Laura Coates Live

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump agreed on this: they needed to debate. After months of speculation over the traditional pre-election face-offs – when they would happen, what they would look like and whether the candidates would actually show up – the 2024 showdowns were quickly announced Wednesday morning after Biden’s campaign laid out its criteria for participating. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the New York hush money cover up trial, Donald Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche began his confrontation with Michael Cohen on Tuesday by throwing the former fixer’s language back in his face. For roughly two hours, Blanche began a cross-examination to try to discredit Cohen’s allegations against Trump. Over two days, Cohen has detailed the hush money scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, walked the jury through the $130,000 he paid at Trump’s direction and described his fallout with the former president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just do it.” With three short words, more famous for selling sports gear than exposing conspiracies, star witness Michael Cohen on Monday depicted Donald Trump’s order of a hush money payoff to an adult film star to allegedly save his 2016 campaign. Prosecutors will seek to build on his testimony when he returns to the stand Tuesday to nail down their case that the ex-president broke the law by falsifying financial records to hide the pay-off in the culmination of a scheme to mislead voters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers continued their attack on the credibility of Stormy Daniels for several hours on Thursday, with defense attorney Susan Necheles accusing the adult film star of making up the story of having sex with Trump to make money. Daniels pushed back on claims she was untruthful about her sexual encounter with Trump, saying that the story was true, even as she was confronted with inconsistencies in some of the small details of her account. Plus, a Florida sheriff publicly released bodycam footage from a deputy who fatally shot a Black airman in his home last week – and disputed claims from the victim’s family that the deputy had gone to the wrong apartment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Joe Biden said for the first time he would halt some shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah. “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden said referring to 2,000-pound bombs that he paused shipments of last week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Adult film star Stormy Daniels dished out salacious details of her alleged sexual encounter with former President Donald Trump in 2006 from the witness stand. She described how they met at a celebrity golf tournament and what she says happened when she went to Trump’s Lake Tahoe hotel room. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial dove into the paper trail at the heart of their case on Monday, revealing to jurors exactly how Michael Cohen was repaid by Trump’s trust and personal accounts in 2017 after he paid hush money to Stormy Daniels. Judge Merchan began the session by announcing he found Trump in contempt for violating his gag order a 10th time, after fining him last week for nine violations cited by prosecutors. Each violation came with a $1,000 fine, the maximum allowed under New York law. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump’s former campaign press secretary and White House communications director Hope Hicks took the stand Friday, sitting feet away from her former boss as she described the fallout from the “Access Hollywood” tape and the Trump White House response to stories about hush money payments. Hicks was visibly nervous, and she mostly avoided eye contact with Trump while answering questions from prosecutors for more than two hours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump’s attorneys on Thursday sought to paint one of the witnesses at the heart of the hush money deal with Stormy Daniels as someone with a long history of extracting money from celebrities while going “up to the line without committing extortion.” Plus, at Tuesday’s pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and The City College of New York, 282 people were arrested, according to the New York Police Department. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Police are at UCLA and have declared the pro-Palestinian protest on campus an unlawful assembly, a source told CNN. About 300 protesters were arrested at Columbia University and City College of New York on Tuesday night, and at least a dozen people were arrested at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Wednesday. While the demands among protesters vary at each university, the majority of demonstrations have called for the divestment from companies that support Israel and the war in Gaza. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices