Donald Trump walked out of the Manhattan courtroom just after a lawyer for writer E. Jean Carroll had begun issuing closing remarks Friday.
Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan is overseeing the ongoing sexual abuse defamation trial against the former President. Carroll is suing the former President for defamation over his 2019 denials that he sexually abused her decades earlier. The former Elle columnist secured a verdict last year finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and awarding her $5 million.
Now, she’s seeking some $10 million in damages for Trump’s denials.
According to The Hill, it’s unclear why Trump left the courtroom, though it occurred shortly after Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said the former president “has tried to normalize conduct that is abnormal.”
After Trump left, Judge Lewis Kaplan directed the defense — and, by name, adviser Boris Epshteyn — to remain seated, CNN and ABC News reported.
“The record will reflect that Mr. Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom,” said Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll’s lawyer.
Earlier Friday morning, Kaplan called out Trump’s attorney Alina Habba for continuing to talk when he told her she was finished.
“You are on the verge of spending some time in the lockup. Now sit down,” the judge told Habba.
P0120021CK-1111: President Joe Biden delivers his inaugural address Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
One down…
Over the weekend, a popular Democrat governor widely believed to be a top 2028 presidential contender officially took his name out of the running.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) on Sunday said he is “not running for president” in ’28 — knocking out one of the top contenders to lead the Democratic ticket, three years before the election.
Moore, while appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, was asked by host Kristen Welker if he plans on serving a full term if he wins reelection as governor next year. He told Welker he does plan on serving the full four-year term — leading her to clarify that means he is removing himself from the ’28 field.
“Do you rule out a run for president, governor?” Welker asked him.
“Yeah, I’m not running for president,” Moore responded.
She responded: “You rule it out?”
Moore then told her “Yes, I’m not running for president.”
At that point, Welker asked him once again to clarify his intentions, asking if he “completely” ruled it out.
Here is what Moore said:
“I’m so excited about what we’re doing. That we’ve gone from 43rd in the country in unemployment to now one of the lowest unemployment rates. We’ve had amongst the fastest drops in violent crime anywhere in the United States of America. Our population is growing. Maryland is moving, and so I’m really excited about going back in front of the people of my state and asking for another term.”
Watch:
🚨 NEW: Wes Moore just ruled out a run for President in 2028 as the Democrat field gets smaller pic.twitter.com/3hDQLFBZHp
Last month, Kalshi betting market put Moore at 6% odds to be the party’s nominee — which came in fourth behind California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) at 20%, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) at 15%, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (D) at 10%. The president site Polymarket also had Moore as a top five contender.
In 2024, the Maryland Governor faced controversy after falsely claiming to be a Bronze Star recipient on a 2006 White House fellowship application.
Moore, who was 27 years old when he applied for the White House position, blamed his Army superiors for the inclusion of the falsehood on the application and said he never corrected the mistake because he was eager to “begin the next phase” of his life, in a statement released after the New York Times reported on the embellishment.
“These are the facts,” the Maryland governor wrote in his lengthy statement. “While serving overseas with the Army, I was encouraged to fill out an application for the White House Fellowship by my deputy brigade commander. In fact, he helped me edit it before I sent it in. At the time, he had recommended me for the Bronze Star. He told me to include the Bronze Star award on my application after confirming with two other senior-level officers that they had also signed off on the commendation.”
Moore noted that his deputy brigade commander “felt comfortable with instructing me to include the award” on the application because he was under the impression that the medal for heroic or meritorious service had already been “approved by his senior leadership.”
“In the military, there is an understanding that if a senior officer tells you that an action is approved, you can trust that as a fact. That is why it was part of the application, plain and simple,” the governor explained.
“Towards the end of my deployment, I was disappointed to learn that I hadn’t received the Bronze Star. But I was ready to begin the next phase of my life,” Moore continued.
Moore deployed to Afghanistan as a lieutenant with the 82nd Airborne Division in 2005, according to his official governor’s biography.
Moore was ultimately awarded the Bronze Star in December 2024 for his deployment to Afghanistan.
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
The world’s richest man just grounded his spacecraft assisting the International Space Station…
On Thursday afternoon, Elon Musk publicly endorsed a call for President Donald Trump’s impeachment. Responding to a post on his social media platform X by conservative commentator Ian Miles Cheong — who suggested Trump should be impeached and replaced by Vice President JD Vance — Musk replied with a succinct “yes,” signaling his agreement with the sentiment.
The world’s richest man and SpaceX CEO said his space exploration company will ground the spacecraft used to shuttle astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station.
In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately pic.twitter.com/NG9sijjkgW
This development marks a dramatic escalation in the rapidly intensifying conflict between Musk and Trump. The feud erupted after Musk criticized Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a $1.6 trillion spending package projected to add $3 trillion to the national deficit as a “disgusting abomination.” Musk also condemned the bill for slashing electric vehicle and solar incentives while preserving subsidies for oil and gas.
“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” Musk added in a Tuesday afternoon post on X. “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk traded barbs and insults for hours Thursday, rupturing a relationship that had been one of the most consequential in modern American politics.
Trump suggested Musk was suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome” and that his opposition to Trump’s legislative agenda was because of the rollback of electric-vehicle tax credits in the measure. Musk, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help get Trump elected, said that Trump was ungrateful and wouldn’t be sitting in the Oval Office without his support.
The dispute sent Musk’s car maker Tesla to a market-value decline of around $152.4 billion, its biggest one-day slide on record.
The trigger for the public falling out has been Musk’s aggressive criticism of Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill,” which extends and expands tax cuts while also adding money for border enforcement and the military—partially offset by reductions in spending on Medicaid, food aid and clean-energy tax credits.
In retaliation, Trump labeled Musk as “crazy,” prompting Musk to accuse the president of suppressing the release of Jeffrey Epstein-related files, alleging that Trump’s name appears in the sealed documents.
As the situation continues to unfold, the political and economic ramifications of this high-profile feud remain to be seen.
On Friday morning, Fox News reported that Musk may speak with some of the President’s aides in an apparent effort to calm the growing feud between the two powerhouses.
A senior White House official told Fox News that Trump does not expect to speak to Musk today. However, White House aides told Doocy that Trump administration staffers might try to talk to Musk.
“No call scheduled or had. Musk wants a call. POTUS hasn’t made a decision,” a source familiar with the matter also told Fox News regarding a possible conversation between Trump and Musk.
Doocy also reported that a red Tesla vehicle that Trump bought during a Tesla demonstration on the South Lawn of the White House grounds earlier this year is now expected to be given away or sold off.
The vehicle with Florida tags, as of Friday, remains parked near the White House on West Executive Drive.
Office of Congressman Mark Meadows, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A Republican who ran to replace former Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) after he joined the Trump White House will plead guilty to accepting an illegal campaign contribution.
Federal prosecutors have charged Lynda Bennett for knowingly accepting a $25,000 campaign contribution from a relative that was made in someone else’s name.
Monday’s court filing indicated Bennett’s plan to plead guilty. Details surrounding the illegal contribution have largely been kept secret.
“This case involves a technical violation of campaign-finance regulations, based on a loan from a family member. Lynda looks forward to putting it behind her,” Bennett’s attorney, Kearns Davis, told Fox News Digital by email Monday.
Sentencing guidelines for violations of 52 USC 30122 list maximum penalties of five years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $50,000.
Bennett, an outspoken GOP activist ultimately lost her 2020 Congressional campaign to controversial firebrand Madison Cawthorn by about 32 percentage points, or 15,000 votes.
Federal campaign finance laws prohibited individual contributions that exceeded $2,800 for the 2020 primary cycle or $2,800 for that year’s general election cycle.
According to The Hill, Meadows’s wife, Debbie was close with Bennett and reportedly encouraged the former president to endorse her in the primary.
Breaking News: @realdonaldtrump has endorsed our campaign for Congress in #NC11. Thank you, Mr. President. I am honored to have your endorsement and am excited to help you Keep America Great. Join our campaign today by donating https://t.co/4UWuK9RsoBhttps://t.co/QGHXO6rIMm
By The White House - https://www.flickr.com/photos/202101414@N05/54581054338/, Public Domain,
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is calling for President Trump to be removed from office under the 25th Amendment after Trump said he would be less likely to pressure Denmark to give up Greenland had he won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
“Invoke the 25th Amendment,” Markey, who is facing a Democratic primary challenger this year, posted on social media, alongside an image of a New York Times report that said Trump tied his renewed interest in Greenland to not winning the Nobel Prize in a text message to Norwegian leader Jonas Gahr Støre.
Dr. King won a Nobel Prize as a paragon of peace. Donald Trump wants to invade ice-covered Greenland while terrorizing ICE-covered communities at home. Invoke the 25th Amendment now. pic.twitter.com/a1OWqZG0RL
According to the Times, Støre received a text message from Trump on Sunday in which the president suggested that failing to receive the Nobel Peace Prize has made him more willing to take a tougher approach toward U.S. interests, including Greenland, which remains a territory of Denmark.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars Plus, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee is a private organization and not part of the Norwegian government, although its members are appointed by Norway’s parliament.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., asserted Monday in a post on X that President Donald Trump is “mentally ill” and should be “immediately” removed from office via the 25th Amendment.
“The president of the United States is extremely mentally ill and it’s putting all of our lives at risk. The 25th Amendment exists for a reason — we need to invoke it immediately,” she declared in the post.
The president of the United States is extremely mentally ill and it’s putting all of our lives at risk. The 25th Amendment exists for a reason—we need to invoke it immediately. pic.twitter.com/HaywXdWxDK
— Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (@RepYassAnsari) January 19, 2026
A familiar Democratic playbook
Markey’s call is the latest example of Democrats escalating rhetoric about removing Trump from office—often after political disagreements or controversial headlines, rather than any clear constitutional crisis.
Since Trump returned to office, several prominent Democrats and progressive allies have floated impeachment-related ideas, renewed investigations, and other efforts aimed at sidelining the president. While the circumstances and legal arguments have varied, the broader theme has remained consistent: using procedural threats and public pressure campaigns to weaken a president they were unable to defeat politically.
Those efforts have ranged from calls for impeachment hearings to demands for special investigations and public claims that Trump is unfit to serve—despite the fact that voters returned him to the White House and gave him a governing mandate.
Since 2017, Texas Congressman Al Green (D) has attempted impeachment articles five times, often without the backing of House Democratic leadership. His previous filings — including charges such as “bigotry” and “bringing disrepute to the presidency” — were consistently tabled with bipartisan support, underscoring how little traction his efforts gained even before Trump’s two formal impeachments in 2019 and 2021. (RELATED:Democrat Lawmaker To File Impeachment Articles Against Trump)
Last week, Republican Congressman Don Bacon signaled he would move to impeach President Donald Trump if he follows through on his threat to invade Greenland and take it by force.
In an interview with the Omaha World-Herald, Bacon (R-NE) said he personally would “lean toward” voting to impeach the president if he were to follow through on threats to take over Greenland.
“I’ll be candid with you. There’s so many Republicans mad about this,” Bacon told the paper. “If he went through with the threats, I think it would be the end of his presidency.”
What the 25th Amendment actually requires
Despite Markey’s social media push, his demand to remove Trump from office is unlikely to gain traction.
Invoking the 25th Amendment would require Vice President Vance and a majority of Trump’s Cabinet to formally declare to Congress that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.
That declaration would immediately transfer presidential authority to the vice president.
The amendment then requires Congress to ratify any decision to keep the president out of power within 21 days of receiving the notification.
Two-thirds of both the House and the Senate would need to affirm the decision. Otherwise, Trump would regain full presidential authority.
The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination this year, is speaking out on his decision not to endorse Donald Trump.
“I get asked a lot if I believe Trump is a threat to our democracy,” he writes in a USA Today op-ed. “I am not good at predicting the future, but we can learn from history and we should take heed when politicians tell us what they are going to do.”
Hutchinson says in the piece that he voted for Trump twice, but that insight gleaned from former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) and the Department of Justice on the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol changed his mind.
“In terms of history, we all witnessed the violent attack on our national Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by those wishing to overturn the last election,” he writes. “This was not an act of patriots as Trump likes to say, but it was a real threat to democracy.”
“With Donald Trump’s domination of the GOP primaries and the elimination of all primary opponents, including the party leadership and Republican elected officials are clicking their heels in obedience to the victor and presumptive nominee. I have not endorsed Donald Trump for president, and I will not do so,” he writes.
But Hutchinson says he can’t support Biden’s policies either.
“Another important point to make is that I also will not vote for President Joe Biden. Biden’s weak border policies, his poor economic record and his slow growth energy policy do not justify reelection.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is trailing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) by a whopping 16 points in the 2026 Republican Senate primary, according to an internal poll reported by Punchbowl News on Monday.
The poll from the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) found Paxton leading with 50% support to Cornyn’s 34%, with 17% undecided.
Paxton, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, officially announced his candidacy last month. He is positioning himself as a more pro-MAGA alternative to Cornyn, who hardline Texas conservatives have painted as a moderate. Cornyn, Texas’s senior senator, has held his seat since 2002 and served in Senate leadership. He was a leading contender to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as GOP leader, but eventually lost the race to Sen. John Thune (R-SD).
Cornyn faced backlash over his work in crafting the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a gun safety law passed in 2022 after a massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
The legislation included enhanced background checks for gun buyers under 21 and was the first major federal gun control measure in decades.
Punchbowl News reported in a hypothetical three-way GOP primary, Paxton leads with 44%, followed by Sen. John Cornyn at 34% and Rep. Wesley Hunt at 19%, according to an internal Tarrance Group poll conducted April 27 to May 1.
In general election matchups against potential Democratic challenger Colin Allred, Cornyn leads by six points.
The report detailed the ancestry of America’s leaders as of the 117th Congress. The report found that five living presidents, two Supreme Court justices, 11 governors and 100 members of Congress had ancestors who owned slaves.
Presidents Biden, Carter, George W. Bush, Clinton and Obama all have ancestors who enslaved Black people in their family trees, according to the report, with Obama’s link coming from his White mother’s side.
However, Donald Trump’s family did not immigrate to the United States until after slavery was abolished.
At the Supreme Court, only Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch had slaveholding ancestors. Meanwhile, another recent report from the Washington Post found that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had ancestors who were enslaved, while her husband, Patrick Jackson, has ancestors who were slaveholders.
In Congress, Reuters found at least 100 lawmakers who could trace their family trees to slaveholders, including 28 senators and 72 representatives.
Prominent names included Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.
Looking east towards 6th Avenue along north (48th Street) side of Fox News building on a snowy afternoon. [Photo Credit: Jim.henderson, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons]
Former Fox News host Geraldo Rivera has publicly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, marking a dramatic shift after years of aligning himself with former President Donald Trump. Rivera, who had long been a supporter and personal friend of Trump, announced his support for Harris in a statement posted Monday morning.
Rivera’s endorsement, titled “Sore Loser,” came with sharp criticism of Trump’s post-2020 election actions. He reflected on the political journey of the former president, recounting their relationship from Trump’s 2016 run through his tumultuous time in office. Rivera noted that while he initially admired Trump’s rise to power, his views changed dramatically following the 2020 election and the subsequent events that led to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“Donald J. Trump stands a reasonable chance of becoming the 47th President of the United States,” Rivera wrote. “Despite assassination attempts, impeachments, special counsels, felony convictions, and hundreds of millions in civil penalties, most polls show his race against V.P. Kamala Harris is too close to call.”
The veteran broadcaster expressed disappointment with Trump’s response to his 2020 election loss, highlighting their final conversation in November 2020. According to Rivera, Trump was initially open to the idea of accepting the election results, but later changed course, engaging in what Rivera described as a “menacing campaign” to discredit the election.
Mark Taylor from Rockville, USA, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
“None exists,” Rivera said, referring to Trump’s unfounded claims of systemic election fraud. He accused Trump of misleading Republicans and his supporters into believing in the so-called “Big Lie” about the stolen election, leading to the chaotic breach at the Capitol.
In his statement, Rivera criticized Trump’s handling of the events of Jan. 6, 2021, including the pressure Trump exerted on then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results. “Trump stabbed the Constitution in the back,” Rivera added.
At that point, Rivera, whose net worth is estimated at around $20 million, criticized tens of millions of Trump supporters who believe, as economic indicators show, that the economy was stronger during Trump’s presidency—especially in contrast to the soaring inflation and real wages lagging far behind under the Biden-Harris administration.
Rivera also failed to acknowledge the appeal of Trump’s other policies for many voters, such as those focused on border security and world peace.
The television personality did not mince words about his opinion of supporting Trump again. “If you are a Republican, Donald Trump has made a liar of you,” he said.
Rivera concluded his endorsement by stating, “That is why I am voting for Kamala Harris to be our 47th President.”
Sunday’s NBC News poll shows Trump pulling even with Kamala Harris after trailing by 5 points last month.
JUST IN: Donald Trump now leads in every swing state except Nevada on political betting platform Polymarket.
Bettors are becoming increasingly confident Trump will win the election as he surges to nearly a double-digit lead.
On Monday, CNN revealed that Trump is performing better with Black voters than any Republican since the 1960s—and it’s not just due to Black men. The poll also shows that Harris is attracting fewer Black female voters than any Democrat since the 1960s.
No matter how you splice the data, Trump seems to be the strongest Republican with Black voters since 1960. Young Black men in particular have trended right during Trump's runs (cutting the Dem margin by 40 pts from 2012).
While he was not technically “fired” from Fox News, Rivera left the network under contentious circumstances in June 2023. Rivera announced his departure from The Five, one of Fox News’ most popular shows, after a series of disagreements with his co-hosts, particularly over his opposition to Trump. He hinted at tensions behind the scenes, saying his exit was “amicable,” but also indicated he was “fired” from The Five.
Rivera first joined Fox News Channel in 2001. Over the years, he became a prominent figure at the network, hosting his own show, Geraldo at Large, and appearing regularly on various Fox News programs, including The Five.
Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News
