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What to expect as Donald Trump’s first criminal trial gets under way

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WHEN THE curtain rises on Donald Trump’s first criminal trial, in a Manhattan courtroom on April 15th, the show will be a meld of genres. The solemnity of the first prosecution of a former president, who also happens to be running again, will nod to tragedy. Really, though, this is a seedy burlesque, with a bit of farce. The case is about sex, money and blackmail. Mr Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, who will testify against him, once described the conduct at issue as the “filth and muck of politics” and, less delicately, a “shit sandwich”.

Every trial is part theatre. This one, slated to run for six to eight weeks (beginning with jury selection), will be a sell-out. Of the four indictments against Mr Trump it may also be the only one to produce a verdict before the election in November. The other, weightier charges, about alleged election interference and the mishandling of classified documents, are beset by delays.

The case was brought by Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin Bragg, and captures Mr Trump at his tawdriest. It centres on his efforts to buy the silence of Stephanie Clifford, a former porn star better known as Stormy Daniels, before the 2016 election. Prosecutors allege that the payment was made to protect his candidacy and thus amounted to an undeclared campaign expense. The charges pertain to the supposed cover-up: Mr Trump is accused of falsifying business records to hide the pay-off. He denies any such scheme; his attorneys call it a “fantasy case”.

Early in his first campaign Mr Trump met his lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his friend David Pecker, then the boss of a tabloid publishing company. Mr Pecker agreed to be Mr Trump’s “eyes and ears”—to look out for damaging stories and alert the campaign to them. When a former Trump Tower doorman tried to sell a bogus story to tabloids about how Mr Trump had fathered an illegitimate child, Mr Pecker warned team Trump, which directed him to buy exclusive rights to the story and bury it, a practice known as “catch and kill”. A similar deal was struck when Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who allegedly had an affair with Mr Trump between 2006 and 2007, emerged from the woodwork. Mr Pecker’s firm paid her $150,000 on the understanding that Mr Trump would pay it back, though the reimbursement never came.

About a month before the election Ms Daniels surfaced, shopping around her story about a sexual encounter with Mr Trump, also in 2006. The “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Mr Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals, had just appeared in the press and nearly sunk his candidacy. The campaign could ill-afford headlines about how he had slept with a porn star while his wife was nursing their newborn son. This time, however, Mr Pecker declined to front the hush money, having just been stiffed by Mr Trump. So Mr Cohen paid Ms Clifford from his own pocket.

To reimburse Mr Cohen, Mr Trump and executives at the Trump Organisation agreed to pay him in monthly instalments and label them as legal expenses in the company’s accounts. Hence 34 felonies alleged by Mr Bragg: 11 related to invoices, 12 to ledger entries and 11 to cheques. Normally these would be misdemeanours. To upgrade them, prosecutors must show that the records were falsified to commit, conceal or aid another crime. They have suggested a few: that the hush money amounted to a federal campaign-finance violation, and that tax wasn’t properly paid on the reimbursements.

A parade of witnesses should bolster the prosecutors’ case. Mr Cohen and Mr Pecker will testify to Mr Trump’s alleged involvement in the scheme; campaign staff will attest to the potential damage had Ms Daniels’s account come out before the election. There is an ample paper trail, including cheques that Mr Trump personally signed, and a recording of him discussing the payment for Ms McDougal’s silence.

Mr Trump’s lawyers, for their part, will contend that there was nothing illegal about the hush money: that it was paid purely to protect his personal reputation and spare his wife embarrassment, not to influence the vote or skirt campaign-finance rules. John Edwards, a former Democratic candidate for president, successfully made that argument and was acquitted of breaking campaign-finance laws to hide an affair and out-of-wedlock child during the 2008 election. But it will not help that Mr Cohen has admitted in court that it was a crime. In 2018 he pleaded guilty to making an undeclared campaign contribution (among other charges) and spent just over a year in prison.

Mr Trump’s principal strategy, then, will be to impugn Mr Cohen’s credibility and paint him as an inveterate fibster with an axe to grind. Indeed Mr Cohen has an impressive record of lying under oath and a well-documented animus towards his former boss, who reportedly relished treating him like garbage. (Their rupture came when Mr Trump stopped paying for Mr Cohen’s legal defence in 2018.) Still, flawed witnesses are par for the course for prosecutors.

If Mr Trump is convicted, sentencing will be decided by the judge, Juan Merchan. Although each count carries a maximum of four years in prison, they would probably run concurrently; there is no mandatory minimum. Prison time seems unlikely for a first-time, white-collar felon. But if Mr Trump violates the judge’s gag order—which bars him from attacking jurors and witnesses, among others—he might be in for a surprise.

Would a conviction sway voters? That Mr Trump wanted his philandering kept quiet is neither surprising nor news; Americans are inured to his sex scandals by now. Compared with his other indictments this is small bore. Voters consider it the least serious of the four and a plurality thinks a guilty verdict will have no bearing on his political career, according to polling by YouGov. They are evenly split about whether he should be convicted. An acquittal would vindicate Mr Trump’s claim to be the victim of a political crusade by Mr Bragg, an elected district attorney who is a Democrat.

Much of the discourse around the indictment has been critical of it, even among lawyers on the left. There was doubt about whether state prosecutors could even bring a case that rests on a federal campaign-finance violation, since that is the domain of federal prosecutors. Those questions might arise on appeal, but for now they are academic: judges have refused to toss the case out. Instead Mr Trump is about to make his debut as a criminal defendant. This show is going on.

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Economics

Will Elon Musk’s cash splash pay off in Wisconsin?

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TO GET A sense of what the Republican Party thinks of the electoral value of Elon Musk, listen to what Brad Schimel, a conservative candidate for the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, has to say about the billionaire. At an event on March 29th at an airsoft range (a more serious version of paintball) just outside Kenosha, five speakers, including Mr Schimel, spoke for over an hour about the importance of the election to the Republican cause. Mr Musk’s political action committees (PACs) have poured over $20m into the race, far more than any other donor’s. But over the course of the event, his name came up precisely zero times.

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Economics

German inflation, March 2025

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Customers shop for fresh fruits and vegetables in a supermarket in Munich, Germany, on March 8, 2025.

Michael Nguyen | Nurphoto | Getty Images

German inflation came in at a lower-than-expected 2.3% in March, preliminary data from the country’s statistics office Destatis showed Monday.

It compares to February’s 2.6% print, which was revised lower from a preliminary reading, and a poll of Reuters economists who had been expecting inflation to come in at 2.4% The print is harmonized across the euro area for comparability. 

On a monthly basis, harmonized inflation rose 0.4%. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, came in at 2.5%, below February’s 2.7% reading.

Meanwhile services inflation, which had long been sticky, also eased to 3.4% in March, from 3.8% in the previous month.

The data comes at a critical time for the German economy as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs loom and fiscal and economic policy shifts at home could be imminent.

Trade is a key pillar for the German economy, making it more vulnerable to the uncertainty and quickly changing developments currently dominating global trade policy. A slew of levies from the U.S. are set to come into force this week, including 25% tariffs on imported cars — a sector that is key to Germany’s economy. The country’s political leaders and car industry heavyweights have slammed Trump’s plans.

Meanwhile Germany’s political parties are working to establish a new coalition government following the results of the February 2025 federal election. Negotiations are underway between the Christian Democratic Union, alongside its sister party the Christian Social Union, and the Social Democratic Union.

While various points of contention appear to remain between the parties, their talks have already yielded some results. Earlier this month, Germany’s lawmakers voted in favor of a major fiscal package, which included amendments to long-standing debt rules to allow for higher defense spending and a 500-billion-euro ($541 billion) infrastructure fund.

This is a breaking news story, please check back for updates.

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Economics

First-quarter GDP growth will be just 0.3% as tariffs stoke stagflation conditions, says CNBC survey

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media aboard Air Force One before landing in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., March 28, 2025. 

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Policy uncertainty and new sweeping tariffs from the Trump administration are combining to create a stagflationary outlook for the U.S. economy in the latest CNBC Rapid Update.

The Rapid Update, averaging forecasts from 14 economists for GDP and inflation, sees first quarter growth registering an anemic 0.3% compared with the 2.3% reported in the fourth quarter of 2024. It would be the weakest growth since 2022 as the economy emerged from the pandemic.

Core PCE inflation, meanwhile, the Fed’s preferred inflation indicator, will remain stuck at around 2.9% for most of the year before resuming its decline in the fourth quarter.

Behind the dour GDP forecasts is new evidence that the decline in consumer and business sentiment is showing up in real economic activity. The Commerce Department on Friday reported that real, or inflation-adjusted consumer spending in February rose just 0.1%, after a decline of -0.6% in January. Action Economics dropped its outlook for spending growth to just 0.2% in this quarter from 4% in the fourth quarter.

“Signs of slowing in hard activity data are becoming more convincing, following an earlier worsening in sentiment,” wrote Barclays over the weekend.

Another factor: a surge of imports (which subtract from GDP) that appear to have poured into the U.S. ahead of tariffs.

The good news is the import effect should abate and only two of the 12 economists surveyed see negative growth in Q1. None forecast consecutive quarters of economic contraction. Oxford Economics, which has the lowest Q1 estimate at -1.6%, expects a continued drag from imports but sees second quarter GDP rebounding to 1.9%, because those imports will eventually end up boosting growth when they are counted in inventory or sales measures.

Recession risks rising

On average, most economists forecast a gradual rebound, with second quarter GDP averaging 1.4%, third quarter at 1.6% and the final quarter of the year rising to 2%.

The danger is an economy with anemic growth of just 0.3% could easily slip into negative territory. And, with new tariffs set to come this week, not everyone is so sure about a rebound.

“While our baseline doesn’t show a decline in real GDP, given the mounting global trade war and DOGE cuts to jobs and funding, there is a good chance GDP will decline in the first and even the second quarters of this year,” said Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics. “And a recession will be likely if the president doesn’t begin backtracking on the tariffs by the third quarter.”

Moody’s looks for anemic Q1 growth of just 0.4% that rebounds to 1.6% by year end, which is still modestly below trend.

Stubborn inflation will complicate the Fed’s ability to respond to flagging growth. Core PCE is expected at 2.8% this quarter, rising to 3% next quarter and staying roughly at that level until in drops to 2.6% a year from now.

While the market looks to be banking on rate cuts, the Fed could find them difficult to justify until inflation begins falling more convincingly at the end of the year.

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