Trump returns to NY fraud trial as he rails against gag order – live

Donald Trump called US military officials “some of the dumbest people” he’s ever met during a campaign event in Iowa.

And yet he still wants to be Commander-in-Chief again?

Donald Trump is being trolled after he said he would be “willing to go to jail” for the sake of democracy.

At a campaign event on Monday in Iowa, the former president told supporters: “I am willing to go to jail if that’s what it takes for our country to win and become a democracy again.”

Mr Trump is currently facing a number of criminal indictments, at both the federal level and in state cases in New York and Georgia.

One such indictment relates to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, for which he could receive a maximum sentence of 55 years.

Mr Trump is accused of conspiring to defraud the United States by preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory and conspiring to deprive voters of their right to a fair election.

Former president Donald Trump will be in court in Lower Manhattan this morning and wants everyone to know what he thinks about it…

Here’s what he posted on Truth Social earlier:

I will be attending the trial in Manhattan this morning. I greatly appreciate all of the legal professors and scholars that are saying I DID NOTHING WRONG. I can’t have a JURY and am being viciously tried under a Statute that has never been used before. The Radical Left Democrat Judge, WHO IS HIGHLY POLITICAL, serves as Judge, Jury, and everything else. America cannot let this happen. Our legal system is corrupt and broken! Everything emanates from Washington, “GET TRUMP.”

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday imposed a partial gag order restricting Donald Trump’s ability to make “disparaging or “inflammatory” comments about people or entities involved in the election interference case pending against him in Washington DC, after a contentious hearing in which his attorneys repeatedly made political arguments in response to legal questions from the veteran jurist.

Judge Chutkan rejected arguments by Mr Trump’s attorneys who frequently cited his status a candidate for president — something she had called irrelevant to the proceedings on more than one occasion — and claimed putting any restrictions on what he can discuss as he campaigns would violate his right to free speech

She said that even though the defence had “sought to represent every statement as part and parcel of Mr. Trump’s first amendment right to argue that this prosecution is politically motivated,” the First Amendment protections cited by Mr Trump’s counsel most “yield to the administration of justice and the protection of witnesses” with a “narrowly-tailored order to protect those interests”.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, DC.

Defence attorneys and prosecutors sparred Monday over questions for potential jurors who have to report later this week for the trial of Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, who are accused along with former President Donald Trump and others of illegally trying to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

Lawyers for Powell and Chesebro met with prosecutors and the judge overseeing the case to hash out what will be asked on a lengthy questionnaire when the first group of 450 prospective jurors arrives at the courthouse on Friday. Whether that should include questions about their opinions about potential witnesses, the other defendants and issues that go to the heart of the case dominated that discussion.

The Biden campaign has taken its trolling of former president Donald Trump to the next level, by announcing that it has joined his Truth Social platform.

A Biden campaign spokesperson told Fox News on Monday that it plans to use its new Truth Social presence to combat misinformation – but also admitted it had joined Mr Trump’s social network site “mostly because we thought it would be very funny”.

They also said that President Joe Biden plans to “[meet] voters where they are” adding that: “Republicans can’t even agree on a speaker of the House, so clearly, not every Republican thinks the same.”

Read the full story here:

Early in the morning of 6 October, former president Donald Trump threw his support behind Rep Jim Jordan in the race to become speaker of the House. The endorsement was not entirely surprising given Mr Jordan, an Ohio congressman, occupied the same lane in the House of Representatives that Mr Trump has as a presidential candidate and president – as an expression of conservatives who were dissatisfied with Republican leadership and a candidate who channelled their rage.

Following the failure of Majority Leader Steve Scalise to get the backing he needed for vote on the floor of the House, the focus has now returned to Mr Jordan, who was the only challenger to Mr Scalise in the first internal GOP vote on who should be the next speaker. Mr Scalise won that vote 113 to Mr Jordan’s 99.

A product of the Tea Party wave and founder of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, Mr Jordan’s tenure in the House led to the ouster of former speaker John Boehner, which set the stage for Kevin McCarthy’s downfall earlier this month, despite his steadfast support for the speaker.

Donald Trump has vowed to expand his Muslim travel ban to bar refugees from war-torn Gaza if he takes back the White House in 2024.

Speaking to supporters at a rally in Iowa on Monday night, the former president said that he would introduce “ideological screening” for all immigrants and refuse entry to the thousands of Palestinian people now displaced by the Israel-Hamas war.

“We aren’t bringing in anyone from Gaza, Syria, Somalia, Yemen or Libya or anywhere else that threatens our security,” Mr Trump said at the event.

“I banned refugees from Syria, I banned refugees from Somalia – very dangerous places – and from all of the most dangerous places all over the world, I banned them.”