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Donald Trump's attorneys appeared to be following their client's orders to attack witnesses and even jurors in his hush money trial, but a legal expert showed how that strategy was already backfiring.

The former president has reportedly targeted his legal team with his "wrath" for what he believes has been an insufficient defense in his hush money trial, and Palm Beach County state attorney Dave Aronberg explained to MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that their attacks may have satisfied Trump but would probably not help his case.

Back in 1984, President Ronald Reagan's reelection campaign famously posed the question: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

Most U.S. voters believed the answer was "yes"; Reagan was reelected by a landslide, picking up 525 electoral votes and defeating his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Walter Mondale, by 18 percent in the popular vote.

Donald Trump's recent outrage at the campus demonstrations over the war in Gaza is less of an expression of support for Israel than it is in handing his hardcore MAGA a justification to riot if he loses the 2024 presidential election.

In her column for Salon, political observer Amanda Marcotte maintains that the former president is "laying the groundwork" for a new wave of violence that will allow his more violent supporters to point to the slap-on-the-wrist treatment of the student protesters if called to account.

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum on Friday argued that former President Donald Trump all but admitting this week that he wanted to lead a war against the American constitutional order.

Appearing on CNN, Frum commented on Trump saying during a campaign rally that he wanted to be driven to the United States Capitol building to be with his supporters who would go on to break into the building, chant for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence, and send lawmakers fleeing for their lives.

Both jurors and voters have been hearing details about the "unseemly" world of tabloid publications as part of Donald Trump's hush money trial, but a legal expert explained that prosecutors must show the former president was a willing participant in those "tawdry" schemes.

The quadruple-indicted ex-president has been charged with falsifying business records to illegally conceal his hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and panelists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" reacted to her attorney's testimony that exposed negotiations around celebrity scandals that walked right up to the line of extortion.

Robert F. Kennedy's outsider run for the presidency was recently given a boost at an event hosted by a New York activist organization with ties to both Donald Trump and the "stop the steal" movement that helped precipitate the Jan. 6 insurrection.

According to a report from the Daily Beast's Jake Lahut, Kennedy — whose campaign has been centered on his anti-vaccination views — appeared at a "medical freedom conference" last weekend that was backed by the Constitutional Coalition of New York State that was knee-deep in questioning the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Since at least 2012 Donald Trump has been engaging in election denialism. Now, a tenet of the Republican Party, the refusal to accept official election results they don't like is ingrained in a large number of his followers.

“I think that the powers that be on the Democratic side have figured out a way to circumvent democracy,” Darlene Anastas, 69, of Middleborough, Massachusetts, told NBC News. The network "spoke to more than 50 Trump supporters, most of whom said they don't believe Biden can win legitimately in November."

The federal judge presiding over a case filed by three Iraqis who were tortured by U.S. military contractors in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison two decades ago declared a mistrial Thursday after jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

After eight days of deliberation—a longer period than the trial itself—the eight civil jurors in Alexandria deadlocked over whether employees of CACI conspired with soldiers to torture detainees. The Virginia-based professional services and information technology firm was hired in 2003 during the George W. Bush administration to provide translators and interrogators in Iraq during the U.S.-led invasion and occupation, conspired with soldiers to torture detainees.

Donald Trump's attorneys introduced a conspiracy theory during cross exam that could help them sow seeds of mistrust inside and outside the courtroom.

Defense attorney Emil Bove asked Doug Daus, a records custodian for the Manhattan district attorney's office, whether data he extracted from two cell phones belonging to Michael Cohen could have been manipulated or deleted by the FBI, and Rubin told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that was intended to give Trump and his allies another line of attack on the trial itself.

Judge Juan Merchan earned kudos from a former federal prosecutor this week for keeping order in his courtroom even though he has been routinely targeted with verbal vitriol about being "compromised" by a former U.S. president who is on trial.

"The judge is endlessly fair and made it clear he said, 'Look, there are carrots and sticks and this was a carrot in terms of Mr. Pecker,'" said former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann while appearing on "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell after spending Thursday inside the courtroom.