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With help from Ella Creamer, Rishika Dugyala, Jesse Naranjo and Teresa Wiltz
What up, Recast family! Finland joins NATO, first lady Jill Biden gets lambasted for suggesting Iowa should visit the White House after LSU captures the NCAA women’s national basketball title. And! It’s Election Day in Wisconsin, Chicago, Los Angeles and Denver. First, though, we focus on a historic first in U.S. politics.
Today, the political circus is in full effect, with the Manhattan courthouse — where former President Donald Trump surrendered to authorities and was arraigned on criminal charges — serving as center ring.
GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and George Santos of New York added to the spectacle, making cameos at the pro-Trump protests across the street from where he’d be arraigned hours later.
The 34-count indictment brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and unsealed Tuesday afternoon largely stems from alleged hush money payments then-candidate Trump made through a fixer, Michael Cohen, to buy the silence of an adult film star Stormy Daniels. She also alleges she and Trump had an affair years earlier, which Trump denies.
No surprise, Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Long before the indictment became public, Trump sought to paint himself as a victim, the target of a political “witch hunt.” The leading 2024 Republican candidate also characterized Bragg, who is Black, as a racist in reverse, a corrupt prosecutor who should indict himself, according to a recent post on Trump’s social media platform Truth Social.
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Some view the courtroom drama as just the latest chapter of Trump’s unprecedented political career. They’re looking at it through the prism of history. And yes, while it is in fact true that no other former president has been criminally charged, Bragg is as much a trailblazer as the nation’s 45th commander in chief.
Bragg of course is the first African American to serve as the Manhattan district attorney and he’s been in office a little more than a year. By moving forward with the case, he is betting big that he can deliver a conviction in a potentially legacy-defining case.
“In a decade of law enforcement, I never met a prosecutor who couldn’t follow the law and keep politics out of their work,” Elliot Williams, a former federal prosecutor during the Obama administration, tells The Recast.
“It’s fair game to challenge an elected prosecutor’s politics,” Williams continues. “But many people, including the former president, have made race a proxy for politics in a way that’s just dangerous for America.”
Bragg’s big moment comes as he’s being met with criticism from the right that this case is politically motivated — and consternation from the left that the hush money case is potentially the weakest of the legal probes Trump faces.
And in addition to the New York case, he is facing other legal woes. In Georgia, there’s an investigation into his alleged interference with the outcome of the 2020 election in the Peach State. And the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to oversee two criminal probes related to the former president.
The indictment Bragg secured is by no means a slam dunk.
Chris Pilkerton, a former assistant Manhattan district attorney, who later went on to serve as acting administrator and general counsel for the Small Business Association during the Trump association, tells the Recast that unforeseen judicial rulings, shaky witness memories and a host of other things can complicate a prosecution. Pilkerton suggested that the case could as easily backfire on Bragg as make his career.
We’ll keep monitoring the legal and political drama this arraignment brings. Trump is set to address his supporters from Mar-a-Lago this evening. Never one to miss out on a fundraising opportunity, his fundraising arm is already selling T-shirts with a faux mugshot on it, the date of the court appearance and “Not Guilty” emblazoned in bold black letters. The cost: $36.
All the best,
The Recast Team
ELECTIONS WE’RE WATCHING
Today is the most consequential Election Day thus far in 2023.
There is the Chicago mayoral runoff; a contest that will determine the balance of power on the Wisconsin Supreme Court; and in Los Angeles, a seven-candidate race to fill the seat vacated by a former city council president. There’s also a mayoral contest in Denver that’s drawn a whopping 16 candidates.
Taken together, these elections will provide snapshots of how issues like crime and abortion, which were top of mind for voters in the midterms last fall, are playing out in the first quarter of 2023.
Chicago Mayoral Runoff
There’s no doubt that policing is on the ballot in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city. Nationally, Chicago is depicted by Republicans as a Democratic-run city that’s an incubator of lawlessness.
The inability to stem that narrative is partially why Chicagoans are heading back to the polls to select a new mayor after the incumbent Lori Lightfoot failed to finish among the top two in a crowded general election five weeks ago.
Today’s runoff features a pair of candidates with stark differences on how to address the issue. Paul Vallas, who is white and the top vote-getter in the Feb. 28 general election, is the former head of Chicago Public Schools. He’s received endorsements from Sen. Dick Durbin and former longtime Rep. Bobby Rush, both of whom appear in a recent ad, as well as the Fraternal Order of Police. Vallas has vowed to fill hundreds of police vacancies by rehiring retired officers and those who departed for other municipalities.
He’s taking on Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner, who is Black and who underscored his progressive bonafides last week at a rally where he was joined by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and activist Martin Luther King III.
Johnson is a former public school teacher and, as my POLITICO colleagues Juan Perez Jr. and Shia Kapos report, has earned endorsements from the powerful Chicago Teachers Union and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. Johnson has been dogged by allegations that he supports “defunding” law enforcement, but clarified in a recent interview that if elected, he would instead shift city funding to enact what he calls a “holistic approach to public safety.”
Wisconsin Supreme Court Runoff
Just how significant is the race for the open seat on Wisconsin’s high court?
Well for one, the amount of money spent on this contest topped $45 million, which my POLITICO colleagues Zach Montellaro and Madison Fernandez note is more than triple the state’s previous record for a judicial contest.
Beyond that, though, this contest, like most things in politics, is about power. Wisconsin is thought of as a battleground state in presidential contests, narrowly swinging for Trump in 2016, then breaking for Biden in 2020. But its state politics are heavily Republican. The Supreme Court is no exception, with conservatives holding a 4-3 majority.
Voters will decide if it stays that way. Because abortion is a top issue in the contest, election watchers see a potential ideological flip in the offing.
The contest is nominally nonpartisan. Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz, who has repeatedly signaled her support for abortion rights, is the more liberal option. Meanwhile, former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly occupies the conservative lane, attacking his opponent as being too soft on sentencing.
Zach and Madison break it down this way: “The outcome of the race could change the course of everything from a 1840s abortion ban winding its way through the courts to congressional and legislative maps that all but ensure GOP control. It could also have implications for the 2024 presidential election in the crucial swing state.”
LA City Council Special
It’s been nearly six months since former LA Council President Nury Martinez resigned amid a scandal brought on by the release of an hourlong recording where she used disparaging and racist remarks.
Voters in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles will decide which of seven candidates will serve the remainder of Martinez’s term, set to expire in December 2024. Policing and crime are among the top issues, but the rising costs of affordable housing and the city’s homelessness crisis are playing a role in this race, too.
This contest will go to a runoff in June if no candidate surpasses 50 percent of the vote.
Denver Mayoral General
Homelessness and crime are also at the center of the mayoral contest in Colorado’s capital city. Mayor Michael Hancock, who is Black and assumed office in 2011, is term-limited. Like the LA City Council contest, this race is expected to head to a runoff if none of the 16 mayoral candidates win a majority.
THE DOOR OF NO RETURN
White House correspondent Eugene Daniels, a friend of The Recast, traveled to Ghana to cover Vice President Kamala Harris’ first trip to Africa as a sitting vice president. It was Eugene’s first trip to the Motherland. Here’s his dispatch:
It was a little after 4 p.m., and I — along with other members of the traveling press — was waiting for the vice president. Before us was a sign: “Male Dungeons.”
All of a sudden, I felt sick to my stomach. And I began to weep.
We were staked out at Cape Coast Castle, a former slave port in what is now Ghana, where Africans were forcibly brought before being raped, beaten and sold as chattel across the ocean. It’s estimated that 3 million West African enslaved people embarked on the Atlantic Slave Trade from there, a stone doorframe standing as a reminder of their last sight of their African homeland.
Harris’ first two days in this West African nation were jam packed with political and cultural events. A bilateral meeting with Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo at the presidential palace was followed by a tour of an artist’s collective (where she was joined by actors Sheryl Lee Ralph and Idris Elba), and then a state dinner — all part of an effort to prove the United States was “all in” on investment in Africa.
Traveling to the continent for the first time with the highest-ranking Black woman in American history was surreal. Everywhere we went, the people of Ghana welcomed her with pomp and excitement. Every street along the motorcade was lined with people waving flags of the two countries. Posters, large and small, were posted all over Accra. In every event, she was greeted with “Akwaaba.”
Welcome.
It also felt like a welcome to me, too. Of course, the crowds weren’t there for me but as we ran from location to location, the crowds also waved at us: “Hello, brother!” “I love your hair!” “Welcome home!” I felt like I’d found something I’d been missing for decades. I looked in the faces of the Ghanaians and over and over saw the faces that resembled my living family members: the noses, the lips we were all born with.
This was the continent where my ancestors originated. Like many Black people around the world, I have never been able to trace my family’s genealogy. So while it was obviously a work trip, the personal experience often fought for my attention as I reckoned with the horror of history — while being tasked with documenting the history of Harris’ visit.
When we walked (quickly, to catch Harris on the other side) through the “Door of No Return,” through which enslaved people were led, never to see their native land again, I paused to touch the door. And I thought about all of the people who walked through this exact same door hundreds of years ago — not knowing what was coming next.
Unlike them, I got the chance to walk back through it.
ICYMI @ POLITICO
AOC’s Evolution — Disruptor to team player: The OG “squad” member relished her outsider status when she arrived in Washington four years ago, repeatedly challenging party leaders when others on the left would not dare. Now as POLITICO’s Nicholas Wu and Jordain Carney note in their profile of the New York congresswoman, she’s focusing on acquiring power in more traditional ways.
Points for Honesty — WATCH how the latest GOP 2024 White House hopeful, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, describes his candidacy:
The Battle for 2024 Undercard? — In one corner, there’s former Veep Mike Pence; in the other, there’s former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Inside Pence’s orbit, there have been complaints that Haley is receiving more favorable treatment in the press, according to POLITICO’s Adam Wren and Natalie Allison, who write this has “all the makings of the first, real undercard feud of 2024.”
THE RECAST RECOMMENDS
The ever-so-charming “Rye Lane,” set in South London, follows two 20-somethings as they navigate the quagmire of new singledom. It’s out on Hulu now.
Latin music power couple Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro spill the tea with Billboard.
Tyler the Creator confronts his past selves in the visual for “SORRY NOT SORRY.” One commenter writes that this is “the magnum opus of Tyler music videos” — we’re inclined to agree.
Nicole Chung’s memoir, “A Living Remedy,” examines death as a function of a failed health care system.
Gerardo Coronel’s uber-popular “Qué Onda Perdida” gets a collab with Regional Mexican sensation, Grupo Firme.
TikTok of the Day: Side-eye
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