Biden Issues New Warnings On The Impending Threat Of Trump II

INSIDE: Merrick Garland ... Guy Rose ... Hunter Biden

WASHINGTON, DC May 31, 2024: US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the War in Gaza and on former President Donald Trump's guilty verdict in the State Dining Room of the White House on Friday, May31, 2024. (Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Pulling No Punches

While a debate continues about Democratic messaging strategies, Joe Biden is out there swinging.

The president laid into post-conviction Donald Trump in a more direct way than he has previously during a campaign fundraising event Monday, calling him a greater threat to the country now than he was before. “This isn’t the same Trump that got elected in 2016,” Biden said. “He’s worse.”

“For the first time in American history, a former president that is a convicted felon is now seeking the office of the presidency,” Biden said. “But as disturbing as that is, more damaging is the all-out assault Donald Trump is making on the American system of justice.”

As for Trump’s ongoing attacks on the judicial system and elections as “rigged,” Biden said: “Nothing could be more dangerous for the country, more dangerous for American democracy.”

Separately in an interview with Time magazine focused on international affairs, Biden similarly laid into Trump over Jan. 6, his refusal to concede the 2020 election, and the effect it is having on allies abroad:

And it made me realize just how fundamentally what he allowed to happen sitting in this room, looking at that television for three hours and didn’t do a damn thing, said about America, and how much confidence people lost in America. There’s not a, there’s not a…I’m gonna, say, be careful what I say…There’s not a major international meeting I attend that before it’s over—and I’ve attended many, more than most presidents have  in three and a half years—that a world leader doesn’t pull me aside as I’m leaving and say, “He can’t win. You can’t let him win.”

I should note that presidential candidates attacking each other is par for the course in an election year, but we’re going to make an effort not to reduce this to pissing-match politics. We’re in an unprecedented place. The coverage needs to reflect that.

Garland To Rebuke Attacks On DOJ

Attorney General Merrick Garland goes before the House Judiciary Committee today, which is making an election-year circus of holding him in contempt, where he will rebuke them for their attacks on federal law enforcement and unhinged conspiracy theories that are feeding threats against individual agents and prosecutors, according to his prepared remarks via the NYT.

Quote Of The Day

Joe Biden or anyone from his Justice Department has absolutely zero to do with the Manhattan District Attorney office, they have no jurisdiction over him, they have no contact with him, they have no control certainly over him. So to say that Joe Biden brought this case is one of the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. We know that’s not the case and even Trump’s lawyers know that’s not the case.”

Former Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina

Around And Around We Go

Important

Aaron Blake: “The former president’s post-conviction comment about a ‘breaking point’ follows a long line of suggestive comments. The thrust is unmistakable.”

This Is How I Feel About Trump’s Defenders, Too

Rep. John Rose (R-TN) was on the House floor in the midst of a mindless defense of Donald Trump and a predictable attack on the criminal justice system when his six-year-old son Guy got in on the action:

Jury Selected In Hunter Biden Gun Trial

Opening arguments begin today at Hunter Biden’s federal criminal trial on gun charges in Delaware.

Bob Menendez Will Run As Independent

Indicted Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), currently in the midst of his second public corruption trial, filed paperwork to run for re-election this year as independent.

Innovative New Biz Model For News Media

D’oh! Why didn’t we think of this?

Take a propagandistic news outlet and pump it full of cash from overseas criminal scams that you laundered yourself and bingo you have a supposedly growing media property. Allegedly.

The one glitch, as Epoch Times CFO Bill Guan found out, is that the law may eventually catch up to you.

Guan was indicted in the Southern District of New York on one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of bank fraud for allegedly laundering $67 million in illicit criminal proceeds for the benefit of the Falun Gong-affiliated Epoch Times.

Among the sources of the so-called “revenue” laundered into Epoch Times were fraudulently procured unemployment insurance benefits obtained using stolen identities that were then loaded onto prepaid debit cards and sold at 70-80 cents on the dollar, according to the indictment.

“The company intends to and will fully cooperate with any investigation dealing with the allegations against Mr. Guan. In the interim, although Mr. Guan is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the company has suspended him until this matter is resolved,” Epoch Times said in a statement to TPM’s Josh Kovensky.

Sign Of The Times

House Democrats are expected to announce today a plan to use a discharge petition to force Republicans to go on the record about whether they support a nationwide right to contraception. If you had told me in 1994 that 30 years hence we’d be seeing messaging votes on birth control …

New Fissure On Kilauea

The resumption of active lava flows on Kilauea may be short-lived. The eruption that began overnight Sunday had mostly ebbed by midday Monday. The last eruption in this area of the volcano, back in 1974, lasted only about six hours. Yesterday’s flareup was beautiful while it lasted:

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