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Adult film actress Stormy Daniels wrapped up Thursday more than six hours of testimony over an alleged dalliance she had with former President Trump nearly two decades ago.
Trump is accused of falsifying business documents to cover up a hush money payment to Daniels during the 2016 presidential election to keep her from speaking out.
He has denied both having sex with Daniels and any illegal activity.
During her second day on the stand, Daniels was described as appearing more confident than her first turn on Tuesday. Cameras are not allowed in the New York courtroom.
Trump attorney Susan Necheles largely homed in on Daniels’ credibility to round out her questioning, highlighting Daniels’ experience in the porn industry and her time as a psychic medium.
The Hill’s Ella Lee, Lauren Sforza and Zach Schonfeld describe the scene:
“You have a lot of experience in making phony stories about sex appear to be real, correct?” Necheles asked Thursday.
With an indignant laugh, Daniels said that’s not how she would put it.
“I have experience memorizing dialogue, not how to have sex. … Pretty sure we all know how to do that,” she retorted.
Former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen, who handled the transaction but has since become a vocal critic of Trump, is also expected to take the stand in the trial.
After Daniels’ testimony wrapped, Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s one-time personal assistant who later became his Oval Office director, briefly took the stand.
She testified that Trump paid attention to details and preferred to personally sign things.
“My understanding is he was attentive to things that were brought to his attention,” she said.
Trump’s team made two requests from the judge before wrapping up Thursday. First, they asked the judge to narrow the gag imposed upon the former president so he could respond to Daniels’s testimony. Second, they pushed for a mistrial due to Daniels’s risqué testimony.
The judge denied both requests.
Follow The Hill’s live updates here.
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Welcome to Evening Report! I’m Liz Crisp, catching you up from the afternoon and what’s coming tomorrow. Not on the list? Subscribe here.
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White House warns Israel against ‘smashing’ into Rafah
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The Biden administration has reiterated its plan to temporarily withhold certain weapons from Israeli forces over threats to Rafah, a densely populated city in southern Gaza.
John Kirby, the national security spokesperson at the White House, told reporters Thursday that Israel has effectively eliminated Hamas military leaders and units since the militant group’s deadly attack on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7.
“The picture of Hamas today is not what it was six months ago as a result of the pressure that the Israelis have put on it,” Kirby said.
“Through the fighting that they have conducted over the last several months they have decimated many of their units.”
Kirby said a depleted Hamas force meant Israel does not need to conduct a full-scale invasion of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinian civilians have sought shelter.
“We believe that they have put an enormous amount of pressure on Hamas, and that there are better ways to go after what is left of Hamas in Rafah than a major ground operation,” Kirby said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to carry out the complete destruction of Hamas, has argued its last battalions are hiding in Rafah and must be defeated there.
Israel has already moved into Rafah, seizing a border crossing for humanitarian aid this week that connects to Egypt, but has yet to launch a major operation.
“We hope it doesn’t come to that,” Kirby said. “We hope that Israel won’t do that.” (The Hill)
President Biden has been walking a fine line as he tries to navigate the ongoing Middle East conflict.
The far left flank has pushed for an immediate ceasefire and for the U.S. to refuse additional aid to Israel, but Republicans and other critics already have accused him of abandoning a key ally.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell wrote on the social media platform X that Biden can’t claim “ironclad” support for Israel while denying weapons.
“If the Commander-in-Chief can’t muster the political courage to stand up to radicals on his left flank, the consequences will be grave and our enemies will be emboldened,” he wrote.
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NewsNation to air special report on border crisis
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NewsNation is set to air “Crisis on the Border,” a special one-hour edition of Dan Abrams Live at 9 p.m. Thursday.
Contributors to the special include national correspondents Ali Bradley from Eagle Pass, Texas and Jorge Ventura from San Diego, and senior national correspondent Brian Entin from Nogales, Ariz. NewsNation teams also will be embedded with law enforcement on the border and host a live panel of border agents and police chiefs from Texas to New York.
NewsNation, like The Hill, is owned by Nexstar Media Group. Check here for listings.
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Speaker Johnson won’t ‘hold grudges’ after failed ouster attempt
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Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) says he has no hard feelings after a fellow House Republican unsuccessfully tried to remove him from his leadership post this week.
“I don’t hold grudges. I’ve got to work with everybody,” Johnson said Thursday in a Fox News interview Thursday, hours after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) pushed for his removal. “I told her last night before she left the floor, let’s move on, Marjorie.”
Greene, who has taken issue with Johnson’s willingness to compromise to keep government operating in the divided Congress, has hit back her critics, arguing that nothing bad came of the effort, which failed in a landslide 359-43-7 vote with the help of Democratic House members.
“All the scary bad things they all told you would happen if I called the motion to vacate didn’t happen,” Greene wrote Thursday on the social platform X.
Greene said Democrats proved they “want to keep Johnson because he’s given them everything they want.”
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Judges refuse to toss Hunter Biden’s gun charges ahead of June trial
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An appeals court has rejected an attempt to get Hunter Biden’s federal gun charges tossed, setting the stage for a high-stakes criminal trial next month.
“This appeal is dismissed because the defendant has not shown the District Court’s orders are appealable before final judgment,” the three-judge panel from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in its ruling Thursday.
The judges focused on the younger Biden’s jurisdiction arguments but did not consider the merits of the appeal.
Abbe Lowell, Biden’s attorney, suggested in an emailed statement that his client is reviewing options. (The Hill)
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Former rivals Lee, Porter throw support behind Schiff in California
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Democratic California Rep. Barbara Lee has joined Rep. Katie Porter in backing their one-time mutual rival Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) in his bid for the Senate seat all three sought this year.
Schiff, who has represented Southern California in the House for more than two decades, received the most votes in a nonpartisan primary in March. He faces Republican Steve Garvey in November in the race to replace Sen. Diane Feinstein, who died in September.
“Californians have a clear choice this November in who they want representing them in the Senate — a Trump apologist or a defender of democracy,” Lee said in a statement this week. “Now more than ever, we need to elect people like Adam Schiff, who will stand up against the autocrats looking to divide this country and dismantle our democracy.”
Schiff, Lee and Porter fought a blistering battle to be the top Democratic Senate candidate in one of the nation’s most reliably liberal states.
“I strongly support him. I think he’s the right choice for Californians,” Porter said earlier this year. (The Hill)
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“The new moral panic: Social media,” writes Christopher Ferguson, psychology professor at Stetson University.
“Top senators believe the US secretly recovered UFOs,” writes Marik von Rennenkampff, a former analyst with the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.
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67 days until the Republican National Convention.
102 days until the Democratic National Convention.
179 days until the 2024 general election.
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Friday: President Trump‘s “hush money” trial continues in New York. Former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen has yet to be called, and it’s unclear if he’ll have his turn on the stand Friday or next week.
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