Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.

Republicans flock to court to ‘kiss the ring’ during Trump criminal trial
Ambitious Republicans are eagerly parachuting onto the sidelines of the first criminal trial of a former president, with a lineup that includes former Trump critics plunging themselves into the proceedings. The pilgrimages demonstrate the imperative in today’s GOP to show loyalty to Trump and his fervent base in the midst of a case that has become a showcase of salacious scandal.

Notably absent from court: Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, who defended her husband after the “Access Hollywood” tape in 2016. She has stayed away, even as Trump’s lawyers try to convince the jury that he is a “family man” who wanted to protect his reputation and his loved ones from tawdry accusations he has denied. Also keeping her distance is Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, once a key adviser, who has retreated from politics and has not joined her brother Eric in the pews.

The visits show how the party has changed in some respects since 2016, when Republicans initially scrambled to distance themselves from Trump’s suggestion on the “Access Hollywood” tape that, as a celebrity, he could kiss and grope women whenever he wanted. Now, they have provided a small army of surrogates arguing that the charges are unfair and unusual, and amplifying his often exaggerated or baseless claims about the case and the legal system.
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Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news
Before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, more than 35,000 Facebook and Instagram users agreed to participate in an experiment. Twenty-seven percent of that randomly chosen group were paid to deactivate their accounts for six weeks. The rest only disconnected for a week. The objective was to analyze what happens when users disconnect from the two of the biggest social media networks in the most heated weeks of the U.S. political calendar.

The result is that hardly anything at all happens. Except for one detail: the group that disconnected from Facebook (not Instagram) tended to not believe the misinformation that was circulating online. On the other hand, their political participation, especially online, also decreased.

The new article, published on Monday in the journal PNAS, is the work of more than 30 academics from U.S. universities and Meta researchers. It is part of the macro study, which began to be published last summer in the magazines Science and Nature. This research found that conservatives consume more misinformation on Facebook, among other results. The project is the result of an August 2020 agreement between Meta and two professors, who then selected the rest of the researchers.
The digital Black press strategically combated COVID-19 misinformation
Many Black press outlets have limited financial resources, in comparison to mainstream news outlets, which often results in smaller staffs. But despite these restrictions, the editors invested time in protecting their readers from nonfactual information about COVID-19 and the vaccine. Some editors restricted comments that they felt would harm their audience. They took this approach instead of deleting them because it allows the original poster to see the comment but hides it from other users. However, in an effort to conserve resources, some editors chose to remove potentially harmful comments from trolls outside of the Black community, instead of engaging with them in futility. Editors also shared that they eventually blocked users who continued to post problematic content. For some social media posts, Black press outlets turned off the comments completely because the volume of inaccurate information posted by users was too much to manage. This strategy allowed readers to just focus on the correct content that was originally posted by the outlets.
How is China supporting Russia after it was sanctioned for Ukraine war?
Beijing has become Moscow's key supplier of cars, clothing, raw materials and many other products, after Western countries imposed sanctions on Russia.

Trade between China and Russia reached a record $240bn (£191bn) in 2023, up more than 64% since 2021 - before Russia's invasion of Ukraine - according to official figures from China.

Russian imports from China were $111bn and its exports to China $129bn, the figures show. [...]

As of 2023, China has become Russia's top trade partner, while Russia is China's sixth-largest trade partner.
Trump Attorney Starts Off Cohen Cross With Limp Exam
It’s possible Blanche is keeping his powder dry. He started cross-examination after lunch, after Cohen completed a day and a half of testimony. He ended Tuesday potentially poised to question Cohen about the core of the case on Thursday morning with a jury that would, potentially, be refreshed and attentive after a day off. We will have to see what happens.

But on Tuesday, the lead Trump attorney started off with outward aggression, coming off at first more like a disgruntled bar patron confronting an antagonist: had Michael Cohen called him a “crying little shit” several weeks ago on TikTok?

Cohen started to answer, but not before Judge Merchan cut him off with a sustained objection. The question led to laughs in the courtroom, and a sidebar with Merchan. Per a transcript obtained by the New York Times, Merchan asked Blanche, “Why are you making this about yourself?”

From there, Blanche slowly began to lose momentum in his questioning.
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The fixer or the lackey?
Cohen was, by trade, a lawyer — not by choice but because of family pressure. He wasn’t an Ivy League pedigreed litigator, a beloved family estate planner or a highflying corporate attorney who dealt with the complicated contracts of a man who engaged in business in and out of the country. Cohen has been described as a “fixer,” a guy who gets things done, who cleans up messes and who calms the waters in a crisis. But mostly, it seems that Cohen was a lackey.

He wasn’t someone telling Trump hard truths to make sure that he was protected. Cohen was the guy who simply wanted to make sure that Trump was placated. He wanted the boss to be happy. Cohen wasn’t using his clout or connections to turn the tide in Trump’s favor. He was just another person whose ambitions and self-worth had become intertwined with Trump, someone who as federal investigators closed in on him, as he lied and then lied some more, he had to be reminded by his wife, his daughter and his son that Trump was neither his salvation, nor was he someone worth saving. Cohen said they asked him: “Why are you holding on to this loyalty? What are you doing? We’re supposed to be your first loyalty.”

Washington has had countless fixers, both real and fictional. Perhaps the most famous of the former was Vernon Jordan, a man whose network of relationships with powerful people — and his own, hard-earned clout — allowed him to smooth over rough patches and help put shattered careers and reputations back together. He was known as Bill Clinton’s fixer, but even he couldn’t save the 42nd president from his own enormous failings. Jordan couldn’t prevent a country from demonizing a young intern. Still, Jordan’s power wasn’t reliant upon Clinton. It existed all on its own — before Clinton and after him.

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