Trump on Trial

View this email in your browser

Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here.

April 17, 2024

Trump on Trial

Former President Donald Trump and his many legal troubles are again dominating US political news. This time, it's his appearance in a Manhattan courtroom during jury selection this week in his criminal "hush-money" trial. (The trial will weigh allegations, denied by Trump, that he paid off adult-film star Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged affair. At issue is whether the alleged payments were intended to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and thus violated campaign-finance laws.)

As with nearly all his legal troubles—ranging from his retention of classified documents after leaving office to allegations (which Trump denies) of business fraud—this week Trump railed against those prosecuting him (and the judge) as politically motivated opponents persecuting him unfairly. "There are two Donald Trump criminal trials now taking place," CNN's Stephen Collinson writes. "There's the one in a Manhattan courtroom … [a]nd there's the imaginary trial that exists in Trump's rhetoric, led by 'heartless thugs' and a 'very conflicted judge' who is 'rushing the trial' that the presumptive GOP nominee claims is a 'Biden inspired witch-hunt.'"

The New York Times' editorial board, which has consistently criticized the former president, senses irony: "Donald Trump, who relentlessly undermined the justice system while in office and since, is enjoying the same protections and guarantees of fairness and due process before the law that he sought to deny to others during his term. … Mr. Trump's vision of an American legal system that protects his interests goes beyond his trial, of course, and extends in particular to the Justice Department. He has been explicit about his desire, if elected in November, to bring the Justice Department more fully under his control, to use it to protect his friends and, more important, punish his enemies."

Politically, none of those pointed criticisms—or the myriad unprecedented legal dramas with Trump at their center—may stick. Writing on Sunday in her daily Letters from an American newsletter, historian and author Heather Cox Richardson noted George Stephanopoulos's Sunday ABC interview with Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu: "'Just to sum up,' Stephanopoulos said, "You support [Trump] for president even if he's convicted in [the] classified documents [case]. You support him for president even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You support him for president even though you believe he's lying about the last election. You support him for president even if he's convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say, the answer to that is yes, correct?' Sununu answered: 'Yeah. Me and 51% of America.'"

Israel and the US, in Two Tough Spots

The Middle East has edged closer to a larger war. Following a suspected April 1 Israeli strike that killed Iranian military commanders and destroyed an Iranian consular building in Damascus, and Iran's Saturday-night reprisal (which included firing hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel, nearly all of them intercepted), the Financial Times' editorial board warns of a "dangerous turning point" as Israel weighs its own potential response.

The US faces a conundrum, FT columnist Gideon Rachman writes: The Biden administration has sought to provide Israel with "ironclad" support, but that risks giving Israel free rein to escalate with Iran knowing the US military ultimately stands behind it. That, in turn, could drag the US into another Middle East war.

Israel itself has no good options, Richard Haass writes in an FT op-ed. Iran would likely prefer its tit-for-tat conflict with Israel to return to the shadows, comprising (as it did before this month) covert strikes, attacks in third countries, and the use of proxy forces. The US seems to want Israel to restrain itself from retaliating, Haass writes, but that option may not satisfy Israelis. "The least bad, and most likely, choices for Israel are either resuming the indirect war against Iran or carrying out a limited strike against military targets inside the country," Haass writes. "Ironically, the latter option does more to restore deterrence, but it simultaneously increases the risks of new Iranian attacks and a cycle of escalation."

America's Two Cold Wars

Currently, it seems the US is embroiled in not one but two cold wars, as it squares off with large adversaries China and Russia simultaneously. How did we end up here? And was this hostile state of affairs inevitable? Fareed asked New York Times White House and National Security Correspondent David Sanger, whose new book is "New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West."

Notre Dame's Return—and France's

Five years after a fire ravaged Paris's iconic Notre Dame cathedral, its reconstruction is almost complete, as Le Monde details. The cathedral is expected to reopen to the public in December.

Despite pandemic delays, that's roughly in keeping with the five-year timeline French President Emmanuel Macron laid out after Notre Dame's destruction, an aggressive promise that was met by some criticism. For Catholic and non-Catholic French people alike, Britta Sandberg writes for Der Spiegel, Notre Dame's destruction landed like a punch to the midsection. The cathedral's reconstruction—particularly in historically faithful fashion, after various proposals of wild modernizations—has reinspired national hope and delivered a sense of healing, Sandberg writes.

Of the nearly renewed cathedral itself, Sandberg writes: "[I]n the new roof truss … it smells of Christmas and fresh oak wood. Here you can see the faithful reconstruction of the medieval roof structure that was destroyed by the fire. It was also made possible because an architecture student had remeasured the roof for a research project in 2015. All the oak trunks used were worked manually with an ax by carpenters who still master the old techniques. Not folklore, as they say, but a method that makes the wood more stable. When worked by hand, it is easier to follow the core of the tree trunk. The beams were then joined together with wooden dowels, as they had been for centuries. … The colors in the neo-Gothic sacristy … are also visible again for the first time. The restorers who cleaned it were amazed at how brightly colored this room once was, how deep blue the ceiling, how pink the frescoes. Notre-Dame is actually more beautiful than before."

What did you think of today's newsletter? Send ideas, questions and feedback to globalbriefing@cnn.com

You are receiving this newsletter because you signed up for Fareed's Global Briefing.
To stop receiving this newsletter, unsubscribe or sign up to manage your CNN account

Learn more about the CNN app | Get CNN web alerts | Sign up for a free CNN account