The day we thought might never come? It’s here, folks. 
 

• Disgraced former president Donald Trump arrived at a Manhattan courthouse today for his arraignment, where he pleaded not guilty to 34(!) felony counts of falsifying business records and conspiracy related to his “alleged”/proven hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. That’s a-some-a-spicy-meatballs!
   

• The 34 counts all pertain to business records Trump and others falsified to disguise hush-money payments he arranged and directed to former mistresses, to buy their silence until after the 2016 election. Under New York law, such falsified records become felonies when they’re made in service of covering up other crimes—in this case, as-yet uncharged conspiracies to violate election law, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. In a post-arraignment press conference, Bragg suggested further charges may be warranted as his investigations continue.
   

• Trump is the focus of three other criminal investigations related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and his mishandling (read: theft) of classified documents after leaving the White House. Speaking of documents, following the arraignment, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg also stated, “For nine straight months, the defendant held documents in his hand containing this key lie: that he was paying Michael Cohen for legal services performed in 2017…And he personally signed checks for payments to Michael Cohen for each of these nine months.”

This is just the beginning of what will undoubtedly be one of the most high-profile legal cases in modern American history, and we’re already off to a batshit start. 
 

• Early this morning on Truth Social, Trump posted “Heading to Lower Manhattan, the Courthouse. Seems so SURREAL-WOW, they are going to ARREST ME. Can’t believe this is happening in America. MAGA!” Beautiful, gorgeous prose. Judge Juan Merchan asked that lawyers request that their witnesses control their public statements, but said he would not institute a gag order today even if the District Attorney requested one. Merchan explicitly told Trump to “Please refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest,” and not to engage in rhetoric that would “jeopardize the rule of law.” Truly a tall order for ol’ Don! 

• It appears as though Trump has little-to-no interest in heeding the judge’s warning. Trump gave a speech at Mar-a-Lago in front of a frothing crowd of his most unhinged supporters in what looked like a campaign event, not an indicted criminal talking about the charges against him. Trump used all of his favorite phrases right off the bat: “Absolutely perfect phone call,” “George Soros-Backed prosecutor,” “Hunter Biden Laptop From Hell,” and he also called Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis “a local racist Democrat” (lol). So yeah, it took Trump all of six hours to violate the judge’s request, but we didn’t really expect a different outcome. Another banner day for the guy on the books. 

The midwest is heating up today with two massively-consequential elections. 
 

• The judicial race in Wisconsin will determine the fate of abortion access in the state, as well as its heavily-gerrymandered legislative maps, voting rights, and the integrity of the 2024 election. So this is a big one. 
   

• Education is *very much* on the ballot in the Chicago Mayoral race between former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and Cook County Commissioner and former public school teacher Brandon Johnson. Chicago set a new record for early ballots cast in a single day, with 30,000 votes cast at early-voting sites. In total, nearly 300,000 early votes have been cast either at early voting sites or via mail, far outpacing previous runoff elections of this kind. Johnson is heavily-backed by the Chicago Teachers Union as well as many high-profile progressives, while Vallas, who led the general election back in February, has picked up a number of high-profile Democratic endorsements of his own, despite having previously described himself as “more Republican than Democrat.” Vallas has also spearheaded massive school-privatization efforts and positioned himself as the “tough-on-crime” candidate. The latter earned him the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, whose president John Catanzara told the New York Times there would be “blood in the streets” and also predicted that 800-1,000 Chicago officers would leave the force if Johnson wins. Sounds like a chill guy! Even Vallas condemned the comments as “absolutely irresponsible.”

We are unlikely to know the outcome of either election tonight, but more to come tomorrow.

North Carolina Democratic lawmaker Rep. Tricia Cotham (D-NC) is expected to switch her party affiliation at some point this session, which will hand Republicans a veto-proof supermajority in the middle of a legislative session where they could then easily push through legislation restricting abortion without fear of intervention from Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC).

Roy McGrath, a former top aide to then Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD), died Monday after a confrontation with the FBI in Knoxville, TN, following a 21-day manhunt. 

Credit Suisse chairman Axel Lehmann issued an apology to the bank’s shareholders for taking the institution to the brink of bankruptcy. “I made an oopsie and it almost brought the international economy to its knees, so, my bad,” he said.

Russia’s United Nations Ambassador dismissed American and E.U. descriptions of its presidency of the Security Council as an April Fool’s joke. 

Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried was arrested Monday night alongside other lawmakers and activists for protesting a 6-week abortion ban that was passed by the GOP-controlled Senate earlier in the day.

Republican lawmakers in the Tennessee House of Representatives filed resolutions on Monday to expel three Democratic state representatives after they protested on the House floor last Thursday calling for new gun control laws in the wake of the deadly mass shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School. The resolutions target Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones, and Justin Pearson, all of whom were already removed from their committee assignments after the demonstrations, and had their State Capitol badges deactivated. The vote on whether to expel the three members is slated for Thursday, before which the representatives will have an opportunity to defend themselves before their colleagues. Did Republicans vote to expel former state-Rep. David Byrd (R-TN) when he was credibly accused of sexually abusing multiple underage girls while he was a high school basketball coach (something he never explicitly denied)? No. Did they expel (or even censure!) state-Rep. Justin Lafferty (R-TN) when he defended the Three-Fifths Compromise as a good thing? Nope! Wouldn’t it be cool if Republicans got as angry about children murdered in cold blood by gun violence (or, you know, any issues which should actually illicit anger) as they do about protests*? (*January 6, 2021 excluded)

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A federal court of appeals has denied Trump’s emergency bid to stop his former aides from testifying to the special grand jury investigating his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. 

Finland formally joined NATO today, a historic shift brought on by Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

North Dakota lawmakers failed to override the governor’s veto of a controversial bill that would have barred teachers from referring to transgender students by the pronouns they use.  

The leader of Greece’s opposition party has vowed to legalize same-sex marriage if he wins the election next month, which would make it the first majority Orthodox Christian country to do so.