Trump news – live: Vance slated for ‘kissing Trump’s ass’ as new details of McCarthy’s Jan 6 call emerge

The Manhattan tax fraud trial enveloping the Trump Organization is one of many that continue to vex the former president. But what do we know about this particular case?

For starters, it centres around an alleged scheme in which executives at the company, including CFO Alan Weisselberg, are accused of accepting “off the books” compensation to avoid federal taxes over the years.

The ongoing trial comes amid a litany of legal issues facing the former president, who was recently subpoenaed by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot.

Read more from The Independent:

Democrat John Fetterman, who is hoping to flip a Senate seat for his party in Pennsylvania, will appear live alongside his opponent Dr Mehmet Oz on Tuesday for the first and only debate of the 2022 election cycle.

It’s set to be a major event, given the national attention on the race as well as a bevy of speculation regarding Mr Fetterman’s ability to perform in a debate while he recovers from a stroke. The candidate released a second letter from his doctor last week stating that he is fit for office and has recovered most of his ability to process words when he hears them, and continues to use an auto-captioning device.

Read more from The Independent:

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has issued a threat to Anthony Fauci, saying the president’s chief medical adviser and his entire family are going to “suffer” after the midterm elections next month.

“On 8 November, when we destroy the Democratic party as a national political institution and really end the regime, the hunted become the hunters. The whole Fauci family is going to be welcome to the investigations. The entire family,” Mr Bannon said on his War Room podcast on Sunday.

Keep reading Mr Bannon’s full remarks in Sravasti Dasgupta’s report here.

A close ally of former President Donald Trump took the witness stand at his federal trial Monday to refute charges he secretly fed confidential information about Trump’s administration to the United Arab Emirates to advance the UAE’s foreign policy and business interests.

Tom Barrack, the onetime chair of Trump’s inaugural committee, told a New York City jury that it would have been “impossible” for him to act as a foreign agent for one Middle East investor in his private equity fund because other investors would object to it. Barrack said there’s an intense vetting process to assure that money managers don’t have such conflicts of interest.

Investors “want to know that nobody has an edge, that they’re all equal,” he said. Otherwise, “It would chill every other investor,” he added.

Read more from the Associated Press:

It’s “The least surprising thing ever”?

NFL fans are reacting to news from The New York Times, which reported on Monday that it had obtained a leaked audio clip in which another Republican politician told supporters that Mr DeSantis and Mr Brady were on texting terms.

Read more in The Independent:

Recreational marijuana could be legal in half the country if the handful of states with cannabis measures on ballots this November pass them.

Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota have measures on their ballots this fall for voters to consider legalizing recreational marijuana. They would join 19 states and the District of Columbia with recreational cannabis.

Read more from the Associated Press:

Donald Trump and his allies are reportedly preparing challenges to the 2022 midterm elections, raising baseless claims of voter fraud that fuelled his failed attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Alex Woodward has the story.

As jury selection begins in the Manhattan tax fraud trial of Donald Trump’s real estate company, one potential candidate for the jury told reporters there’s “no chance in hell” she could be unbiased in the case against the Trump Organization.

“He’s guilty in my mind whatever the case is — anything he does, anything his corporation does," said the “potential” juror, who doubtlessly would be dismissed for revealing such a view.

Read more about the trial from Josh Marcus:

Climate protestors interrupted Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s interview on The View on Monday to demand that the news network do more coverage of the climate crisis.

As the Republican senator, who was on the show to promote his book, was speaking, protesters could be heard breaking into a chant of “cover climate now”.

Senator Cruz spoke over the chanting for a while but the protesters were eventually scolded by the show’s host, Whoopi Goldberg.

“Let us do our job,” Ms Goldberg said. “We hear what you have to say but you gotta go.”

Read more:

Alaska’s maverick Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, is bucking her own party in the race for the state’s open at-large congressional seat.

Revealing this week to reporters that she was ranking Democrat Mary Peltola first in her ranked-choice ballot for November, Ms Murkowki is taking the latest move to spurn the Trump loyalist wing of the GOP.

Eric Garcia has more on her somewhat surprising choice.