Trump news latest: Ex-president hugs Jan 6 rioter who called for Pence to be executed

The former president has been accused of sexual assault by more than two dozen women, but this is the first time a jury will be asked to determine the claims in court.

Legal experts told The Independent that Mr Trump’s likely non-appearance in the civil battery and defamation trial in the US District Courthouse in lower Manhattan was a major gamble.

“The risk for Trump if he doesn’t testify is huge,” Jennifer Keller, who represented Kevin Spacey when he was found not liable of sexual battery by a jury in 2022, told The Independent.

“The jury will hear only one side of the story — the plaintiff’s. And the jurors may well conclude he’s afraid of showing up because he knows the allegations are true.”

Almost two decades later, her experience of the future president allegedly “forcing his tongue” down her throat could prove essential testimony in the E Jean Carroll civil rape trial that began on 25 April in a federal court in New York City.

Before joining the magazine, Ms Stoynoff was a reporter and photographer at The Toronto Star, a columnist at The Toronto Sun, and a freelancer for Time Magazine. She then worked for People magazine for almost 20 years. She now lives in New York, where she writes books and screenplays, according to her bio on Goodreads.

Ms Carroll claims that Mr Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in 1995 or 1996 and that he later defamed her in 2019 as president when he rejected her allegation.

Donald Trump hugged a woman who spent time in prison for her role in the January 6 insurrection. She later said that former Vice President Mike Pence and “every single” member of Congress who voted to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory should be executed.

At a diner in New Hampshire, Mr Trump was notified by the people in the room that QAnon believer Micki Larson-Olson was a “January 6er”.

Mr Trump approached her, said she was “terrific” and told her to “hang in there”. He then embraced her, video from the episode shows, according to The Hill.

She told NBC News the following day that Mr Trump is the “real president,” adding that she “would like a front seat of Mike Pence being executed”.

“The punishment for treason is death, per the Constitution,” Larson-Olson said. “I believe every single person, every single person that stole a voice from our collective voice of ‘We the people, of the people, for the people, by the people,’ deserves death, and no less than that.”

Donald Trump has a problem.

He’s currently facing no fewer than three court proceedings in both civil and criminal courtrooms in his former home state of New York, and he can’t seem to keep his mouth shut about any of them.

In multiple instances, the twice-impeached ex-president’s conduct has caught the eye of the judges charged with overseeing cases against him, most recently in a New York City federal courtroom, where on Wednesday District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued a stern warning to Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopina.

The veteran jurist told Tacopina, who is representing Trump in a civil rape lawsuit brought by writer E Jean Carroll, that the former chief executive could have opened himself up to “a new source of potential liability” with inflammatory posts about the case on his Truth Social platform.

Specifically, Trump called the case a “scam” and made reference to alleged DNA evidence which isn’t going to be part of the trial.

Donald Trump is again threatening to skip a presidential debate.

The Republican former president has privately said that a debate in August would be too early and he would not participate, according to two people familiar with his concerns who insisted on anonymity to detail private discussions. He also has stepped up his public complaints this week, suggesting that his poll numbers are so high he has no reason to compete with the rest of the field.

“I see that everybody is talking about the Republican Debates, but nobody got my approval, or the approval of the Trump Campaign, before announcing them,” Trump said in a Tuesday post on his social media network.

Trump repeated the idea at at campaign event in New Hampshire on Thursday afternoon, showing a slideshow of his recent poll numbers among the GOP contenders and saying of the debates, “Why would you do that?”

Former President Donald Trump announced at a campaign event on Thursday that he is “retiring” the ‘Crooked’ nickname for Hillary Clinton and will instead be using it going forward for President Joe Biden.

“I will be retiring the name ‘Crooked’ from Hillary Clinton and her moniker, and I’m going to give her a new name, I don’t know, like maybe ‘Lovely Hillary’ or ‘Beautiful Hillary,’ but I’m going to retire the name ‘Crooked’ because he will be known from now on as ‘Crooked Joe Biden,’” Mr Trump said.

The watching crowd cheered and whistled. Mr Trump then speculated that Ms Clinton would be “celebrating” the announcement. He then launched a sizeable accusation at Mr Biden, the candidate who beat him handily in both the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2020.

Former vice president Mike Pence has given evidence before the federal grand jury investigating former president Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss to Joe Biden, The Independent has confirmed.

Mr Pence spent roughly seven hours testifying to the grand jury and answering questions from prosecutors led by Jack Smith, the US Department of Justice special counsel leading investigations into Mr Trump’s push to remain in office against the will of voters, and the twice-impeached ex-president’s alleged unlawful retention of national defence information.

Mr Pence’s appearance before the Washington DC grand jury comes less than 24 hours after a federal appeals court rejected a last-ditch appeal to block his testimony by Mr Trump’s legal team.

With less than two years remaining until US voters will decide who will serve as president of the United States from January 2025 to January 2029, former Republican government officials are starting to jockey for position in the coming fight for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, while at least one prominent Democrat (California governor Gavin Newsom) has reportedly pledged not to challenge President Joe Biden in a Democratic primary.

Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley on Thursday claimed that Americans should not vote for Joe Biden because he may die during a second term and leave Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the executive branch.

Ms Haley made the incendiary comment during an interview on Fox News, just days after Mr Biden – the oldest person to ever serve as America’s chief executive – announced his candidacy in next year’s presidential election.

“He announced that he’s running again in 2024, and I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you really are counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,” she said.

Mr Biden, who is 80 years of age, would be 82 on the day he is sworn in for a second term if he is re-elected next November. He would be 86 when his hypothetical second term expires.

The 46th president is generally considered to be in good health. In a memorandum released by the White House press office in February, Physician to the President Dr Kevin O’Connor said Mr Biden “remains a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief”.