'Bad stuff happens': Judge Merchan faces hanging threats linked to Trump misinformation

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'Bad stuff happens': Judge Merchan faces hanging threats linked to Trump misinformation
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan in 2011.. - Marc A. Hermann/New York Daily News/TNS

New York Justice Juan Merchan reportedly received death threats after misinformation about the hush money trial was spread by supporters of former President Donald Trump.

NBC News reported multiple conservative news organizations had repeated a false suggestion that the jury verdict did not have to be unanimous in Trump's case.

One Fox News analyst sent a viral message on social media, saying the judge "told the jury that they do not need unanimity to convict" Trump.

"That's not true," NBC's Ryan J. Reilly wrote. "[J]urors have to agree unanimously that Trump committed a crime by engaging in a criminal conspiracy to falsify records with the intent to commit one or more other crimes in order to convict him."

However, jurors were given three options as to what the underlying crime could be.

ALSO READ: Five questions you must ask yourself before voting in November

NBC noted that one Gab user responded to the false claims by writing," [It's] time to find out where that judge lives and protest as the left calls it."

"I hear bad stuff happens to judges in their driveways," another user wrote.

A Telegram user suggested a "military tribunal" for the judge.

"[A]nd on the official Telegram channel of Steve Bannon's WarRoom, a user said Merchan 'and all involved' should be hanged," Reilly reported. Another pro-Trump forum also called for Merchan's hanging.

"Merchan wants to be the merchant of death to sell more rope, except he could easily be selling the rope that hangs him," the user said.

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John Fetterman blew off paralyzed vets and children's hospital amid rightward drift: WSJ

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) brushed off paralyzed veterans and a children's hospital while cash from a prominent conservative donor came in amid his rightward drift.

According to a Thursday report by the Wall Street Journal, Fetterman canceled on three paralyzed military veterans who traveled from rural Pennsylvania in June to discuss legislation on their care. He told staff he might have eaten something bad, The Journal reported.

Less than an hour after aides met the veterans in his place, Fetterman reportedly walked in looking fine and headed to Fox News to talk about Israel.

The Journal's reporting drew from more than a dozen former staffers and lawmakers, plus internal text messages. "Behind closed doors, the first-term senator shows little interest in doing the job beyond cultivating relationships with conservative media figures and advocating for Israel," The Journal wrote.

When an aide told him last September that officials from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia wanted to meet over Medicaid cuts, Fetterman texted back, "Well I'm not," according to messages reviewed by The Journal, which added that he was "convinced they just want free trips to DC."

The Journal described how Fetterman was once the mayor of the town of Braddock and a disciple of Bernie Sanders. He's increasingly aligned himself with Republicans, The Journal noted. He now polls better with GOP voters than Pennsylvania's Republican senator, Dave McCormick, per New York Times polling cited by The Journal. The drift has fueled speculation that he could switch parties, The Journal noted.

In July, filings showed that he took money from a prominent conservative donor, according to The Journal. When he was asked in March about a call Senate Democratic leadership was arranging, Fetterman texted, "I truly don't care," The Journal reported.

Fetterman didn't respond to The Journal's interview requests and walked away from a reporter at an Erie event last month. At the event, he defended his record by saying, "We have to work together."

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Ron DeSantis melts down at protester with a rambling George Soros rant: analyst

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) lost his composure at a heckler and began screaming about George Soros in a confrontation caught on camera.

Progressive political analyst David Pakman highlighted the moment in a Thursday episode of his David Pakman Show. He marveled at "the anger" from a politician who has "run for president of the United States."

The clip picks up mid-event, with DeSantis touting that Florida has "4 million more residents than New York State" before he turns on a woman heckling him.

"Soros isn't paying you enough because you're not very good at this," DeSantis told her. "You should try again."

He kept going, suggesting the billionaire "needs to pay some better talent instead of having people like you show up."

The governor then leaned on a familiar line.

"This ain't my first rodeo, lady," DeSantis said. "I've seen it all, and you ain't very good at it."

Pakman was baffled by the display. "What is he doing?" Pakman asked, noting that "a lady yells at him and suddenly he's screaming uncontrollably about George Soros."

But the host argued DeSantis' episode revealed "a much bigger story here," one that has little to do with a single heckler. The "2028 Republican primary maneuvering is starting now," Pakman said, with DeSantis and others already testing whether they have "a path back into the top of the Republican Party."

He pointed out that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has traveled to Iowa "three times this year," started working "the podcast circuit," and is quietly asking people whether they might be "interested in working on my 2028 campaign."

Pakman was blunt about Cruz's odds, predicting, "Ted Cruz is not going to be the next president of the United States."

Cruz has already taken shots at Vice President JD Vance, who is "leading early Republican polling," by calling a collapsed Iran agreement "a terrible deal," Pakman noted. Asked about the weight of a Trump endorsement, Cruz said, "It carries weight, but voters are going to make their own decision."

DeSantis, once seen as "the inevitable successor" and "Trumpism without Trump," saw that status crumble after Trump "humiliated him," Pakman said. Now, DeSantis is "back in Florida yelling at hecklers," Pakman joked.

RFK Jr. and Pete Hegseth plant Army doctor at HHS to chase a COVID vaccine theory: report

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has an Army doctor in his department investigating whether COVID vaccines killed troops.

According to a Thursday Politico article, Army physician Theresa Long testified in a federal court in Virginia that she is now working alongside Kennedy and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to examine whether service members died from COVID shots that were mandated under President Joe Biden in 2021.

Hegseth assigned her to serve as Kennedy's senior medical military adviser, a role at the HHS that had not surfaced publicly until now, according to Politico.

Long said in an August 14 deposition that she is reviewing whether 2,544 deaths among troops, figures reported to a federal vaccine-injury database but never verified, can be tied to the shot, Politico reported. She told the court she hoped to wrap up her research within roughly a year.

Kennedy, a longtime skeptic of vaccine safety, has repeatedly attacked the COVID vaccines, once branding them the "most deadly vaccines in history," Politico noted. Public health experts have said his characterization is false and warn it has pushed some Americans away from shots that can blunt the disease.

Much of Long's task centers on claims that the mRNA formulas from Pfizer and Moderna raise the risk of heart inflammation, according to Politico. However, a 2026 Pentagon report cited by Politico found that while myocarditis and pericarditis cases ticked up soon after vaccination, the effect was "not sustained over a 1-year period." The Pentagon report noted no deaths.

Long testified that she remained doubtful of the military's own data, which at one point appeared to show the vaccine performing extraordinarily well, according to Politico. She claimed that officials inflated the numbers until it "made it look like the vaccine had, like, cured everything," according to a transcript of her testimony reviewed by Politico.

She added that she knew of 28 people who died because of the COVID vaccine but was barred from saying more, Politico reported.

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