Trump seeks delay of defamation trial, citing ‘media frenzy’ caused by Manhattan indictment

Donald Trump argued late Tuesday that his historic indictment by a Manhattan grand jury requires a delay in another legal matter he faces: the defamation lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, who says Trump defamed her when he denied and derided her claim that he raped her decades ago.

The former president is slated to defend against those allegations in a civil trial on April 25, but his lawyer Joe Tacopina is urging U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan to postpone it for four weeks, contending that the surge in media coverage of Trump’s indictment has tainted potential jurors in the civil case.

“Holding the trial in this case a mere three weeks after these historic events will guarantee that many, if not most, prospective jurors will have the criminal allegations top of mind when judging President Trump against Ms. Carroll’s allegations,” Tacopina argued in a late-night filing, contending that the intensity of media coverage was “remarkable for its volume and incitement of animus towards President Trump” among potential jurors.

Tacopina acknowledged that Trump draws blanket media coverage at nearly all times — but he said Google searches indicated a particularly intense surge of coverage of the charges brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg earlier this month. Those charges include claims that Trump falsified business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star to cover up an affair. Because those charges relate to Carroll’s claims of “sexual misconduct,” Tacopina said, there’s a particularly acute risk that jurors in the civil trial will conflate the issues.

Kaplan has seemed intent on charging ahead with Trump’s civil case despite the surrounding chaos caused by the indictment. He recently backed a bid to permit jurors in the civil trial anonymity, citing the potential threats to their safety caused by Trump’s rhetoric — particularly toward Bragg and the judge in his criminal case.

But Trump’s effort to delay the civil case until at least May 23 underscores the extraordinary challenge of subjecting a former president — particularly one who garners intense media coverage at all times — to a civil or criminal trial before an impartial jury.

Trump’s tangle of legal threats is only likely to intensify, as several other criminal matters approach the charging stage. That includes an investigation by Atlanta-area DA Fani Willis, who has said charging decisions for Trump and his allies are “imminent” in a case about his bid to subvert Georgia’s election laws in 2020. At the federal level, special counsel Jack Smith appears to be reaching the final stages of his probe into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office, and he’s begun penetrating Trump’s inner circle in a separate probe of Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.

Tacopina didn’t mention those other looming matters. Rather he said he expected a “cooling off” period after the Manhattan indictment to arrive by late May, when the immediacy of the Bragg news had faded. The next big milestone in that case, he said, was in August, when Trump is expected to file a motion to dismiss his case.

Carroll responded to Trump's effort Wednesday afternoon, contending that Trump himself is often responsible for driving the media interest and coverage in his legal troubles.

"If anything, it is somewhat perverse for Trump to seek a continuance in these proceedings based on the recent indictment when so much of the publicity he complains about has been driven by his own incendiary statements," wrote Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan.

Carroll noted that Trump has turned his indictment into a bid for fundraising and selling campaign merchandise, and he appeared on Fox News just hours before seeking a delay in the civil trial and discussed his pending indictment.

"Not surprisingly, Trump’s mounting legal difficulties have given rise to substantial press coverage and will continue to do so; he is not only a former President, but also a declared candidate in the next presidential election," Kaplan wrote. "As a result, each passing week will offer Trump yet another straw to grasp at in his campaign to avoid standing trial for sexually assaulting Carroll."

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Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin announces reelection bid

Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin announced Wednesday that she is running for a third term as Democrats look to hold onto control of their slim Senate majority.

“I'm committed to making sure that working people, not just the big corporations and ultra-wealthy, have a fighter on their side. With so much at stake, from families struggling with rising costs to a ban on reproductive freedom, Wisconsinites need someone who can fight and win,” Baldwin said in a statement.

Baldwin’s reference to reproductive freedom in the state comes as liberals flipped the ideological makeup of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court earlier this month. The new 4-3 majority is much more likely to strike down a controversial 19th-century abortion ban in the state.

Baldwin, 61, became Wisconsin's first woman senator and the country's first openly gay senator with her election in 2012. Baldwin won reelection in 2018. Last year, Baldwin gained national attention for helping spearhead a bill protecting the rights of same-sex marriage, which passed last November.

Democrats face a challenging 2024 Senate map with 20 Democrats and three independents up for reelection.

No Republicans have formally announced plans to run against Baldwin next year.

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NPR leaves Twitter after 'government-funded media' label

NPR announced on Wednesday that it would cease posting to Twitter altogether after the social media company labeled the news outlet “state-affiliated media” last week.

“NPR’s organizational accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent,” NPR said in a statement. “We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence.”

The move makes NPR the first major media outlet to exit the platform.

NPR paused tweeting from its main account on Friday because of the label but continued to tweet from other accounts that didn’t have the designation. Twitter then revised its label on NPR’s account to “government-funded media,” which remains on NPR’s main account. On Wednesday, NPR tweeted a series of links to its app, newsletters and other social media accounts.

“Actions by Twitter or other social media companies to tarnish the independence of any public media institution are exceptionally harmful and set a dangerous precedent,” NPR’s chief executive, John Lansing, said in a statement.

According to a breakdown of NPR’s finances, less than 1 percent of the news outlet’s annual operating budget comes in the form of grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal agencies and departments.

When asked about NPR’s new labeling on Twitter, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last Wednesday that “social media companies make their own independent decisions about content rules.”

However, “there’s no doubt of the independence of NPR’s journalists. … NPR journalists work diligently to hold public officials accountable and inform the American people,” she said. “The hard-hitting independence nature of their coverage speaks for itself.”

The issue of the “state media” label came up with Twitter CEO Elon Musk during a recent interview with BBC, which had also been given the designation “government funded media.”

“I know the BBC is generally not thrilled about being labeled state media,” Musk said in the interview.

The label was changed to “publicly funded media” after BBC reached out to Twitter, but it still links to the social media platform’s page about government and state-affiliated media.

As for next steps, NPR will be instituting a “two-week grace period” so that its staff who run the social media accounts can restrategize. Individuals at NPR can determine for themselves whether or not to stay on Twitter.

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Britain's Truss warns of Western 'weakness' over China in wake of Macron visit

"We need to make sure Taiwan is able to defend itself," according to the former prime minister.

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Germany can't fulfill NATO obligations, says army chief in leaked memo

A division promised to the transatlantic military alliance isn't fully battle-ready.

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Biden wants to sell Americans on electric cars. And some are eager to buy.

President Joe Biden wants Americans to go big on electric cars — ousting the internal combustion engine from its centurylong reign over the nation’s roads.

Crucially, consumers may be ready to follow.

People analyzing the small but growing market for electric cars and trucks say changing tastes among U.S. motorists are smoothing the way for Biden's efforts to speed up the switch to battery-powered vehicles. Several automakers are pushing their own big shift to electric vehicles — a trend that the Environmental Protection Agency could accelerate with a new auto-pollution rule expected as soon as Wednesday.

Republican lawmakers are predicting a consumer backlash to the latest mandate from Washington. But industry analysts say car buyers are showing a growing appetite for vehicles that can be refueled with an electric cord rather than a gas pump.

"Honestly, the vehicles being delivered by automakers are a lot better — people are willing to sit on waiting lists for two or three years," said Chris Harto, senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports. "There's a huge amount of pent-up demand for EVs right now, and automakers aren't delivering."

Just two years ago, Biden said he wanted electric vehicles to make up half of new car and truck sales by the end of the decade. The EPA proposal could push electric vehicles even further.

Electric vehicles made up about 5.6 percent of cars and trucks sold in 2022 — not nearly enough to achieve the large emissions reductions that scientists say are needed to avoid debilitating impacts of climate change. That was up from 1.8 percent in 2020 and 3.1 percent in 2021, according to data from S&P Global Mobility.

The EPA rules will only reinforce automakers' move toward electric vehicles, said Mike Ramsey, an automotive analyst at the consultancy Gartner. "These rules would really just take away any sort of safety net or ability to turn back," he said, adding that automakers will likely also press EPA for loopholes "to give wriggle room to the market."

The upcoming regulations come as the federal government is pouring billions of dollars into the construction of charging stations along highways and incentives for people who buy EVs. But they also come as the Biden administration is potentially raising the cost of electric cars by requiring manufacturers to make the vehicles in the U.S., while using battery minerals from the United States or its closest trading partners — not China.

So far, the popularity of EVs is on the rise, and that could increase if the EPA rules lead to more models, some advocates said.

"Every single state in the union continued to see steady growth in electric vehicle sales in the last decade," said Lisa Frank, who heads the Washington, D.C., legislative office at Environment America.

On the other hand, it’s unknown if automakers will be able to produce EVs for the mass market while also overcoming the tremendous expense of bringing a new kind of vehicle to scale. For that reason, today’s EVs carry a higher price tag than traditional models. (Prices for the cheapest model from Tesla, the nation’s top electric carmaker, start at just under $42,000.)

“The challenge is that as of now, the vehicles aren’t affordable enough that there’ll be a big enough buying base for them to be bought in these numbers,” said John Gartner, who leads EV and charging infrastructure research at the Center for Sustainable Energy, a California nonprofit.

When contacted by POLITICO’s E&E News, no automakers wanted to comment on the forthcoming rule. Some pointed to a statement put out last week by an industry lobbying group, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation.

"The question isn't whether it can be done, it's how fast it can be done," the Alliance for Automotive Innovation said of the transition to electric vehicles, adding that it "will depend almost exclusively on having the right policies and market conditions."

The rules come as state officials, and Congress, race ahead with their own efforts to transition away from gasoline-powered transportation.

California approved a rule that would require all new vehicles sold in the state to be emissions-free by 2035, including plug-in hybrids.

Congress included billions of dollars to build public EV charging stations in the 2021 infrastructure law. Last year's Inflation Reduction Act dedicated billions more to tax credits and other incentives for people who buy the cars and a broad array of carmakers and parts suppliers.

The rules have been shaped in part by EPA tests of cars and components at the agency's lab in Ann Arbor, Mich., and also by technical research and input from carmakers.

"As they consider all of those things, they think, what is the maximum they can push the industry?" said Dave Cooke, senior vehicles analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The proposed rule will cover greenhouse gas emissions for cars built in 2027 and future model years. Current EPA regulations, which cover cars built through 2026, are expected to push EV adoption to 17 percent of new car sales by the time they expire.

Bloomberg first reported that the rules could exceed Biden's goal of making half of all new cars carbon-free by 2030. The New York Times reported separately that EPA’s tailpipe rule could push EVs to as much as 67 percent of new cars sales.

Separately, EPA is also planning to roll out greenhouse gas limits on heavy-duty trucks starting in model year 2027, following up on its rules that were finalized last year to limit soot and smog-forming pollution like nitrogen oxides from the trucking industry.

Historically, EPA hasn't told carmakers what kinds of vehicles to produce when it sets greenhouse gas standards. Instead, it has set a limit — a certain number of grams of carbon dioxide per mile driven — that each company has to meet over the entire fleet of vehicles it sells each year.

Companies that exceed the goal can build up credits to use in future years and can trade credits among themselves.

Major carmakers including General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Corp. have already set their own goals to produce more electric vehicles. The EPA proposal "is kind of saying, 'All right, put your money where your mouth is,'" said Simon Mui, director of clean vehicles and fuels at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The rules are already attracting scrutiny. Environmental advocacy and consumer groups have argued that EPA should push for even more emissions reductions, particularly given the demand for electric cars and trucks.

Lawmakers are also beginning to push back by criticizing the regulations as a threat to blue-collar Americans.

"The EPA needs to explain to the constituents in my district that they should be driving some puny electric car instead of their pickup trucks," Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said Monday on Twitter, linking to a photo of an electric-powered Smart car from Europe.

Beyond the rhetoric, conservatives in Congress may have a chance to block the latest emissions rules. Republicans in the Senate and House, for instance, have introduced a proposal under the Congressional Review Act to roll back the EPA rules on soot and smog from heavy-duty trucks.

Timothy Cama contributed to this report.

A version of this report first ran in E&E News’ Climatewire. Get access to more comprehensive and in-depth reporting on the energy transition, natural resources, climate change and more in E&E News.

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Biden admin sidesteps painful decisions for Colorado River cuts

The Biden administration declined to take a side Tuesday on whether California or Arizona should bear the brunt of potential cuts in water deliveries from the drought-shrunken Colorado River.

The administration issued a new draft environmental analysis that took a major step toward allowing it to impose severe water delivery cuts — a potentially momentous step as the West's most important river faces the consequences of climate change. But it sidestepped for now whether to side with a plan pushed by deep blue California, whose agricultural interests hold some of the strongest rights to the river, or Arizona, a newfound presidential swing state whose major cities could see their access to the river cut off entirely during the driest periods.

By declining to indicate how it was leaning in that fight, Biden’s Interior Department is seeking to turn up the pressure on the states to accelerate their negotiations to strike a water-sharing deal that could alleviate the need for Interior Department to make the tough decisions.

In an interview, Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau told POLITICO that the department's current approach is aimed not just at equipping the department to act unilaterally if needed, but also providing “markers” to states as they negotiate.

“I really do think there is unity in the basin to continue and strive for a consensus approach to maintaining the system,” he said.

The Colorado River is in the midst of a 23-year drought that has shriveled flows by 20 percent, and hotter, drier conditions fueled by climate change are expected reduce supplies even more in the coming years as the planet continues to warm. But thirsty farms and cities in California and Arizona have continued using water at rates far greater than the volumes flowing in the river, draining the two main reservoirs at Lake Mead and Lake Powell to the point that they are now about only about a quarter full. While a strong snowpack this winter has forestalled the crisis for now, Beaudreau argued that the federal government needs to be prepared to act if dry conditions push the system to the brink of crisis again in the next few years.

Last fall, federal projections showed that water levels at Glen Canyon Dam, just upstream of Grand Canyon National Park, could fall so low by the end of this year that it would halt hydropower production that is central to the stability of the Western grid and threaten the ability to make downstream water deliveries to Nevada, Arizona and California.

The Biden administration at the time called for the states to craft a plan to cut consumption by as much as a third of the river’s flows, and it launched an environmental review process to shore up its legal authorities to act unilaterally if the states remained at loggerheads. The Interior Department’s new draft version of the environmental analysis released Tuesday laid out a series of options it could take for heading off a crisis.

But rather than provide a clear roadmap of what Interior would do if it must step in, the department instead analyzed variations of the two competing proposals put forth by the states, as well as a scenario in which no reductions are made and reservoir levels fall precipitously.

One of the action options, similar to the approach backed by California, would have Interior impose water cuts using the century-old legal framework that governs the river, which cuts off newer water users entirely before senior users — mostly farmers and ranchers — see any reductions.

Another option hews to the spirit of a proposal backed by Arizona and the five other states that share the river, spreading the cuts more equitably across all water users. But, whereas the states’ proposal had done so by taxing users for water that evaporates from reservoirs and leaks from canals, Interior’s proposal would do so using legal authorities it has for protecting human health and safety, ensuring water is being put to “beneficial use” and acting in an emergency.

John Fleck, a Colorado River expert at the University of New Mexico, said that by avoiding picking sides, Interior’s approach could give it leverage over both sides in negotiations.

“It leaves space for productive negotiations, and now that we have a good snowpack, we have some room for the possibility of those productive negotiations to happen,” he said.

The current process is part of a short-term effort to avoid a crisis on the river in the next few years, while the states begin negotiating a longer-term set of rules to govern the river that must be in place by 2026.

Major players in the Colorado River water talks said Tuesday that they are still eager to work on a state-led deal to head off near-term supply disputes.

“California remains committed to developing a seven-state consensus that will protect he Colorado River system for the duration of the current guidelines,” said JB Hamby, who heads the Colorado River Board of California and serves on the board of the Imperial Irrigation District, which holds the largest single right to the river.

The Biden administration is also seeking to win as many voluntary reductions as possible using new funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act. Last week, Interior officials blitzed the region, announcing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of investments in conservation deals and infrastructure upgrades.

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