Polling can only tell us so much. It captures a moment in time that can be sustainable or utterly fleeting. It can also be wrong or, as we saw in the 2016 election, capture the most remote possibility. 

That said, it remains an integral data point when it comes to how we view the state of the race and there’s no question that we’re seeing a shift in the results of the presidential contest since the State of the Union.  

I know as well as anyone that typically the State of the Union (SOTU) speech doesn’t have much of an effect. It’s a great opportunity for the president to seize an opportunity for attention and galvanize his base both in the room and at home. But there isn’t often a sustained change in the race. Some good coverage the night of and a little bump that disappears in a couple of days, at best.  

Not so for President Biden, though. The three weeks since the SOTU have seen demonstrable poll gains, multiple huge cash infusions, and a preview of the campaign that’s to come – and people like it. 

Prior to the SOTU, the coverage of positive polls for former President Donald Trump and concerned essays from Democrats about Biden’s age was near breathless. In particular, the New York Times/Sienna survey, which found Trump gaining considerable ground with Black, GenZ, and female voters was a topic of widespread interest and Ezra Klein’s piece calling on Biden to step down a ‘hero’ dominated the cycle.  

Today, we have seen 12 national polls since the SOTU that have Biden leading Trump and, for the first time in seven months, Biden was up one in the Economist polling average. Now they are in a dead heat. Even in surveys that have been heavily leaning towards Trump throughout the contest, Biden is gaining ground. For instance, in the latest Harvard/Harris poll Biden is down 51% to 49% and has gained two points while Trump has lost two.  

In the race for the battleground states – which we know decides the race! – Biden is finally seeing some good news. The newly released Bloomberg/Morning Consult swing state survey signals a potential Biden comeback.  

The polls show Biden with a one-point lead in Wisconsin and tied with Trump in Pennsylvania and Michigan, a sign that the ‘Blue Wall’ any Democrat needs to win is coming around to him. He’s within the margin of error in Nevada and while still trailing outside the margin of error in Arizona and North Carolina, he’s still gaining. The only state where Trump’s lead grew was in Georgia. 

While we all wish that it didn’t cost billions of dollars to win a presidential election, the reality is that it does. And Biden is blowing Trump out of the water when it comes to cash.  

In the 24 hours after the SOTU, Biden was able to raise an unprecedented $10 million, a sign of how well the speech played with Americans. And the FEC filings for February reveal that Biden raised nearly double what Trump brought in for the month and finished with $71 million cash on hand as compared to $33.5 million for Trump. The Democratic National Committee is also routing the Republican National Committee with $26.5 million to $11.3 million cash on hand. 

In short, when it comes to money, I’d rather be Biden than Trump. 

We are getting a taste of what Biden’s campaign will look like, and it’s much higher energy than expected. In just the last week, the president visited five cities and, after his trip to North Carolina on Tuesday, will have visited all the swing states since the SOTU. Hardly the ‘basement campaign’ Biden’s detractors were previewing.  

At the same time, Trump has been spending most of his time in South Florida and in various courtrooms complaining about the unfair hand he’s being dealt by the justice system. He had an appearance at a rally in Ohio last week for the newly minted Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, but beyond that his campaign doesn’t even have any events listed.  

Lastly, it’s important to note that as far as the results from the primaries go, Trump rolled through and was able to notch some major wins, but major warning signs persist. On Super Tuesday, for instance, a majority of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s voters said they were voting against Trump rather than for Haley, and she won moderate voters by a 2-to-1 margin. While only 20% of the GOP electorate, in close races, like 2020, they can make all the difference. The GOP is far from unified.  

I’m not naïve enough to think that it’s going to be smooth sailing for Biden. Or that there aren’t millions of Americans that are open to Trump and are buying into his victimhood campaign.  

But the facts on the ground are changing and even the most sober look at Biden’s positioning shows that he’s gaining and had a very good few weeks.  

The Biden administration announced the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is rolling out new artificial intelligence (AI) regulations for federal agencies, building off the president’s executive order last year that requires AI developers to share certain information with the government. 

In a press call Wednesday afternoon, Vice President Kamala Harris said the new series of regulations, which include mandatory risk reporting and transparency rules informing people when agencies are using AI, would ‘promote the safe, secure and responsible use of AI.’

‘When government agencies use AI tools, we will now require them to verify that those tools do not endanger the rights and safety of the American people,’ Harris said. 

‘I’ll give you an example. If the Veterans Administration wants to use AI in VA hospitals to help doctors diagnose patients, they would first have to demonstrate that AI does not produce racially biased diagnoses.’

Federal agencies will also be required to appoint a chief AI officer to oversee technology used in their departments ‘to make sure that AI is used responsibly.’

Every year, agencies will also have to provide an online database listing their AI systems and an assessment of the risks they might pose. 

Harris said the new regulations were shaped by leaders in the public and private sectors, including computer scientists and civil rights leaders. A White House fact sheet says the new policy will ‘advance equity and civil rights and stand up for consumers and workers.’

OMB Director Shalanda Young said the new AI policy will require agencies to ‘independently evaluate’ their uses of AI and ‘monitor them for mistakes and failures and guard against the risk of discrimination.’

‘AI presents not only risks but also a tremendous opportunity to improve public services and make progress of societal challenges like addressing climate change, improving public health and advancing equitable economic opportunity when used and overseen responsibly,’ Young said on the press call. 

Each federal agency could use different AI systems and will need to have an independent auditor assess its risks, a senior White House official said on the call. 

The Biden administration has been taking more steps recently to curtail potential dangers of AI that could put users’ data at risk. In October, President Biden signed what the White House called a ‘landmark’ executive order that contains the ‘most sweeping actions ever taken to protect Americans from the potential risks of AI systems.’ 

Among them is requiring that AI developers share their safety-test results — known as red-team testing — with the federal government. 

Last month, a coalition of state attorneys general warned that Biden’s executive order could be used by the federal government to ‘centralize’ government control over the emerging technology and that that control could be used for political purposes, including censoring what they may deem as disinformation.

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, a Republican, and 20 other state attorneys general, warned that the order would inject ‘partisan purposes’ into decision-making, including by forcing designers to prove they can tackle ‘disinformation.’  

‘The Executive Order seeks — without Congressional authorization — to centralize governmental control over an emerging technology being developed by the private sector,’ the letter states. ‘In doing so, the Executive Order opens the door to using the federal government’s control over AI for political ends, such as censoring responses in the name of combating ‘disinformation.” 

Fox News’ Greg Norman and Adam Shaw contributed to this report. 

Facing a polling deficit with seven months to go until the November election, President Biden on Thursday will receive some help from his two most recent Democratic predecessors in the White House.

Biden will team up with former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at a fundraising extravaganza in New York City that the president’s campaign says will bring in over $25 million for his re-election bid.

The star-studded event will include what’s being billed as an ‘armchair conversation’ with the three presidents moderated by late night TV talk show host Stephen Colbert and musical performances from Lizzo, Queen Latifah, Ben Platt, Cynthia Erivo, and Lea Michele.

The campaign says over 5,000 people will attend the gathering, which is being held at the storied Radio City Music Hall in midtown Manhattan.

Tickets range from $225 – to get in the door – to $100,000 for a photo with all three presidents – and up to $250,000-$500,000 to attend an intimate reception with Biden, Obama, and Clinton. The fundraising haul will help Biden boost his already formidable cash advantage over his Republican challenger, former President Donald Trump.

‘The numbers don’t lie: today’s event is a massive show of force and a true reflection of the momentum to reelect the Biden-Harris ticket,’ campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg touted in a statement.

And Katzenberg argued that ‘this historic raise is a show of strong enthusiasm for President Biden and Vice President Harris and a testament to the unprecedented fundraising machine we’ve built.’

Just as important, the teaming up of the three presidents is intended as a show of force to rally the Democratic base behind Biden.

‘This is a great event that showcases the Mount Rushmore of modern Democratic presidents,’ longtime Democratic strategist Maria Cardona told Fox News.

Cardona, a veteran of the Clinton White House who later served as a surrogate for Obama’s two presidential campaigns and Biden’s 2020 election and reprising that role this year, said the three presidents ‘will make an unequivocal statement of how meaningful the Democratic agenda has been to this country and to American families.’

While the president holds the upper hand over his predecessor in the fundraising battle in their election rematch, Trump currently enjoys the early edge over Biden in public opinion polling – both in most national surveys and in many of the surveys in the six key battleground states the incumbent narrowly carried to win the White House in 2020.

That includes a five-point advantage for Trump over Biden in both a head-to-head and a five-way ballot match up in a Fox News national poll conducted March 22-25 and released on Wednesday. 

The fundraiser comes less than a week after Obama spent a couple of hours at the White House, meeting with his former vice president. But it was far from a social gathering.

The two presidents, joined by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, headlined an organizing call highlighting the 14th anniversary of the landmark healthcare law known as the Affordable Care Act.

Obama’s stop at the White House comes as he reportedly has warned Biden that the 2024 rematch with Trump will be extremely close.

Senior Obama adviser Eric Schultz emphasized that the former president ‘will do all he can’ to support Biden and ‘he looks forward to helping Democrats up and down the ballot make the case to voters this fall.’

‘Our strategy will be based on driving impact, especially where and when his voice can help move the needle,’ Schultz added in a statement.

The Trump campaign pilloried the fundraiser, with spokesman Steven Cheung arguing that the event is a sign the president needs to ‘trot out some retreads like Clinton and Obama.’

The 81-year-old Biden, who four years ago made history as the oldest American ever elected president, will continue to face questions about his mental and physical durability, even his recent vigorous State of the Union address.

The president also needs to show that he can energize younger voters, progressives, and Black and Latino Americans, who are all key parts of the Democratic base. Biden is also facing primary ballot box protests – materializing in ‘uncommitted’ votes – over his support for Israel in its war in Gaza against Hamas.

But the former president is also dealing with plenty of problems. 

Trump, who last year made history as the first president or former president to face criminal charges, now faces four major trials and a total of 91 indictments – including federal cases on his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and on handling classified documents. There’s also a massive civil fraud judgment that Trump is appealing. He will have to juggle his appearances in court with his time on the campaign trail.

The 77-year-old Trump will also need to court the sizable block of Republican voters who backed Nikki Haley in the GOP nomination race. The former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor was Trump’s last remaining rival before she ended her White House campaign earlier this month. Haley’s support is shining a spotlight on Trump’s weakness with suburban and highly educated voters.

On a visit to Egypt last weekend, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a stop at the border crossing between the most populous Arab state and the war-stricken Gaza Strip. At the Rafah crossing, Guterres described seeing a ‘long line of blocked relief trucks waiting to be let into Gaza.’ 

Immediately after that, the Israelis accused the U.N.’s top official of ‘deceiving’ and noted, instead, that it was the U.N. that was holding up the deliveries of life-saving aid to people who are said to be on the verge of famine inside the Palestinian enclave. 

‘Since October 7th, U.N. actors and agencies have told lie after lie about Hamas atrocities and Israel’s efforts to exercise its lawful right of self-defense,’ Anne Bayefsky director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and president of Human Rights Voices, told Fox News Digital.

Over the past few weeks, as images of malnourished Gaza children appear on news and social media channels, U.N. aid agencies and Israeli authorities have been locked in a bitter battle of narratives over who is to blame for preventing the deliveries of food, water and medicine from reaching more than 2 million civilians in various parts of the Strip. 

Israeli officials say there are no limits on the amount of aid that can enter Gaza; the U.N. – and its aid agencies – maintain the opposite. They claim there are blockages caused by lengthy screening procedures and limited operating hours, particularly at the Rafah crossing, which is manned by Egypt, and have been pushing for Israel to open more entry points, especially in the north. 

‘The slow pace of allowing the trucks through at Rafah creates one of the blockages, as does the blocking of UNRWA work in the north,’ Farhan Aziz Haq, a spokesman for Guterres told Fox News Digital on Monday. He was referring to the controversial United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which services Palestinian refugees and their families in the region but which has been accused of collaborating with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group. 

‘Some trucks go through but not nearly enough, at a time when we will need to bring in about 300 trucks a day to avert famine,’ he said.

But Shimon Freedman, the international media spokesperson for COGAT, the Israeli military unit that coordinates between Israel and the Palestinian territories, reiterated to Fox News Digital that ‘Israel does not place any limit on the amount of aid that can enter the Gaza Strip.’ 

He said that in recent months, Israel has opened additional crossings into Gaza – including a special route to reach those trapped in the north. It has also bolstered its staff and expanded its inspection hours. 

‘We have gone to great lengths to improve our inspection capabilities so that more aid can reach the people who need it,’ he said, emphasizing that ‘right now, we can inspect 44 trucks an hour.’

‘The problem lies with the international organization’s distribution capabilities,’ Freedman added. 

Following a post on X by the secretary-general about trucks waiting at Rafah, COGAT posted a photo of aid waiting to be collected on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel. 

Ahed Al-Hindi, a senior fellow at the Center for Peace Communications, who has been monitoring the humanitarian situation in Gaza, said many of the Gazan activists he had spoken to recently ‘expressed concerns about how humanitarian aid from abroad is being manipulated by Hamas.’

‘They told me that Hamas distributes aid selectively to its loyalists, using it as political leverage, particularly in areas experiencing food shortages,’ he said. ‘This tactic enables Hamas to recruit supporters among families affected by the conflict – a pattern that has taken place in other war-torn regions like Syria and Libya, where radical Islamist groups exploited international aid for political gain and recruitment purposes.’

‘Israelis, unlike many Western countries, are intimately familiar with these tactics, having dealt with militant organized groups for decades,’ said Al-Hindi. ‘They understand how U.N. aid can be exploited for recruitment purposes, both during times of war and peace. 

‘Both narratives are correct,’ Shaul Bartal, a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, told Fox News Digital. 

‘There is enough aid, but there is a difficultly in distributing it correctly because Hamas controls a significant part of this area,’ he said, adding, ‘UNRWA is not working properly because of what is happening on the ground and also because some of its workers are members of Hamas, so they are helping them.’ 

Bartal, who has also been following events in Gaza closely, also noted that across the Strip, local gangs were looting the aid to sell on the black market and aid workers, including the truck drivers, were too afraid to enter certain lawless areas. Some of the drivers, he said, had even been killed while distributing the aid. Last month, more than 100 Gazans were killed when desperate civilians stormed an aid convoy.

Bartal said that in order for the aid to be distributed correctly, a local power needed to be directly involved. 

‘There are only two local powers that are capable of effectively distributing the aid – Hamas or Israel,’ he said. ‘If Israel wanted to give the population humanitarian aid, then it could do so through the army.’

In a press briefing earlier this week, the IDF spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the army’s involvement in distributing humanitarian aid had been increasing in recent weeks, even as its troops continue to battle Hamas terrorists inside the territory. 

‘We acknowledge the suffering of the people of Gaza,’ Hagari told reporters, describing how Israel had stepped up its humanitarian efforts in recent weeks, working together with the U.S., Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and other international organizations, most notably the World Food Program, another U.N. relief agency. 

‘There is a problem inside Gaza with the distribution because Hamas operatives are either stealing the food for their own needs and in areas it does not control there is looting,’ he said. 

‘The problem of the distribution is the responsibility of international organizations – the IDF is part of the solution,’ said Hagari. ‘We understand there is no easy solution and that is why we’re focusing on flooding the area with humanitarian aid… I encourage every international organization that has a solution for the distribution problem to work together with COGAT and with the IDF.’ 

Hagari said that over the last 10 days, more than 1,522 trucks had entered Gaza carrying food, water and medical equipment, as well as construction materials for housing and shelter – according to COGAT’s website a further 500 trucks entered on Tuesday and Wednesday. In addition, he said the IDF had opened several new roads, including in the northern part of the territory, and was currently engaged in thinking of new and creative ways to reach those in need. 

Bayefsky, whose organization, the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, is an accredited non-governmental organization with the UN, concluded, ‘Wild, totally unverifiable claims of numbers of dead civilians. Tall tales about aid deliveries, minus the truth about Hamas thefts and Jewish hostages starving. The list goes on and on. U.N. sources are quite simply utterly untrustworthy because U.N. actors from the secretary-general on down take their numbers, their ‘facts’ and their talking points from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.’

During a press briefing on Monday, State Department spokesman Matt Miller said no assessment had been made on whether Israel was violating international humanitarian law when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

‘That said, we do believe there is very much more that they [Israel] can do to let humanitarian assistance go in, both through Kerem Shalom and Rafah and also through the new 96 gate that opened up week before last, to allow convoys to move directly into the north without having to transit the somewhat perilous route inside Gaza,’ he said, adding there was also more Israel could do with respect to UNRWA and other U.N. agencies working to provide aid in Gaza.

: Over the next month and a half, former President Trump’s campaign will be opening dozens of new offices in seven pivotal swing states, complete with hundreds of newly hired staffers, Fox News has learned. 

As President Biden and Trump appear headed for a rematch in November, the two will likely put a lot of energy into the seven swing states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina — that could decide the election. 

In the latest Fox News Poll, the two were in a virtual dead heat in Pennsylvania, with Trump leading Biden 49% to 47%. The difference is within the margin of error. 

In Arizona, Trump won in a five-way matchup with Biden, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Jill Stein and Cornel West, posting 43% to Biden’s 39%.

Trump’s forthcoming changes to swing state campaign infrastructure comes as Biden criticizes Trump over his infrequent presence in key locations. Trump spent time in Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire during the Republican primaries as Biden began ramping up his campaign for the general election. 

With several criminal cases pending against Trump, time spent on the road campaigning could be limited, and critics have said Trump is slow to ramp up his ground game.

Michigan Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra told The Associated Press this week the RNC and Trump campaign had yet to invest in building up the election effort in what promises to be a critical state come November. 

‘We’ve got the skeleton right now,’ Hoekstra told The Associated Press. ‘We’re going to have to put more meat on it.’

His observation coincided with news President Biden’s re-election effort had opened 100 new offices and enlisted over 350 new staff members in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania, adding to the already established swing state staffers working on the ground. 

‘Donald Trump claiming he has a plan to build a battleground state operation while they don’t have money, lay off state staff and close community centers feels eerily similar to some other imminent Trump plans that never came to fruition, like the long promised infrastructure week or his Obamacare replacement. We’ll believe it when we see it,’ Biden campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

But the RNC and Trump’s campaign pushed back on the idea that they’re behind schedule.

‘We don’t feel the need to talk about the tactics because we lead with our candidate — he’s a winning candidate,’ Republican National Committee spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said in an interview with Fox News Digital. 

‘We are doing all the tactics,’ Alvarez emphasized. ‘We are raising the money. We are deploying the assets. It all is happening.’

She explained that Trump and the RNC aren’t always going to publicize the steps being taken to ensure victory. 

‘We win when we lead with our candidate. They lose when they lead with their candidate,’ she added. 

Alvarez claimed the Democratic Party ‘cannot put their guy out there’ and is forced to lead ‘with their tactics.’

Trump’s campaign noted that the infrastructure it expects to roll out in critical states over the next 30 to 45 days is early compared to past cycles. Usually, a non-incumbent presidential nominee is not definite until the RNC convention in the summer, and the committee and campaign do not merge until then. 

Earlier this year, it was revealed that, in 2023, the RNC posted its worst fundraising since 2013, only pulling $87.2 million and reporting roughly $8 million in available cash on hand.

In the month of January, Trump saw his cash on hand dwindle to $30 million, while his spending outpaced his fundraising. Biden’s campaign brought in $42 million in the same period and boasted a $130 million war chest for the general election. 

However, last month, both the committee and Trump’s campaign saw improvement. The RNC pulled in $10.6 million, while making gains in cash on hand in February. Trump’s campaign managed to rake in over $20 million last month, boosted by primary victories, while also upping his cash on hand to $42 million.

While fundraising appeared to bounce back as Trump’s campaign merges with the committee, concerns over Trump’s financial situation still remain. The former president has been ordered to make various payments in his criminal cases. 

The RNC and campaign further pushed back at suggestions action hasn’t taken place sooner in the key states due to legal fees for the former president and poor fundraising hauls. Both the committee and campaign expressed confidence, noting that all assets are in line to cover all costs. 

They conceded that the Democrats are expected to enjoy a monetary advantage but claimed Trump doesn’t need as much money to win. 

The pro-choice movement had every reason to be nervous about the Supreme Court hearing.

After all, this was the same high court that overturned 50 years of precedent by overturning Roe, and by a 6-3 conservative majority.

Now, two years later, the same court was getting a crack at an increasingly popular form of medical abortions with the pill called mifepristone.

Who could stop the justices if they decided to ban these pills, which are especially important in states where abortion has been banned or severely restricted?

With a single ruling, the court could tip the scales in favor of the pro-life movement by cutting off this lifeline for millions of women.

But it didn’t turn out that way.

Based on the audio of Tuesday’s oral arguments, most justices across the ideological spectrum are opposed to outlawing these pills.

With the exception of Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas, leaders of the anti-Roe wing, the justices made clear that they don’t want to get into this fight.

More than two decades after the FDA approved the use of mifepristone as safe and effective, it looks like the drug will remain widely available.

When you have Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch embracing the same point, that is the judicial equivalent of a flashing green light.

Abortion has been a difficult subject for Republicans in the post-Roe era. Democrats have won numerous special elections with candidates who ran heavily on the issue. On Tuesday, one such Democrat flipped a Republican seat in the Alabama House.

In my Mar-a-Lago interview with Donald Trump, he said Republicans who take too hard a line on abortion, such as opposing exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, are destined to lose. In embracing a ban on abortions after 16 weeks of pregnancy, later modified to 15 weeks, he said something that stuck with me: ‘You have to follow your heart. But you also have to get elected.’

The stakes are high in the Supreme Court case because mifepristone is now used in 60 percent of all abortions in America. 

The skeptical justices expressed concern about the impact on federal regulation if they substituted their views on complicated subjects overseen by the likes of the Food and Drug Administration.

Jackson said there is a ‘significant mismatch’ between the claims made by the anti-abortion doctors and their lawsuit ‘seeking an order preventing anyone from having access to these drugs at all.’

Added Gorsuch: ‘This case seems a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any other federal government action.’

The advantage of these pills is that patients can order them mailed to their homes, even in states with highly restrictive laws.

If SCOTUS were to uphold the appellate ruling, patients would have to obtain the pills in person, and could only use them for seven weeks.

Most of the justices seemed united on the fundamental question of standing – that is, the eligibility to sue. They pressed both sides on whether the plaintiffs had such standing.

If the high court decides they don’t, they don’t have to deal with any of the more nettlesome questions and can dismiss the case.

As long as there are lawyers and strong moral feelings on both sides, this sort of litigation will drag on, the legacy of a new and supercharged abortion environment.

Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor, said that in his 50-some years in law, he has never seen a gag order like the one imposed on former President Trump in his hush money payments case this week. 

New York Judge Juan Merchan issued the gag order on Tuesday following a request from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

‘This is so unusual,’ Akerman told CNN’s Fredericka Whitfield on Wednesday. ‘This never happens, in over 50 years in law practice, both as a prosecutor and a defense lawyer.’ 

He added, ‘It’s not done, and the reason it’s not done is because once you start disparaging the judge, disparaging people in the courtroom, you’re putting yourself in harm’s way because that’s the judge that’s going to sentence you.’

Akerman added that Trump is ‘the only one I have ever seen do this and do it in such an outrageous way that it’s really forced the courts – to where does the First Amendment stop and where do we need a gag order in order to protect the judicial system?’ 

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has been highly critical of the judge, calling the gag order ‘illegal, un-American, unconstitutional,’ saying that Merchan was ‘wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement.’ 

Trump even suggested that the gag order was related to Merchan’s adult daughter’s work as the president of a political consulting firm.

‘Judge Juan Merchan, who is suffering from an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (whose daughter represents Crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, and other Radical Liberals, has just posted a picture of me behind bars, her obvious goal, and makes it completely impossible for me to get a fair trial) has now issued another illegal, un-American, unConstitutional ‘order,’ as he continues to try and take away my Rights,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

In issuing the gag order, the judge cited Trump’s ‘prior extrajudicial statements,’ saying they establish ‘a sufficient risk to the administration of justice.’ 

Merchan ordered that Trump cannot make or direct others to make public statements about witnesses concerning their potential participation, or about counsel in the case — other than Bragg — or about court staff, DA staff or family members of staff.

Merchan also ordered that Trump cannot make or direct others to make public statements about any prospective juror or chosen juror. 

Merchan said in his decision that Trump has made statements in the past during other trials — likely referring to the months-long non-jury civil fraud trial stemming from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case. 

‘lndeed, his statements were threatening, inflammatory, denigrating, and the targets of his statements ranged from local and federal officials, court and court staff, prosecutors and staff assigned to the cases, and private individuals including grand jurors performing their civic duty,’ Merchan writes. ‘The consequences of those statements included not only fear on the part of the individual targeted, but also the assignment of increased security resources to investigate threats and protect the individuals and family members thereof.’ 

Akerman added later on X, ‘Trump’s unprecedented pattern of disparaging and threatening judges, prosecutors and witnesses is self-destructive and makes it more likely he will end up in the slammer.’ 

Former Acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker, who served under Trump, told Fox News, ‘I think these gag orders are very dangerous… The First Amendment is fairly broad in its protection of our right to speak and speak our minds, and I think ultimately this judge is going to have to tread very carefully.’ 

Trump has had two other gag orders issued against him in recent months. 

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Maria Paronich contributed to this report. 

Prosecutors went after Hunter Biden’s attorneys during an hours-long hearing Wednesday on several motions to dismiss criminal tax evasion charges against the president’s son.

The first son did not appear in federal court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, but his attorney Abbe Lowell argued in favor of dismissing what he claimed were politically motivated charges. He said the government was perpetrating ‘the least ordinary prosecution a person could imagine.’

The tax charges against President Biden’s son stemmed from a years-long investigation conducted by Special Counsel David Weiss. Lowell claimed that the timeline of the case showed misdemeanor charges against the Hunter Biden into several felonies.

As Special Counsel Attorney Leo Wise made his arguments against dismissing the case, Lowell shook his head multiple times, appearing annoyed. 

‘When you don’t have the facts you attack the law. When you don’t have the law you attack the facts. When you don’t have the facts or the law, you attack the prosecutors,’ Wise said at one point in reference to Lowell, calling his arguments in favor of dismissal ‘fact-free pleadings.’ 

Wise said Abbe Lowell has attacked the prosecution for working for Jim Jordan, Biden and Putin. ‘These are fact-free pleadings.’ 

Judge Mark Scarsi, who presided over the proceedings in the packed courtroom, cut off representatives for both sides several times. He said he plans to rule on several motions to dismiss federal tax charges against Hunter Biden by April 17.

As the hearing wrapped, Scarsi noted that all sides had agreed on a next pre-trial hearing in Los Angeles on May 29 at 1 p.m.

Previously, Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to all nine federal tax charges stemming from Weiss’ investigation. Hunter’s trial is scheduled to begin on June 20. 

Weiss charged Hunter Biden in December, alleging a ‘four-year scheme’ when the president’s son did not pay his federal income taxes from January 2017 to October 2020 while also filing false tax reports.

The charges break down to three felonies and six misdemeanors concerning $1.4 million in owed taxes that have since been paid.

In the indictment, Weiss alleged that Hunter ‘engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019, from in or about January 2017 through in or about October 15, 2020, and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns in or about February 2020.’

The special counsel alleged that Hunter ‘spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills,’ and that in 2018, he ‘stopped paying his outstanding and overdue taxes for tax year 2015.’

Lowell is also seeking to dismiss gun charges Weiss brought against Biden in Delaware.

The president’s son pleaded not guilty to all counts in October. 

Lowell also argued in court Wednesday that a diversion agreement on the tax charges was still in effect.

The diversion agreement was included as part of the original plea deal that collapsed in July. Biden was set to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, which would allow him to avoid jail time on a felony gun charge. That deal fell apart during his last court appearance. The president’s son, in July, was then forced to plead not guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and one felony gun charge when the deal collapsed in court.

Fox News’s Lee Ross contributed to this report.