Mental Health – Page 41 – The Tarbabys Blog

After Trump felony conviction, Biden leads for 1st time in months — but not by much

Yahoo! News

New Yahoo News/YouGov poll: After Trump felony conviction, Biden leads for 1st time in months — but not by much

Slightly more Americans think Donald Trump should get a prison sentence (43%) than think he should not (40%).

Andrew Romano, National Correspondent – June 7, 2024

President Biden delivers a speech during the U.S. ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. — President Biden at Colleville-sur-Mer, France, on June 6. (Daniel Cole/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

In the wake of former President Donald Trump’s felony conviction last week for falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to a porn star, President Biden (46%) now leads his Republican rival (44%) in a two-way race for the White House for the first time since October 2023, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

The past six Yahoo News/YouGov surveys showed Trump leading or tied with Biden among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup. At 46%, Biden’s current level of support is his highest since August 2023.

Yet even with Trump’s felony conviction factored in, the 2024 contest remains so close that Biden’s narrow lead vanishes once voters are given third-party options on a follow-up question.

In that scenario, Trump loses just 1 point of support, slipping to 43%; Biden (42%) sheds 4 points and falls behind.

Meanwhile, 9% of voters opt for “another candidate” — and then, when presented with specific names to choose from, they primarily select independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (4%) followed by independent Cornel West, Libertarian Chase Oliver and Green Party nominee Jill Stein at 1% apiece.

Most Americans say jury reached ‘right verdict’ but haven’t changed their views of Trump

The survey of 1,854 U.S. adults, which was conducted from June 3 to 6, highlights the fine margins that will likely decide this year’s Trump-Biden rematch.

The problem for Biden is not that Americans believe Trump is innocent. In fact, far more of them — a 51% majority — think the New York jury reached the “right verdict” in Trump’s hush money case than think the verdict was “wrong” (30%). Likewise, more Americans than ever (54%) now believe Trump committed the crime for which he was on trial.

Overall, 52% say Trump’s conviction was a “fair outcome meant to hold him accountable for his own actions”; just 35% who say it was “an unfair outcome meant to damage him politically.” And 49% think Trump was “more of a criminal” in the trial, versus 34% who consider him “more of a victim.”

But Trump’s conviction hasn’t really changed how Americans see him. For instance:

● 42% of Americans now rate Trump favorably, and 53% rate him unfavorably — slightly better than his 41%-55% rating last month, before the conviction.

● 40% of Americans now consider Trump “fit to serve another term as president,” and 47% do not — essentially identical to his 41%-46% split in May.

● And 44% of Americans now say the criminal charges against Trump are a “big problem” when it comes to his fitness to be president — unchanged from his number in April, the last time the question was asked.

In other words, public opinion of Trump is so baked in at this point that not even his new status as America’s first “felon president” can alter it. And this dynamic is especially true among those least inclined to accept unflattering information about the former president: his supporters.

Trump supporters no longer consider hush money payments to be ‘serious crime’

On previous Yahoo News/YouGov surveys, a small subset of Trump supporters expressed uncertainty about how they might view a potential conviction in the hush money case — and indicated possible second thoughts about voting for Trump in that scenario.

In April, for example, 17% of Trump supporters said he should not be allowed to serve as president again “if convicted of a serious crime in the coming months.” And in May, 14% indicated they would shift away from supporting Trump if he were to be “convicted of a crime in the hush money case” (with 10% unsure who they would support, 4% saying they would not vote at all and 1% flipping to Biden).

As a result, Biden led Trump by 7 points in the May poll — 46% to 39% — when voters were asked which candidate they would back in the hypothetical case of a Trump conviction.

Obviously, the vast majority of Trump’s previously squeamish supporters have decided to stick with him now that his conviction is a reality.

But why, and how? By changing their view of the crime itself. In six surveys conducted by Yahoo News and YouGov between June 2023 and April 2024, at least a quarter of Republicans (between 25% and 29%) said they considered “falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star” to be a “serious crime.”

But last month, that number dropped to 18%. Now, post-conviction, it is just 9%.

In contrast, the corresponding “serious crime” number among Democrats is 79% — essentially unchanged over the past year.

Similarly, 81% of current Trump supporters think the jury reached the wrong verdict last week; 83% say Trump was more of a victim than a criminal in the trial; and 87% believe the outcome was unfair and meant to damage him politically.

Given that, just 2% of Trump supporters now say he should not be allowed to serve as president after being convicted of “34 felony counts of falsifying business records.” Again, the number of Trump supporters who said the same in May — assuming a conviction for a “serious crime” — was 17%.

The risks ahead for Trump

Still, the new Yahoo News/YouGov poll does show a small shift in Biden’s direction — a result consistent with other post-conviction surveys.

The shift is so modest that it’s well within the poll’s 2.8% margin of error. And it disappears entirely when swing voters can choose third-party candidates instead of the incumbent.

Yet at the very least, Biden’s improvement on a two-way ballot suggests that being found guilty of 34 felony counts is not good news for Trump.

The next beat in the former president’s legal saga is his sentencing, which is currently scheduled for July 11. Slightly more Americans think Trump should get a prison sentence (43%) than think he should not (40%).

After that, Trump faces three additional criminal trials, all of which have been delayed indefinitely. Yet a full 64% of Americans now say it is important “that voters get a verdict in Trump’s trials before the 2024 general election” — versus just 25% who say it is not important.

Trump’s conviction in the hush money case may have even made some otherwise skeptical Democrats and independents more inclined to believe that Trump is guilty of other crimes. The number of Americans who now think Trump “conspired to overturn the results of a presidential election,” for instance, has grown from 45% to 50% since January (which includes a 79% to 88% uptick among Democrats, plus a 45% to 50% uptick among independents). And belief that Trump is guilty of “taking highly classified documents from the White House and obstructing efforts to retrieve them” has increased from 48% to 52% over the same period (with similar gains among Democrats and independents).

Whether these changes carry any political consequences for the former president remains to be seen. Legal experts think it’s unlikely that any of Trump’s other trials will conclude before Election Day. Yet if they did, and if Trump were “convicted of ANOTHER serious crime in the coming months,” voters again say they would favor Biden by a 46% to 40% margin.

Trump says it’s “very possible” that Biden and other political rivals will have to be jailed

Salon

Trump says it’s “very possible” that Biden and other political rivals will have to be jailed

Nicholas Liu – June 5, 2024

Donald Trump, spinning the old, false line that the trial that led to his conviction on felony charges was “rigged” and orchestrated by Joe Biden, suggested in an interview with Newsmax that the “precedent” would give him an opening pay his political opponents back in kind, according to the Washington Post.

“I said, ‘Wouldn’t it really be bad? … Wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state — think of it, the former secretary of state — but the president’s wife into jail?” Trump mused on Tuesday, referring to his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton, who he had repeatedly said should be “locked up” despite now blaming his supporters for saying it instead.

“But they want to do it,” Trump said, apparently referring to Biden and other political rivals. “So, you know, it’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them … it’s a terrible precedent for the country.”

The precedent Trump was referring to was his imagined version of events, in which President Biden supposedly instructed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to prosecute him, and then rigged the trial secure a conviction. Despite making this claim for several months now, Trump has been unable to cite any evidence to suggest that Bragg, an independently elected prosecutor, coordinated with the White House at all. Prosecutors said that they were only following the facts in their case.

Trump, who faces criminal charges in three other cases, has made revenge a central message of his campaign, telling supporters at one point that “I am your retribution.” Other times, he has vacillated, saying in an Iowa rally that he “didn’t have time for retribution.” Since he first ran for president in 2015, Trump has called for the Justice Department to investigate political opponents and former allies who are now critical of him; in the lead up to the 2024 election, he has a plan to make that a reality by purging DOJ staff turning the department into what Reuters referred to as “an attack dog for conservative causes.”

Russia is trying to scare people away from the Paris Olympics, report says

NBC News

Russia is trying to scare people away from the Paris Olympics, report says

Ken Dilanian – June 4, 2024

New warnings of Russian threats to Paris Olympics

Banned from the 2024 Olympics over the war in Ukraine, Russia has mounted a secret influence campaign seeking to discredit the Games and sow fears of terrorism, according to a new report from Microsoft’s threat intelligence unit.

The report tracks what it calls “prolific Russian influence actors” that last summer began focusing on disparaging the 2024 Olympic Games and French President Emmanuel Macron, including by posting a bogus documentary featuring a deepfake of actor Tom Cruise.

“These ongoing Russian influence operations have two central objectives: to denigrate the reputation of the [International Olympic Committee] on the world stage; and to create the expectation of violence breaking out in Paris during the 2024 Summer Olympic Games,” the report says.

“Russia has a decades-long history of undermining the Olympics, but for the Paris Games, we’ve observed this old playbook has been updated with new generative AI tactics, “ said Clint Watts, a former FBI agent who directed the study. “They want to scare spectators from attending the Games for fear of physical violence breaking out.”

Most recently, the Russian campaign has sought to capitalize on the Israel-Hamas war by impersonating militants and fabricating threats against Israelis who attending the 2024 Games, the report found. Some images referenced the attacks at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where an affiliate of the Palestine Liberation Organization killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team and a West German police officer.

Munich Olympics 1972 Hostage Crisis (Russel McPhedran / Fairfax Media via Getty Images file)

The fake documentary, posted online last summer, was titled “Olympics Has Fallen,” a play on the 2013 movie “Olympus Has Fallen.” Designed to resemble a Netflix production, it used AI-generated audio resembling Cruise’s voice to imply his participation, the report says, and even attached sham five-star reviews from The New York Times, The Washington Post and the BBC.

YouTube took it down at the behest of the International Olympic Committee, but it remains available on Telegram, Microsoft says.

“The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has recently been faced with a number of fake news posts targeting the IOC,” the committee said in a statement last fall, citing “an entire documentary produced with defamatory content, a fake narrative and false information, using an AI-generated voice of a world-renowned Hollywood actor.”

The Russian campaign also put out videos designed to look like news reports that suggested intelligence about credible threats of violence at the Paris Games, Microsoft found.

One video that purported to be a report from media outlet Euronews in Brussels falsely claimed that Parisians were buying property insurance in anticipation of terrorism.

In another spoofed news clip impersonating French broadcaster France 24, the Russian campaign falsely claimed that 24% of purchased tickets for Olympic events had been returned due to fears of terrorism.

A third Russian effort consisted of a fake video news release from the CIA and France’s main intelligence agency warning potential attendees to stay away from the 2024 Olympics due to the alleged risk of a terror attack.

Microsoft says Russia, like the Soviet Union before it, has a long history of attacking the Olympics.

“If they cannot participate in or win the Games, then they seek to undercut, defame, and degrade the international competition in the minds of participants, spectators, and global audiences,” the report says. “The Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 Summer Games held in Los Angeles and sought to influence other countries to do the same.”

At the time, according to Microsoft, U.S. officials linked Soviet actors to a campaign that covertly distributed leaflets to Olympic committees in countries including Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and South Korea, claiming that nonwhite competitors would be targeted by American extremists if they went to Los Angeles.

In 2017, the IOC banned Russia from the 2018 Winter Games after finding widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs by Russian athletes.

But the current ban is over the war in Ukraine. The committee decided that qualifying athletes from Russia and close ally Belarus may compete in the 2024 Summer Games only as “individual neutral athletes,” prohibited from flying their national flags.

Microsoft said the online influence campaign picked up shortly afterward.

The Russian Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

How the Supreme Court could upend the other criminal cases against Trump

Yahoo! News

How the Supreme Court could upend the other criminal cases against Trump

David Knowles, Senior Editor – June 3, 2024

On Monday, former President Donald Trump vented about being found guilty in New York of 34 counts of falsifying business records and suggested that the U.S. Supreme Court step in to prevent Judge Juan Merchan from sentencing him in the case.

“The United States Supreme Court MUST DECIDE!” Trump wrote.

While the high court is unlikely to intervene in the sentencing of the former president found guilty by a jury in a state court proceeding, it is expected to issue a ruling at any time on whether the principle of presidential immunity protects Trump from prosecution in the federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

But whatever the court decides, the ruling will affect not only that criminal case, but at least two of the others he is facing as well. Here’s why:

Jan. 6 election interference

In April, the high court heard oral arguments on the presidential immunity question after a federal appeals court upheld Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling that Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election were not part of his official presidential duties.

Chutkan has paused the Jan. 6 election interference case until the Supreme Court issues its ruling. If the court rules in Trump’s favor, agreeing that former presidents are protected from criminal prosecution unless first impeached and convicted by Congress, the trial will not move forward. If the justices rule in the government’s favor, the case could conceivably go to trial before the 2024 presidential election.

Based on the questions from the justices, most legal analysts believe that the court will not give Trump blanket protection from prosecution, but could issue a ruling that would require another court to examine each of the charges against Trump to try to clarify whether his behavior, such spreading false claims about the outcome of the election, should be characterized as an official act.

If that happens, the start date of the trial could be pushed back until after the 2024 election. That’s significant because if Trump is reelected, he could direct his attorney general to simply drop the case against him.

Georgia election interference

Trump and 14 others face felony charges in Fulton County, Georgia, stemming from their efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that battleground state, and if the Supreme Court were to rule in Trump’s favor on presidential immunity, his lawyers would quickly press Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to drop the 10 felony counts against him.

In January, Trump filed a court motion with McAfee to dismiss the state charges on the grounds that past Supreme Court precedent “shields President Trump from criminal prosecution for acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official duties.”

Proceedings in the trial are currently on hold as McAfee awaits the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity and Trump’s lawyers pursue an appeal of McAfee’s decision to allow Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case despite allegations of misconduct. On Monday, the Georgia appeals court scheduled the case to be heard in October.

A Supreme Court ruling on the immunity question that goes even partially in Trump’s favor would result in a new round of court challenges from Trump’s lawyers that would almost certainly drag the case into 2024 or 2025.

Classified documents

At the core of Trump’s defense in the classified documents case is his contention that, because he was president when he decided to send boxes containing classified documents to his Florida home, he can’t be prosecuted for doing so. In February, Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Aileen Cannon to drop all 40 felony counts brought by Smith on those grounds.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, has already delayed the trial so that it would very likely begin after the presidential election.

Should the Supreme Court rule that presidential immunity protects Trump from prosecution, the classified documents case could be quashed before a trial begins.

Judge Cannon Falls for Trump’s Most Nefarious Lie Yet

The New Republic – Opinion

Judge Cannon Falls for Trump’s Most Nefarious Lie Yet

Hafiz Rashid – June 3, 2024

Judge Aileen Cannon seems to have handed Donald Trump another big favor in his classified documents trial—seriously entertaining a lie from the former president.

Trump made up a false claim that the FBI plotted to assassinate him during its search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents because it had weapons, despite the fact that this is generally standard procedure when law enforcement carries out a search warrant. Trump appointee Cannon has decided to grant this made-up conspiracy legitimacy by giving the presumptive Republican presidential nominee two weeks to prove it, further delaying the trial.

Tweet screenshot: Aileen Cannon gives Trump a full two weeks to argue that he should be allow to falsely claim the FBI tried to assassinate him, a conspiracy theory based off an obvious misstatement from his lawyers.

It’s the latest in a series of questionable moves from Cannon in the classified documents case. She has indefinitely delayed the case over “unresolved pretrial motions,” and last week she rejected a gag order request from special counsel Jack Smith because she claimed it was “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy.” Trump has made no secret of how much he appreciates Cannon’s efforts, and there have been calls for her to remove herself from the case. Even one of Trump’s former lawyers, Ty Cobb, thinks that she is incompetent.

Overall, the trial isn’t running smoothly. One hearing that gave a defendant’s lawyer a chance to allege vindictiveness from a prosecutor devolved into a shouting match. Cannon herself seems to be having trouble understanding basic legal proceedings and principles, leading to long explanations that she still doesn’t appear to grasp. Her conduct has disillusioned some of her clerks, two of whom decided to quit as a result of her conduct on the classified documents case as well as an allegedly hostile work environment. All of this fuels accusations that Cannon is deliberately slowing down the case to benefit Trump and his campaign for president.

Trump faces 42 felony charges in the case related to illegally retaining national security documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Trump attorney spars with ABC host over bias

Politico

Trump attorney spars with ABC host over bias

David Cohen – June 2, 2024

Will Scharf, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, insisted Sunday that the Biden administration was firmly behind Trump’s prosecution even as ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pushed back on that idea.

Speaking on “This Week,” Scharf responded to Stephanopoulos saying, “Of course, the attorney general of Manhattan has nothing to do with the Department of Justice,” by arguing in response: “I vehemently disagree that the district attorney in New York was not politically motivated here, and I vehemently disagree that President Biden and his political allies aren’t up to their necks in this prosecution.”

Stephanopoulos answered: “There’s no evidence here of that sir. … I’m not going to let you continue to say that — there’s zero evidence of that.”

After some further jousting over the issue, the ABC host tried to steer Scharf back to a question he had asked. “This has nothing to do with President Biden,” he said. “Do you want to answer the question about the sentencing process or not?”

“I completely disagree that this has nothing to do with President Biden,” Scharf said. “With respect to sentencing, as I said before, we’re going to vigorously challenge this case on appeal. I don’t think President Trump is going to end up being subject to any sentence whatsoever.”

In discussing the appeals process, Scharf made it clear that Trump’s appeal of his conviction of 34 felony charges would focus on two areas: Justice Juan Merchan’s decision not to recuse himself amid appearances of bias, and Merchan’s instructions to the jury.

Stephanpoulos pointed out that Scharf himself had praised the jury instructions before the deliberations took place.

“I think: Hope for the best, plan for the worst, George. But I think when you look at the totality of the circumstances in this case,” Scharf responded, “this is a prosecution that should have never been brought. This was a case tried in front of a judge that clearly should have recused. I think we have a lot of fair complaints with the way this trial was conducted and I think ultimately, President Trump will be vindicated on appeal.”

In discussing the effectiveness of the defense team’s legal strategies, Scharf also said it “would have been dangerous” for Trump to testify on his behalf, but that he would have made an effective witness if he had testified.

On Thursday, Scharf sharply criticized the verdict right after it came down.

“This is a tragic day in the history of the American Republic,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “President Trump’s conviction proves one thing and one thing only: that Joe Biden and his allies have weaponized our legal system to persecute their principal political opponent. We will speedily appeal, and we will win on appeal because this case is meritless, baseless, and should have never seen the inside of an American courtroom.”

Stephanopoulos cuts off Trump lawyer after he suggests Biden was behind Trump conviction

The Hill

Stephanopoulos cuts off Trump lawyer after he suggests Biden was behind Trump conviction

Sarah Fortinsky – June 2, 2024

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos clashed with former President Trump’s attorney, Will Scharf, in a Sunday interview, over the former president’s unsubstantiated claims that President Biden played a role in bringing the hush money criminal case against Trump in New York.

In an interview on “This Week,” Scharf repeatedly echoed claims of the former president, arguing the hush money criminal trial — which ended in a guilty conviction against Trump on 34 felony counts — was “exhibit A” in terms of the “politicization of the legal system.”

“It’s absolutely unprecedented in American history. It’s not the way that our campaigns are supposed to be run. We contest elections at the ballot box, not in the courts in this country,” Scharf continued.

Stephanopoulos conceded Scharf’s point about winning elections at the ballot box but made clear there was no evidence to suggest any involvement of the federal Department of Justice with the New York state criminal trial that just concluded.

“That is true. But, of course, we’ve never had a former president or presidential candidate facing the kind of charges that the president faced because of his own activities. And, of course, the attorney general in Manhattan has nothing to do with the Department of Justice,” Stephanopoulos said.

As Stephanopoulos tried to pivot back to his question about the sentencing process, Scharf pressed on, refusing to concede his point about the prosecution being politically motivated. Stephanopoulos eventually interrupted.

“I vehemently disagree that the district attorney in New York was not politically motivated here,” Scharf said, “and I vehemently disagree that President Biden and his political allies aren’t up to their necks in this prosecution.”

Stephanopoulos jumped in, saying, “There’s no evidence here of that. Sir … I’m not going to let you continue to say that. There’s just zero evidence of that.”

“Do you want to answer the question about the sentencing process or not?” Stephanopoulos added, after some back-and-forth.

Scharf pointed to the prosecutor in the case, Matthew Colangelo, “standing over [District Attorney] Alvin Bragg’s shoulder when he announced this verdict” as evidence of political interference, noting he used to work at the Department of Justice, before the interview wrapped up.

Top Sports Talk Host Tears Into Trump For ‘Trying To Sell Me An America That Doesn’t Exist’

HuffPost

Top Sports Talk Host Tears Into Trump For ‘Trying To Sell Me An America That Doesn’t Exist’

Marco Margaritoff – June 1, 2024

Donald Trump: Guilty

Sports talk radio host Colin Cowherd, who predicted a “red wave” at the 2022 midterms and accused Democrats of maliciously keeping children out of school during the pandemic, no longer believes former President Donald Trump is running a cogent campaign.

Cowherd, whose nationally syndicated radio show is simulcast on Fox Sports 1, declared as much after Trump was convicted Thursday of 34 felonies in a historic verdict.

“He’s trying to sell me an America that doesn’t exist,” Cowherd said Thursday on his podcast. “I live in a nice neighborhood in L.A. and it’s not … one of those swanky neighborhoods, but I don’t see crime. I’m not stumbling over homeless people.”

“Dodger Stadium’s full, leads Major League Baseball in attendance,” he continued. “Laker games are full. People have money in their pocket.”

Cowherd argued that the picture of “skyrocketing” crime rates Trump often evokes on the campaign trail is nonexistent — and that violent crimes rates have “plummeted coast to coast” since 2023.

The former president responded to Thursday’s verdict by accusing the justice system of being “rigged.” Cowherd said he thinks Trump, who he called a “con-artist,” is now stoking increasing disillusionment among his supporters.

“Donald Trump is now a felon,” Cowherd said. “His campaign chairman was a felon. So is his deputy campaign manager, his personal lawyer, his chief strategist, his national security adviser, his trade advisor, his foreign policy advisor … they’re all felons.”

The list of Trump’s former team members who’ve been convicted of a crime is expansive. Among them: Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and former campaign vice chairman, Rick Gates; his former fixer, Michael Cohen; his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon; his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn; his former trade advisor, Peter Navarro; and his former foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos.

Trump decried his guilty verdict as “rigged.” Julia Nikhinson/Associated Press

“If everybody in your social circle is a felon, I don’t think it’s ‘rigged,’” Cowherd added. “I don’t think the world’s against you. And to get people to agree on anything, 34 counts? Zero for 34? That’s a batting slump even the New York Mets could be impressed with.”

Cowherd preempted the notion that, as a financially successful pundit, he’s politically out of touch.

“The America I live in is imperfect,” he said. “But compared to the rest of the world, I think we’re doing OK.”

Louisiana graduate finishes high school as valedictorian while being homeless

CNN

Louisiana graduate finishes high school as valedictorian while being homeless

Ashley R. Williams, CNN – June 1, 2024

A Louisiana high school senior experiencing homelessness recently graduated at the top of his class with the highest-earned GPA.

Elijah Hogan, 19, was named valedictorian of Walter L. Cohen High School in New Orleans and graduated May 24 with a 3.93 GPA, he told CNN.

Hogan, who became homeless a year and a half ago, says he was in disbelief when he learned of his academic achievement.

“I thought they were mistaking me for someone else, but when I looked at it and I was shown evidence that it was me, I was in awe, like, I was jaw dropped,” said Hogan, who was born in New Orleans and raised mostly in Houston.

Hogan was one of four Black male students who achieved valedictorian status at their New Orleans schools this spring, CNN affiliate WDSU reported.

Hogan, who previously lived with his grandmother since he was 11, says he became homeless after the lease on his grandmother’s house expired when the homeowner decided to sell the property.

He and his grandmother were given 30 days to vacate the house, according to Hogan.

“From there, I made the executive decision to live on my own to lighten my grandmother’s burden,” Hogan told CNN.

While his grandmother went to live in a care home for the elderly, Hogan was left without permanent housing.

His grandmother told him about the Covenant House, a homeless shelter in New Orleans serving youth and young adults ages 16-22. Hogan has been living at the shelter as part of its transitional housing program since he became homeless, he said.

Elijah Hogan, center, proudly holds up his high school diploma from Walter L. Cohen High School. - Courtesy Kewe Ukpolo — Elijah Hogan, center, proudly holds up his high school diploma from Walter L. Cohen High School. – Courtesy Kewe Ukpolo

The program allows young people to stay at the shelter up to 24 months rent-free, giving them an opportunity to focus on education or to save money while working, Covenant House New Orleans chief executive officer Rheneisha Robertson told CNN.

“It really allows them to get stable and identify more permanent, stable housing,” said Robertson, who added the homeless shelter had five other high school graduates this year.

Hogan, who addressed his graduating class with an uplifting valedictorian speech last week, said dealing with homelessness while completing his education was challenging but he found support from the homeless shelter’s employees and his high school’s staff.

“As time went on, I started to open up to people over at Covenant House as well as Cohen, people were there to support me and give me a guiding hand,” Hogan said. “Without them, I wouldn’t (have) become who I am today.”

He credits his Covenant House case manager, Jarkayla Cobb, with never giving up on him.

“She helped me get through it even when I was showing a lack of faith in myself,” Hogan said. “She’s been there no matter what I needed.”

Hogan, who lost his mother just before he turned 12, says her death encouraged him to push forward with his education for his grandmother’s sake.

“I know that’s what (my mother) would have wanted,” he said.

Hogan plans to attend Xavier University in New Orleans in the fall to study graphic design and has been granted a scholarship to cover his tuition fees, he says.

“Elijah’s accomplishments are worth celebrating. We know that they are a product of his character and the choices he made day after day to pursue his dreams,” Jerel Bryant, chief executive officer of Collegiate Academies, which operates Hogan’s former high school, said in a statement.

“His success is also a testament to how capable and excellent our Black youth are, in New Orleans and across this country,” Bryant said.

Hogan offered these words of encouragement for other young people:

“To any race, no matter what color or accent you have, you are your own guiding light,” Hogan said. “You are your own storybook that you write. Let yourself be the pen that you write on paper.”

Trump adviser on Hogan’s verdict remarks: You just ended your campaign

The Hill

Trump adviser on Hogan’s verdict remarks: You just ended your campaign

Filip Timotija – May 30, 2024

Former President Trump’s adviser Chris LaCivita said that former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who is running to become one of the state’s next senators, has just ended his campaign with remarks he shared in the lead-up to the decision in the former president’s hush money case.

Minutes before Trump, the Republican presumptive nominee, was found guilty on all 34 felony counts in the Manhattan hush-money case, Hogan shared a Thursday post on the social media platform X, saying that “regardless” of the outcome, Americans should respect the legal “process” and the verdict.

Larry Hogan, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland, arrives at the polling place at Davidsonville Elementary School to cast his ballot in the state primary election on May 14, 2024 in Davidsonville, Maryland. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“At this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders—regardless of party—must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship,” Hogan said. “We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.”

In a little more than an hour, LaCivita, a veteran consultant, who has been overseeing day-to-day operations of the Republican National Committee (RNC) since March, fired back at the former governor, saying “You just ended your campaign.”

Hogan, a frequent Trump critic, is looking to become the first GOP politician to win a seat in Maryland, a blue-leaning state where he served as governor for two consecutive terms.

The moderate Republican, who launched his Senate bid in February, said in March that he would not vote for Trump or for President Biden in 2024.

Hogan is looking to build a diverse coalition of voters as he tries to win the race in November while also stressing that neither Republicans nor Democrats in the upper chamber can count on his vote, showcasing his commitment to being an independent voter.

Hogan won the Maryland GOP primary in May and will square off against Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who beat Rep. David Trone (Md.) in the Democratic primary.