest tier of felony charges in New York state, and it is punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction would result in prison time.
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. defended his father’s decision not to testify.
“There’d be absolutely no reason, no justification to do that whatsoever. Everyone sees it for the sham that it is,” the younger Trump said as he left a news conference Tuesday with supporters of the former president outside the courthouse.
The judge has yet to rule on a defense request to throw out the charges before jurors even begin deliberating based on the argument that prosecutors have failed to prove their case. Such long-shot requests are often made in criminal cases but are rarely granted.
The final witness was Robert Costello, a former federal prosecutor, who was first called Monday afternoon and who angered the judge by rolling his eyes and talking under his breath. The judge cleared the courtroom and threatened to remove Costello if he didn’t show more respect.
Tuesday's testimony was absent the same kind of drama as Trump's lawyers sought to use Costello to undermine Cohen's credibility. The two had a professional relationship that splintered in spectacular fashion. Costello had offered to represent Cohen soon after the lawyer’s hotel room, office and home were raided and as Cohen faced a decision about whether to remain defiant in the face of a criminal investigation or to cooperate with authorities in hopes of securing more lenient treatment.
Costello bristled as he insisted to prosecutors that he did not feel animosity toward Cohen and did not try to intimidate him. “Ridiculous. No,” he said to the latter.
But Costello has repeatedly maligned Cohen’s credibility and was even a witness before last year’s grand jury that indicted Trump, offering testimony designed to undermine Cohen’s account. In a Fox News Channel interview last week, Costello accused Cohen of lying to the jury and using the case to “monetize” himself.
Prosecutors sought to show that Costello was part of a pressure campaign to manipulate and arm-twist Cohen in order to keep him in Trump’s corner once he came under federal investigation. Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Costello about a 2018 email in which he assured Cohen that he was “loved” by Trump’s camp, “they are in our corner” and “you have friends in high places.”
Asked who those “friends in high places” were, Costello said he was talking about Trump, then the president.
Trump lawyer Emil Bove tried to undo that portrayal.
“Did you ever pressure Michael Cohen to do anything?” Bove asked.
“No,” Costello replied.
After the defense rested, Judge Merchan dismissed the jurors and looked ahead to closing arguments — the last time the jury will hear from either side. Deliberations could begin as early as next Wednesday, giving the panel their first chance to talk about the case. Until then, they're barred from discussing it.
“I’ll see you in a week,” Merchan told the jury.
___
Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz and Michelle Price in New York; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C.; and Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
CANNES, France (AP) — Donald Trump’s reelection campaign called “The Apprentice,” a film about the former U.S. president in the 1980s, “pure fiction” and vowed legal action following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. But director Ali Abbasi is offering to privately screen the film for Trump.
Following its premiere Monday in Cannes, Steven Cheung, Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement that the Trump team will file a lawsuit “to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers."
“This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked," Cheung said.
“The Apprentice” stars Sebastian Stan as Trump. The central relationship of the movie is between Trump and Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), the defense attorney who was chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy’s 1950s Senate investigations of suspected communists.
Asked about the Trump campaign's statement Tuesday in Cannes, Abbasi told reporters: “Everybody talks about him suing a lot of people — they don’t talk about his success rate though, you know?”
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But the Iranian Danish director also struck a less combative tone as he discussed the film at its festival press conference. He offered to screen “The Apprentice” for Trump and talk it over.
“I don’t necessarily think that this is a movie he would dislike," said Abbasi. “I don’t necessarily think he would like it. I think he would be surprised, you know? And like I’ve said before, I would offer to go and meet him wherever he wants and talk about the context of the movie, have a screening and have a chat afterwards, if that’s interesting to anyone at the Trump campaign.”
In the film, Cohn is depicted as a longtime mentor to Trump, coaching him in the ruthlessness of New York City politics and business. Early on, Cohn aided the Trump Organization when it was being sued by the federal government for racial discrimination in housing.
“The Apprentice,” which is labeled as inspired by true events, portrays Trump’s dealings with Cohn as a Faustian bargain that guided his rise as a businessman and, later, as a politician. Stan’s Trump is initially a more naive real estate striver, soon transformed by Cohn’s education.
The film notably contains a scene depicting Trump raping his wife, Ivana Trump (played by Maria Bakalova ). In Ivana Trump’s 1990 divorce deposition, she stated that Trump raped her. Trump denied the allegation and Ivana Trump later said she didn’t mean it literally, but rather that she had felt violated.
That scene and others make “The Apprentice” a potentially explosive big-screen drama in the midst of the U.S. presidential election. The film is for sale in Cannes, so it doesn’t yet have a release date.
After the premiere, Abbasi addressed the Cannes audience, saying “there is no nice metaphorical way to deal with the rising wave of fascism.”
“The good people have been quiet for too long,” he said. "So I think it’s time to make movies relevant. It’s time to make movies political again.”
Listing wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, Abbasi, whose previous film " Holy Spider " depicted a serial killer murdering women in Iran, warned of trouble ahead.
“In the time of turmoil, there's this tendency to look inwards, to bury your head deep in the sand, look inside and hope for the best — hope for the best, hope for the storm to get away,” Abbasi said. “But the storm is not going to get away. The storm is coming. The worst times are coming.”
The film's premiere unfolded while Trump's hush money trial continued in New York.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
in all seriousness, i do not believe he understands that a gag order does not apply to testimony in a trial. his followers certainly do not understand that, so i guess no harm, no foul.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
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