Morning Report — Will the jury believe Michael Cohen?

Manhattan prosecutors turned Monday to star witness Michael Cohen to describe the crux of their alleged criminal evidence against former President Trump stemming from his bid for the White House in 2016.

Cohen’s account of doing Trump’s bidding to hide extramarital sex as Trump sought the presidency eventually angered the defendant. Trump exited the courtroom to say he chafed at being off the campaign trail and he read at length from articles written by legal allies. Trump also blasted the presiding justice after hours of listening, sometimes with his eyes closed, to his former “fixer” retell a story now internationally familiar.

The Hill: Angry Trump blasts Justice Juan Merchan following Cohen’s testimony.

Accompanying witness testimony, which Trump challenges, is alleged evidence gathered in documents, text messages, email and phone calls.

It would be embarrassing but not a felony if Trump was intimately involved in hush payments that were paid by Cohen to two women to lock up their stories about sex with the then-businessman. Cohen says he received reimbursement from Trump for funds he expended on his boss’s behalf. But the criminal charge against Trump is pegged to evidence that Trump sought to disguise the repayments as mundane legal expenses to hide his activities from voters during a presidential election. Trump denies all charges.

“Just do it,” Cohen recalled his boss saying when approving a plan to repay him for concluding a deal to buy silence from adult-film personality Stormy Daniels.

He described being deeply involved in attempts to protect Trump’s campaign from scandal, including by covering up Daniels’s tale of sex with a married Trump. The former president’s ex-attorney testified that his then-boss feared the story could sink his 2016 electoral hopes.

The Hill’s Niall Stanage weaves with five takeaways the day’s vivid Cohen testimony and the foundation of the prosecution’s case thus far.

Cohen, convicted for lying to Congress and to investigators, is expected back on the stand today. His cross-examination by the defense team is expected to be harsh after linking Trump directly to hush payments ahead of the 2016 election. The trial will take a break Wednesday and Friday and prosecutors have suggested they may rest their case by the end of the week.

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LEADING THE DAY

POLITICS

A FRESH POLL from The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College brought more bad news for President Biden as he struggles to catch up to Trump in the key battleground states that will decide November’s election. The Hill’s Brett Samuels and Julia Manchester report the poll found Trump leading in five out of six swing states, with Wisconsin the lone place where Biden is ahead. More concerning for the incumbent is that the poll found the president is losing support among young voters and Black and Hispanic voters, all of whom are critical to his coalition to win reelection.

“With the usual stipulations about polls six months out, Biden is behind,” said Jim Kessler, co-founder of the left-leaning think tank Third Way. “They need to be in a better place on the border, crime and inflation to win. They have a story to tell on each and further actions they can take, but they need to get cracking.”

That same poll found Democratic Senate candidates in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin lead their Republican rivals and are running well ahead of Biden in key states where he continues to struggle. The battleground surveys indicate that his lagging poll numbers against Trump may not be enough to sink other Democrats, especially Senate incumbents who are facing lesser-known Republicans.

Still, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports Senate Democrats have downplayed the political threat they face this year over the huge surge of migrants across the southern border, but their recent actions show they are increasingly nervous about the potential political liability of the issue. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the Senate Democrats’ most vulnerable incumbent, on Thursday became the first in his conference to co-sponsor the Laken Riley Act after voting against it as an amendment in March. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has stepped up his messaging on border security, repeatedly addressing it on the Senate floor, and Biden has announced executive action on immigration policy. 

“Democrats realize on the border and immigration, you need to talk about that,” said one Democratic strategist. “You can’t just not talk about that. I’ll be interested in seeing what the Biden team does on executive actions. I think it can be helpful.”

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ZOOM IN

INTERNATIONAL

ISRAEL INTENSIFIED ATTACKS on northern Gaza on Monday, battling Hamas in areas it previously said were cleared and renewing questions over Israeli strategy in the war. Israel has insisted that it must invade Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where more than 1.3 million Palestinians have sought refuge, to “eliminate” Hamas’s presence in the enclave.

But Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that even a full-scale ground assault on Rafah would fail to achieve that goal. Israel is “on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,” he said this week.

Already, Blinken said, Israel’s offensive has led to a “horrible loss of life of innocent civilians,” with the death toll in Gaza rising over the weekend past 35,000, according to local health officials.

NPR: As Palestinians venture back into areas of Gaza that have been obliterated by months of combat, international organizations and aid groups say there’s a hidden threat: unexploded ordnance.

BIDEN IS EXPECTED TO QUADRUPLE tariffs on electric vehicles from China from roughly 25 percent to 100 percent, and raise other tariffs on key industries including semiconductors, solar, and batteries in an announcement today. By implementing a steep increase on EV tariffs, the administration aims to prevent a flood of cars made in China from hitting the U.S. market — a market China has not been a significant player in up to this point (The Wall Street Journal and ABC News).

“Hopefully we will not see a significant Chinese response — but that’s always a possibility,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a Bloomberg News interview Monday. “The president wants to make sure that he protects these investments. He believes it unacceptable — as I do — to be completely dependent on China in these areas,” given that Beijing engages in massive subsidies and “is really not playing by the rules.”

IN UKRAINE, Kharkiv and its surrounding area are facing an intense wave of attacks from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invading troops, with experts suggesting the surge marks the start of a decisive battle that will be critical to the outcome of the war. At stake is not just control of one of Ukraine’s major population centers but potentially the country’s capacity to keep fighting: If Kharkiv falls, Western resolve may soon follow (Politico).

Blinken is in Kyiv today, the first visit of a Biden administration official to Ukraine following congressional approval of additional U.S. military aid to the country. Blinken met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and plans to highlight the U.S.’s continued support for Ukraine across the board in a speech (CNN).

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ELSEWHERE

CONGRESS

THE HOUSE IS EXPECTED to easily clear the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill this week, sending the measure to Biden’s desk with time to spare before a Friday funding deadline. The legislation is scheduled to be considered today under suspension of the rules and would reauthorize the FAA at $105 billion over five years — including priorities aimed at overhauling aircraft certification and improving aviation safety.

The bill passed the Senate last week after a fraught amendment process as some senators threatened to hold up an agreement to fast-track the measure unless they received floor votes on their amendments. The big point of contention in the FAA bill is the addition of slots at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which the Maryland and Virginia congressional delegations oppose but were unable to strip from the Senate version. House Republicans overwhelmingly support expanding DCA to allow more flights outside the statutory perimeter. House Democrats are largely opposed (Roll Call).

PERMITTING REFORM: Schumer threw cold water on the prospects of reaching a deal to speed up the nation’s energy projects Monday, saying that reaching a Senate deal on energy permitting reform would be “virtually impossible.” Lawmakers have been working for nearly two years to come up with such an agreement, which would speed up the process through which energy and other infrastructure projects are approved (The Hill).

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THE CLOSER

And finally … Flashback: On this day in 1948, Jewish Agency Chair David Ben-Gurion proclaimed in Tel Aviv the establishment of the state of Israel for the first time in 2,000 years. Immediately following the British army’s withdrawal earlier that day at the expiration of its mandate, the state of Israel was celebrated by Jews and within hours, gained official recognition by the United States.

“We hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Israel,” Ben-Gurion announced. Four hours later, Egypt bombed Tel Aviv. Other forces from Transjordan (by 1949 called Jordan), Syria, Lebanon and Iraq invaded. In 1949, cease-fires brokered by the United Nations left the state of Israel in permanent control of the territory.

The Associated Press: Palestinians on Wednesday mark the 76^th anniversary of mass expulsion from Israel in 1948. They call it the Nakba: catastrophe.

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