Hello, and welcome to the Guardian’s brand new US election newsletter.
Here’s what you need to know …
1. Trump’s mouth gets him further into debt
Donald Trump already owes $454m as a result of his civil fraud case in New York, and has been ordered to pay $88.3m to E Jean Carroll over a defamation lawsuit. Given Trump struggled to find the money for the former, the last thing he needed was to be fined $9,000 in his New York criminal trial, after he attacked witnesses online. Could the judge give him jail time if he does it again?
2. Biden’s banter bus
“The 2024 election is in full swing and yes, age is an issue,” Joe Biden said at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday. “I’m a grown man running against a six-year-old.” The joke continued Biden’s transition from grownup-in-the-room to Burn King in Chief, with the president and his campaign increasing their mocking attacks on Trump’s golf game, finances and mental aptitude.
Could student protesters turn the 2024 election?
Tensions on university campuses, already high as a wave of pro-Palestinian encampment-style protests sweeps the US, got even higher overnight.
The protests, which have seen students pitch tents or occupy buildings at Columbia, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and others, began as an effort to get universities to ditch investments in companies which provide weapons and equipment to the Israeli military.
If Trump wins, I don’t think it even matters what SCRotUS thinks, he’s going to go full-dictator mode and make institutions like that redundant.
He’ll try to pretend he will defer to them, but he’s a fucking psychopath, so the second one of them even looks at him the wrong way, the entire thing will be burned down for Trump’s benefit. Leopards eating faces and all that, you know.
Just like the Arab Spring, this is the American Spring. The youth will Win and many more concessions will be made than solely Israeli issues. It’s why they’re desperately freaking out