Comment on The Cognitive Dissonance Presidency

This article is part of The D. C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. The fever didn’t break over the weekend. In fact, it only worsened. Since President Joe Biden’s calamitous showing Thursday night during a debate against former President Donald Trump in Atlanta, Democrats have been in the midst of a very public freak-out.

The Supreme Court on Monday provided former President Donald Trump with significant legal protection against prosecution for actions taken during his tenure in the Oval Office. In a ruling split along ideological lines, the Justices held that Presidents enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts but remain susceptible to charges for unofficial conduct—a decision that has profound implications for Trump’s pending criminal cases, particularly those stemming from his efforts to challenge the 2020 election results. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said that a President “may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.” In doing so, the Supreme Court left it up to the lower court to review which conduct is protected and immune from prosecution. Read More: Supreme Court Rules Trump and Former Presidents Have Some Immunity for Official Acts Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a fiery dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, criticized the majority’s stance, arguing that it elevates the President above the law and undermines accountability. While the case is a landmark ruling on the powers of the American presidency, it will have immediate effects for Trump, the first former President in history to be indicted.

Colorado’s new statewide paid-leave program doled out more than $311 million in compensation to tens of thousands of workers in its first six months, the state Department of Labor and Employment said Monday. More than 62,000 workers have had their pay partially replaced under the Family and Medical Leave Insurance (or FAMLI) program.

It was a Tuesday morning in May and the mood on War Room, Steve Bannon’s twice-daily talk show, was characteristically grim. “The pre-kinetic part of the Third World War is happening,” the thrice-indicted former Trump advisor declared, alleging that the Chinese Communist Party, Qatar, and George Soros were secretly conspiring to seed unrest on college campuses.

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