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‘Bizarre’: Trump Quotes Yogi Berra in Critical SCOTUS Motion
Attorneys for Donald Trump filed a motion late Monday afternoon asking the U.S. Supreme Court to put on hold a lower court’s ruling rejecting his claims of “presidential immunity.” But legal experts were quick to trash the filing that is critical to his defense, calling it “bizarre” and questioning why it quotes baseball icon Yogi Berra in the very first sentence.
big day for the yogi berra museum https://t.co/pwbF7UFWtF pic.twitter.com/jRVSIjlyDj
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) February 12, 2024
NBC News calls Trump’s decision to go to the U.S. Supreme Court “a last-ditch effort to prevent his prosecution in the federal election interference case from moving closer to trial.” In so doing, “Trump asked the justices to put on hold an appeals court ruling that rejected his broad claim of presidential immunity in relation to events leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.”
Professor of law Andrew Weissmann, the well-known MSNBC legal analyst and former DOJ official who also worked on the Mueller Report, appeared stunned just moments after reading the Trump motion on Monday.
Asked, “what strikes you?” Weissmann paused momentarily, then replied, “Two things.”
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“The first is the incredibly inappropriate first sentence, citing Yogi Berra. You know, if you were going to be snarky, they might as well have cited Yogi Bear. I mean, this is, that is, that is just a bizarre way to start.”
“Remember,” Weissmann continued, “Donald Trump and his lawyers have said that their position is that the President of the United States can kill people. And as long as he hasn’t been impeached, successfully, that he was impeached and convicted for it, he cannot be prosecuted. So that for something this serious, that is a bizarre, really bizarre first sentence.”
“The second thing is that stressing this argument about, shifting I think a bit their theory, which is that all of the actions that are charged by Jack Smith are within the outer bounds of what a president can do. The problem with that is that a very, very well respected 11th Circuit Judge, the chief judge, Judge Prior has rejected that in connection with a decision that Judge Prior wrote in connection with Mark Meadows, so I don’t think leading with that kind of argument, after leading where the first sentence is Yogi Berra then going to an argument that you know that Judge Pryor has rejected? Both of those are not terribly, in my view, strong ways to start,” he concluded, granting that “this is just my initial impression.”
MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin also blasted the arguments in the motion.
“So I looked at what his argument is about the ‘irreparable injury’ and I have to tell you that legally it’s not particularly strong,” Rubin began. “First, he says it’s axiomatic that if he’s immune, he doesn’t have to stand trial. But for many people, the act of standing trial is a hideous expense and extraordinarily disruptive to their lives. We’re talking about a guy who is using a leadership pack as his legal defense slush fund to the tune of dozens of millions of dollars and probably has not spent a personal dime in defending this case at all.”
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“In fact, when I look at this FEC filings, I see the names of dozens of law firms that I recognize, many of which have been involved in this exact case. Then he says it could radically disrupt his campaign for president if he’s forced to stand trial again. I wish some of our political colleagues were here on air with us right now because I bet you that folks like Garrett Haake and Vaughn Hilliard and Jake Traylor and others could tell you, President Trump isn’t actually on the campaign trail that much. He’s on the campaign trail during weekends, but he finds lots of ways to get his messages out. And the most effective way for him right now seems to be True Social, which doesn’t require him to be in any one particular place, and certainly doesn’t require him to be in any one particular state.”
Watch the MSNBC segment below or at this link.
Image via Shutterstock
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
