'I'm going to have to caution you': Judge warns Fani Willis in heated hearing

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee cautioned District Attorney Fani Willis while she testified at a disqualification hearing on Thursday.

Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for Donald Trump's co-defendant Mike Roman, put Willis on the stand to question her about a romantic relationship with Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade.

At one point, Willis became frustrated by Merchant's question about whether Wade visited her home in 2020.

"He has never been to my home in South Fulton," she said. "2020 was before I knew that a phone call was going to be made and I was going to have to abandon my home. As a result thereof, he never visited, lived at, came to or has seen South Fulton."

"In 2020, did Mr. Wade ever visit you at a place that you resided?" Merchant asked repeatedly.

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"Okay. I don't understand," an exasperated Willis said to the judge. "In 2020, I lived in South Fulton. That's the only place I lived, in South Fulton."

"That's before I had to abandon my home, Judge," she added. "So if you don't come someplace, you can't live there."

McAfee warned the district attorney that her answer was non-responsive.

"Ms. Willis, that's, I'm going to have to caution you, that's going to be my first time I have to caution you," McAfee said.

"I'm going to answer the questions as asked," Willis explained.

"And if this happens again and again, I'm going to have no choice but to strike your testimony," the judge warned.

McAfee later ordered a "pause" in the trial to caution Willis again.

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Fox News saw an awkward moment on Thursday evening, as "Special Report" anchor Bret Baier read out a complaint about the show — from President Donald Trump himself.

"Just moments ago, the president, I assume while flying to Texas, he's just landed there, put out a Truth Social saying, 'Jonathan Hunt of Fox News did a particularly inaccurate report on the Failing Islamic Republic of Iran. I don't want to meet; they do. In fact, they are begging to make a deal. Bret Baier should straighten out his flunkies for a change!'"

Baier did his best to keep everything on track, gently telling Trump that he misunderstood what his network had reported.

"First of all, Jonathan Hunt's not a 'flunky,' he's a great reporter," said Baier. "And second of all, Mr. President, we didn't say that you wanted to meet; in fact, we played a sound bite that you didn't want to meet, and there are no negotiations. We said the Secretary Bessent is hoping to meet with G20 countries to increase the pressure on Iran, and that Gulf state allies are inside Tehran trying to get Iran to agree to concessions. That is what he said."

Trump's war with Iran continues to rage on with no end in sight, as the clashing Strait of Hormuz blockades continue to disrupt global energy supplies.

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The biggest obstacle for Republicans heading into the midterm elections isn’t inflation or the war in Iran, according to a new analysis.

“The deeper problem for the party is that those issues represent broken campaign promises by President Donald Trump and, at least by association, the Republican majorities in Congress,” NBC News’ Jonathan Allen wrote Thursday.

Trump campaigned in 2024 on promises to end inflation and keep the United States out of wars. Nearly two years later, prices continue rising, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine roils on, the Israel-Hamas conflict remains unresolved, and the United States is six months into an Iran war that has driven costs even higher, Allen told readers.

“A suboptimal economy and an unpopular foreign war would be a drag on any president,” the veteran political reporter wrote. “But they are doubly devastating for Trump because he made curbing inflation and keeping the country out of war key components of his brand.”

Allen said that he drew his conclusions during a recent road trip from central New Jersey to Omaha, Nebraska, where he interviewed voters in competitive congressional districts.

“The broken promises came up repeatedly — of course from Democrats who didn’t believe them in the first place, but also from Republicans who have been disappointed or disillusioned by them,” he wrote.

That creates two serious dangers for Republican candidates, according to Allen.

“First, the party’s base is deflated, which means Republican candidates only have a couple of months to light a serious fire under their own voters and persuade independents to swing back toward them,” he said. “Second, and perhaps more troubling for Republicans, it’s hard for Trump to act as a validator for candidates in crucial battlegrounds if voters don’t trust him.”

Democrats will eagerly make the election about Trump, Allen concluded. And, he added, unless the president “executes a major turnaround on the two biggest issues of the moment, Republicans may want to pretend that the midterms aren’t about him.”

A lawyer involved in the hearings over President Donald Trump's effort to rename the Kennedy Center flagged a shocking moment by the Justice Department.

During a Thursday appearance on CNN, Nathaniel Zelinsky said it was "shocking" that DOJ lawyers insisted on sticking to a September deadline that they set themselves. Zelinsky is part of the legal counsel for Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board who is challenging the renaming.

The DOJ has said that it will refrain from putting Trump's name back on the Kennedy Center until September 8, but has been unclear about why. Zelinsky noted that Judge Christopher Cooper "was clear that he might issue a temporary restraining order to buy himself a little more time" to consider the case, but the DOJ stuck to its deadline, which is about two weeks away.

"What's shocking here is that the Department of Justice has said that they're going to stick by this artificial September deadline to put the name back on the Kennedy Center," Zelinsky said. "There's no reason to. September 8 is a made-up date."

The DOJ insisted that it has to put Trump's name back on the Kennedy Center by then, but the judge is asking the department, "Please, can you wait a little bit?" Zelinsky recounted. "And they said, 'No.'"

Zelinsky said he expects Cooper to respond by issuing an emergency order to force the DOJ to wait and give himself a little more time. Zelinsky also responded to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose wife is a trustee of the board, who said on Thursday that Trump needs to be "enticed" to fund renovations to the center.

"That's not what the law is," Zelinsky said. "The law is very clear. This is a memorial to John F. Kennedy. You can't sell a piece off. It can't be the Tesla Plaza. It can't be the Koch Memorial. It's the Kennedy Center, and so it doesn't matter if that's what the president wants to do."

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