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President Donald Trump said Saturday that he doubts Russia’s Vladimir Putin wants to end his war in Ukraine, expressing new skepticism that a peace deal can be reached soon. Only a day earlier, Trump had said Ukraine and Russia were “very close to a deal.”

Trump said in a social media post as he flew back to the United States after Pope Francis’ funeral that “there was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days.” Trump hinted at further sanctions against Russia.

“It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through “Banking” or “Secondary Sanctions?” Too many people are dying!!!” Trump wrote.

Trump earlier on Saturday met briefly at the Vatican with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the pope’s funeral.

It was the first face-to-face encounter between Trump and the Ukrainian leader since they argued during a heated Oval Office meeting at the White House in late February.

Zelenskyy’s office had said teams were making arrangements for the leaders to talk again Saturday, but Trump went directly to the Rome airport after the funeral and boarded Air Force One for the 10-hour flight back to the United States, which seemed to rule out a second in-person conversation. Zelenskyy’s spokesperson, Serhii Nykyforov, said Trump and Zelenskyy did not meet again in person because of their tight schedules.

Zelenskyy said “good meeting” on social media after the funeral.

“We discussed a lot one on one. Hoping for results on everything we covered. Protecting lives of our people. Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and lasting peace that will prevent another war from breaking out,” he said on X. “Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results. Thank you.”

The White House called the discussion “very productive” and said it would release more details later. The meeting lasted about 15 minutes inside St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, where Francis often preached the need for a peaceful end to the war, just before Trump and Zelenskyy took their seats at the outdoor funeral service.

The Vatican long ago had offered to help facilitate peace talks and Francis had regularly called for peace and dialogue from the altar of the basilica. That Trump and Zelenskyy spoke privately, face to face and hunched over on chairs on the marbled floors of the pope’s home, on the day of his funeral, was perhaps a fitting way to honor his wishes.

The meeting came together hours after Trump said on social media, after he arrived in Italy late Friday, that Russia and Ukraine should meet for “very high level talks” on ending the three-year war that was sparked by Russia’s invasion.

Trump has pressed both sides to quickly come to an agreement to end the war, but while Zelenskyy agreed to an American plan for an initial 30-day halt to hostilities, Russia has not signed on and has continued to strike at targets inside Ukraine.

Last week’s hours-long missile and drone barrage of Kyiv that killed at least 12 people led Trump to appeal over social media for Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the strikes on Ukraine’s capital.

“ Vladimir, STOP!” Trump wrote.

Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, had met earlier on Friday with Putin in Moscow, and Trump said both sides were “very close to a deal.”

Putin did not attend Francis’ funeral. He faces an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, which has accused him of war crimes stemming from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, in a statement Friday night, Zelenskyy said “very significant meetings may take place” in the coming days, and that an unconditional ceasefire was needed.

“Real pressure on Russia is needed so that they accept either the American proposal to cease fire and move towards peace, or our proposal — whichever one can truly work and ensure a reliable, immediate, and unconditional ceasefire, and then — a dignified peace and security guarantees,” he said.

“Diplomacy must succeed. And we are doing everything to make diplomacy truly meaningful and finally effective.”

The meeting Saturday also came shortly after Trump had issued his most definitive statement to date about the need for Ukraine to give up territory to Russia to bring the war to a close. He said in a Time magazine interview published Friday that “Crimea will stay with Russia.”

Russia seized the strategic peninsula along the Black Sea in southern Ukraine in 2014, years before the full-scale invasion that began in 2022. Zelenskyy wants to regain Crimea and other Ukrainian territory seized by Russia, but Trump considers that demand to be unrealistic.

Referring to Crimea during the interview, which was conducted at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said, “everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time,” meaning Russia.

This is a free newsletter for Diddy on Trial newsletter subscribers. Sign up to get exclusive reporting and analysis throughout Sean Combs’ federal trial.

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We’re just nine days away from the start of jury selection in United States v. Combs. In today’s edition of Diddy on Trial, I’ll introduce you to the presiding judge and the lawyers on both sides of the case. Plus, we take a question from one of our subscribers. But first, here’s a rundown of our latest reporting:

• Judge Arun Subramanian said at a hearing Friday that he will allow graphic surveillance video of Diddy attacking his ex-girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie, at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 to be shown during the trial. Adam Reiss reported from the courtroom.
• Diddy’s former chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, stood by his side for years. But that working relationship has also brought her intense scrutiny. At least three civil suits allege she helped cover up his behavior, though she hasn’t been charged with any crimes. Janelle Griffith has details.
• Prosecutors are expected to call an expert witness named Dawn Hughes. She’s a forensic psychologist who played a key role in other high-profile legal sagas, including the 2021 prosecution of singer R. Kelly and the defamation trial involving actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. I took a closer look at her background and expertise.

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here for daily editions during the trial, including exclusive insights and analysis from our team inside the courthouse. If you have questions about what to expect, get in touch at [email protected].

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Mailbag

Joe Demosthenes, one of our readers, wants to know who is on the list of expected witnesses. We put that question to Janelle, who sent over this reply:

The witness list has not been made public and it’s unclear whether one will. But we do know that four women — all accusers — will testify at Diddy’s trial. That’s according to a court filing from federal prosecutors.

Three of the accusers will testify using pseudonyms to shield their identities from the public and the media. Their names are known to Diddy and his legal team. The woman identified in the indictment as Victim-1 has leveled allegations that closely align with those of Diddy’s ex-girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie.

Victim-1 is prepared to testify under her own name, the filing said.

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Meet the judge and the lawyers at the center of the case

By Daniel Arkin

If you’ve ever spent time in an American courtroom, it’s easy to see why so many people have likened the experience to watching a play. The figures who populate the courtroom oftentimes resemble characters in a tense, high-stakes drama.

In that vein, consider this edition of Diddy on Trial a short guide to some of the case’s cast members. In the weeks and months ahead, their names will become increasingly familiar to readers of this newsletter.

Let’s start with the judge, Arun Subramanian. Subramanian has been on the federal bench for about two years. He was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by then-President Joe Biden in 2022 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2023 in a 59-37 vote. (Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., reportedly recommended Subramanian to Biden.)

Diddy’s trial appears to be the most high-profile judicial assignment to date for Subramanian, who once clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before working at the white shoe Manhattan law firm Susman Godfrey. 

Diddy’s lead attorneys are no strangers to high-profile cases. Marc Antony Agnifilo, a veteran criminal defense lawyer, previously represented NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere, former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng, former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli.

Agnifilo will be joined by Teny Geragos, one of the partners at his firm. She is “particularly experienced in defending and investigating allegations of sexual misconduct,” the firm’s website says. She is also the daughter of famed defense lawyer Mark Geragos, whose clients have included artists Michael Jackson and Chris Brown.

The court docket lists five other attorneys on Diddy’s side, including Alexandra Shapiro and Brian Steel. Steel, who recently joined the defense team, represented rapper Young Thug in Georgia’s longest-running criminal trial.

The same docket lists eight lawyers for the federal government, five of whom are designated as leads for the prosecution. They include Emily Anne Johnson, Madison Reddick Smyser, Mary Christine Slavik, Meredith Foster and Mitzi Steiner.

The prosecution’s side features Maurene Ryan Comey, too. She’s a veteran of the Southern District who helped secure a conviction against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein. Maurene Comey is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey.

Outside the Basilica of St. Mary Major, a smaller venue where Pope Francis is to be laid to rest, a banner read “Thank You, Francis” in Italian.

While the funeral at the Vatican was attended by heads of state and monarchs, there was great symbolism in the fact that, according to the pope’s last wishes, his coffin was greeted on the steps of St. Mary Major by the poor and dispossesed, who remained at the forefront of Francis’ ministries to his death.

LOS ANGELES — Thursday night was the kind of scene the Los Angeles Clippers have dreamed about for nearly a decade: a raucous, sold-out crowd erupting in cheers following the first playoff win in their own arena.

After taking a resounding 2-1 lead in their first-round series against Denver, the Clippers are the NBA championship contender that no one predicted.

And it has been made possible by the career renaissance few saw coming.

In recent weeks, Kawhi Leonard has looked every bit the elite scorer and perimeter defender the Clippers thought they were getting in 2019 when Leonard, weeks removed from earning the second NBA Finals MVP honor of his career, signed with the Clippers in a free-agency coup.

Yet that was six years ago, a lifetime in a league where championship windows open rarely and close quickly.

“The best thing for him was taking the summer off and getting right,” said an executive from a rival team. “I just can’t believe how skinny he looks. He just looks like he’s so much lighter and moving so much better and playing back to the way he was before. It’s just amazing.”

Leonard has looked this dominant in the postseason before while in a Clippers uniform, starting in 2021. But during a second-round series against Utah, just as Leonard and Paul George were playing their best as teammates, Leonard took an innocuous bump from Utah’s Joe Ingles on a fast break and missed the rest of that postseason, and the entire 2021-22 season, as well, with a knee injury that required surgery.

Clippers playoff runs in 2023 and 2024 also ended with Leonard injured — a string of strains, inflammation and partial and complete tears to knee ligaments that left other teams so scared about his ability to stay on the court that in 2023, executives around the NBA described his trade value as zilch.

Entering this season, his premature endings to past campaigns, along with the departure of George in free agency, lowered his team’s championship expectations. Oddsmakers put the Clippers’ over-under for victories at 35.5 wins. Leonard didn’t even make his season debut until early January — when half the season was over.

Yet the Clippers finished with 50 wins anyway, after winning 18 of their last 21 games. And Leonard averaged 25.7 points on 52% shooting, including 42% on three-pointers, over his final 19 games. 

His injury history has led fans, scouts and executives around the league to continue to hold their breath as they wait to see how long Leonard can remain healthy while playing heavy minutes.

“If you have watched Kawhi closely enough you know what’s possible,” said Oscar-winning director and writer Phil Lord, a longtime Clippers fan. “He made it possible. His elite work ethic has led once again to elite play. But I never want to see Joe Ingles anywhere near him ever again.”

Yet for now, Leonard has produced emphatic playoff moments, such as his 39 points while missing only four shots in a Game 2 win to even the Clippers’ series with Denver. In Game 3, he scored 21 points and grabbed 11 rebounds.

“This is what Kawhi lives for,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said this week. “And we know if we have a healthy Kawhi, we can win any series.”

Leonard himself could have predicted this. After returning from a knee injury following the 2023 season, he routinely described his recovery as a two-year timeline that he wasn’t looking to rush by “skipping steps.”

“Anybody in the business that is playing knows how hard it is to come back from injury or playing in the NBA. They understand what we all go through and what I went through,” Leonard said after the win.

As a beat reporter who covered Leonard daily during his first five seasons in Los Angeles, I have never been around a more routine-oriented player. Each pregame warmup was done at the same speed, with the same repetitions and drills, against the same assistant coaches. The irony that complicated his team’s championship ambitions, however, was that it was never predictable whether Leonard would be on the court.

It had even led to criticism of Leonard’s desire to play. But Clint Parks, a skills trainer who worked with Leonard as a teenager and early during his NBA career, said that could not be further from the motivation that has allowed Leonard to turn from an overlooked college recruit and NBA role player at the beginning of his career into a No. 1 option for a title team.

“His self-belief from Day 1 has always been one of one. He’s never not believed in himself at the highest, highest level,” Parks said. “He’s always had this work ethic. He’s always been focused. He’s always been a self-starter. At 14, he said he wanted to be one of the best to ever play basketball. That was his thing.”

“Over the years, he’s pushed toward that, and that’s exactly what he’s become, regardless of the injuries. People always talk about, ‘Oh, he could be top 10 if he didn’t miss all that time and wasn’t injured.’ Shoot, if he can finish the job and somehow bring home a championship to the Clippers, he will still be top 10 all time with all the injuries and everything and all the time he’s missed.”

Each of the last two seasons, Leonard had produced stretches that resembled a return to the form that made him a six-time All-Star, two-time defensive player of the year and a member of the NBA’s team of the 75 all-time players. Yet in 2023, after a dominating start to a first-round playoff series against Phoenix, Leonard suffered a season-ending knee injury. And last year, after the Clippers looked to be the NBA’s best team for a two-month stretch, he hobbled out of the playoffs yet again in a loss to Dallas.

The feeling around the league one year ago, said the rival executive, “was just like, ‘Uh-oh, here we go again.’”

Playing under a carefully monitored ramp-up of his workload, it took Leonard one month after his season debut to crack 30 minutes for the first time. One month later, in March, he passed the 40-minute mark. And in the playoffs, he is passing most expectations for how this 33-year-old superstar could still perform.

“He’s back to looking like the best player in the world,” Parks said.

After freezing $2.2 billion in funding, the Trump administration has also singled out Harvard in other key ways: It threatened the university’s nonprofit status and its ability to host international students and faculty, who comprise roughly a quarter of the student body and help fuel research in every part of the school.

Some faculty expressed concern that Harvard would no longer be able to attract top talent. “This is the United States saying to the best and brightest minds around the world that you are not welcome,” said Tarek Masoud, a professor of democracy and governance at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Abdullah Shahid Sial, the undergraduate student body co-president, came to Cambridge from Lahore, Pakistan, hoping to work with the “greatest professors in the world.” Now, he’s written an op-ed to run in The Harvard Crimson in case he is deported for speaking out. “If at any point they want me out, then I would rather go in a much more dignified manner,” he said.

One Harvard scientist was detained and at least 11 other people affiliated with the university have lost their visas in recent weeks, though some were restored by the government on Friday.

In an interview Wednesday, two days after the university filed suit to try to win back its federal funding, Harvard President Alan Garber stood by the school’s decision to take a stand.

“It’s bigger than Harvard,” Garber told “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt. “We are defending what I believe is one of the most important linchpins of the American economy and way of life — our universities.”  

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, criticized the university’s response. “Colleges are hooked on federal cash, and Mr. Garber’s public outburst only fuels the push to shut off the taxpayer money propping up their institution,” he said.

With final exams and graduation now looming, many are bracing for a prolonged battle that could have reverberations for years to come.

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Steven Pinker, a well-known psychology professor, co-founded the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard to promote “free inquiry, intellectual diversity and civil discourse.” He agrees with criticism that Harvard needs more viewpoint diversity but thinks the government’s demands go way too far, he said.

Harvard was told, among other demands in an April 11 letter, to increase viewpoint diversity among faculty and students (subject to the government’s approval), submit its hiring to a federal audit for more than three years, and use an ideological test on admissions for international students.

“I just don’t think Donald Trump has the statutory power to force his vision of viewpoint diversity on private universities,” Pinker said. “Could that mean that we have to have anti-vaxxers in the medical school? Does it mean we have to have ‘Stop the Steal’ theorists in the history department? MAGA theorists in political science programs? You just don’t want to give the government the power to make those decisions.”

When Harvard refused to comply, the Trump administration doubled down. In a letter sent April 16, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security demanded that Harvard provide the names of all international students who have “participated in protests” and their “disciplinary records,” with a deadline of April 30, after which it threatened to revoke Harvard’s ability to host international students.

Harvard has not yet said how it will respond and didn’t reply to questions about its plans.

Some international students feel caught in the crossfire between Harvard and the Trump administration.

“We’re being used as poker chips in a battle with the White House,” said Leo Gerdén, a senior from Stockholm, Sweden. “None of us wanted to take this fight.”

Sial, the student body co-president, is now working with administrators to ensure summer housing on campus for the increased number of international students planning to bunker down in Cambridge out of fear they’ll be prevented from re-entering the country.

Several other international students spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid threatening their student visa status. They described this moment at Harvard as a doubly difficult: Already under threat of losing their visas — like more than 1,800 international students and recent graduates reportedly have nationwide, prior to the administration’s reversal this week — they’re also at the school that Trump is most closely scrutinizing.

One international law student said she won’t walk near protests, has taken down her social media profiles or made them private and looked into finishing her degree abroad. She keeps emergency hotline numbers and her passport with her at all times in case she is approached.

“I have no disciplinary record. I have no criminal record. I have nothing. And I’m a good student,” she said. “And, sure, I care about things, but that’s why you come to law school.”

An international environmental studies student said they now plan to leave the country once they finish their degree.

“I’m just trying to protect rivers and waterways and the environment,” they said, “and I don’t feel particularly wanted here.”

They regularly have to visit different states to conduct surveys but say they are now more fearful of travel.

“Just having the Harvard international student label on me,” they said, “it makes me a lot more anxious about being around airports or being around security.”

An undergraduate international student who attended last year’s Harvard encampment and got doxed for their pro-Palestinian activism said they moved off campus and stopped attending classes in person for two weeks, triggered by the detention of Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk. They have canceled an academic trip to Europe and skipped out on iftars during Ramadan — communal meals where Muslims break their fast during the Islamic holy month — worried that ICE might target such gatherings.

“I don’t feel safe at all being around protests and voices, which actually kills me from the inside, because I want to go there, and I want to voice my opinion,” they said.

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Though some students applauded Harvard’s stand against Trump, others have mixed feelings about the school’s response thus far. 

Three students said the university had already acquiesced to some extent, even before the April 11 letter. They pointed to the firing of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies’ faculty heads, suspending the Harvard Divinity School’s long-standing Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative, and pausing the School of Public Health’s research partnership with a Palestinian university.

Harvard didn’t respond to questions about these concerns. But Masoud, of the Harvard Kennedy School, said he thought those changes would have happened even if Trump hadn’t been elected.

Nearly six months after the North Carolina Supreme Court election took place, the contest still hasn’t been called and a winner still hasn’t been certified.

That’s almost entirely due to a barrage of litigation from Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin, who sued for more than 65,000 ballots to be thrown out after they had been cast, triggering a sprawling legal saga that is testing some of the most solid precedents of election law. The effort, if successful, could be more than enough to swing the results of the election, as Griffin currently trails Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs by roughly 700 votes.

But even if the push ultimately falls short, Griffin’s critics, who include members of both parties, say it could have long-lasting consequences and pave the way for more candidates to pursue challenges — no matter how legally questionable — to the results of elections decided by narrow margins.

“This is clearly an attempt to manipulate the law and the courts into changing an election result by changing the rules after the election has been held,” said Ann Webb, a policy director with the North Carolina chapter of Common Cause, a government watchdog group.

Griffin’s arguments, Webb said, “require the courts to say, ‘Yes, it’s OK to ask us to change the rules after the election is done.’ And that is where we really see something different and something scary, because there is nothing stopping other candidates from any party in the future from using that same strategy and pointing back to this case.”

In an interview, Riggs called Griffin’s legal approach “insidious” and warned that it would likely be mimicked if it is successful.

“It’s a North Carolina problem today, but it’s a Michigan and Arizona and Georgia problem tomorrow,” she said, referencing other closely divided battleground states.

Even some North Carolina Republicans have called for Griffin to throw in the towel.

“I wanted the Republican judge to win because his philosophy more aligns with me,” former GOP Gov. Pat McCrory told local news outlet ABC11 this week. “He was defeated.”

“You abide by the rules before the election. It’s like changing a penalty call after the Super Bowl is over. You don’t do that,” McCrory said, adding that voters “voted based upon the rule set.”

In addition, Republican-led groups are running ads in the state calling for Griffin to end his litigation.

A spokesperson for Griffin didn’t respond to questions from NBC News for this story.

In an email, North Carolina GOP spokesperson Matt Mercer accused Democrats of not being able to “make an argument on the merits of Judge Griffin’s case because they know following the law is not controversial.”

“If Democrats were being truthful, they’d simply admit they don’t actually care about honest elections and are only interested in partisan outcomes,” Mercer added. The North Carolina GOP partnered with Griffin in his original litigation in the state court system.

Months of litigation

Riggs, who was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 2023, emerged after Election Day last November narrowly ahead of Griffin, a state appeals court judge. A full machine recount as well as a partial hand recount of the race both showed Riggs leading Griffin by 734 votes out of 5.5 million ballots cast.

Griffin subsequently filed legal challenges, backed by the North Carolina GOP, across the state, alleging that more than 65,000 people had voted illegally. The claims focused on three categories of voters: voters who Griffin’s lawyers claimed didn’t have driver’s licenses or Social Security numbers on file in their voter registration records; overseas voters who haven’t lived in North Carolina; and overseas voters who failed to provide photo identification with their ballots.

A series of nuanced and complex court rulings have since followed from North Carolina state courts — including the Supreme Court, the bench that the winner of this election will join — and federal courts. (Griffin and Riggs have recused themselves from the matter when the issue came before the courts they serve on.)

The latest development came Tuesday, when a federal appeals court temporarily blocked North Carolina election officials from moving forward with a period that would allow thousands of military and overseas voters to “cure” their ballots after that had been ordered by the North Carolina Supreme Court.

In that decision earlier this month, the state Supreme Court ruled that about 60,000 of the votes in question cannot be thrown out, but that others could be if minor errors were not fixed, meaning those voters would be required to prove their eligibility to election officials.

Long-term ramifications

Critics of Griffin’s strategy say his arguments contradict several long-held precedents in election law — and regardless of whether they’re successful, they could be used in future attempts to overturn close races.

One such precedent is the notion that the rules of an election must be set before voting occurs, as Griffin is seeking to throw out thousands of ballots cast by voters who followed the letter of the law.

Griffin’s critics also note that only he is seeking to have the ballots thrown out, not any of the other Republican candidates who competed in statewide elections in November.

“Republicans are choosing to challenge voters who did nothing wrong,” North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said on a recent call with reporters. “If they truly believe that there’s been election malpractice, then why is every Republican not challenging the same election results that Jefferson Griffin is right now?”

Meanwhile, more than 200 judges, government officials, attorneys and legal professors — including some Republicans — signed a letter to Griffin last month stating, “The arguments you have advanced ask our judicial system to change the rules in place for the 2024 election after it has run its course.”

“If you succeed, tens of thousands of voters will lose their voice after they voted,” they wrote. “For the sake of our judicial system, we ask you to terminate your litigation now.”

In one of the latest filings from Griffin’s legal team in federal court, his attorneys rejected the argument that he wanted to change “the election rules after the election.”

“That’s not what the courts said. They held that the ‘plain language’ of the state constitution barred voters who had never resided in North Carolina from voting in state elections,” Griffin’s attorneys wrote. “And the North Carolina Supreme Court found that the state election code required overseas voters to provide photo identification with their ballots. As part of its remedy, the court provided a 30-day cure period for those voters to fix the defect.”

Griffin’s critics acknowledge the value of legal remedies following an election, but argue that he should have challenged the rules long before the election if he was concerned about them.

“It’s important to have an escape valve in the form of post-election [legal] challenges — if there are real mistakes, or if the law has been misapplied, or there is evidence of fraud,” said Webb, of Common Cause.

But in this case, she said, Republicans are “using the escape valve to bring a challenge against parts of the law that were there and available to be challenged any time over the past several years.”

WASHINGTON — The merch is out and available for a price on the Trump Organization website: $50 for a “Trump 2028” hat; $36 for a shirt that reads, “Trump 2028 (Re-write the Rules).”

The rules aren’t so easily undone. Donald Trump can’t be elected again in 2028 under the constitutional amendment limiting presidents to two terms. Any number of Trump’s Republican allies will tell you that a third term is inconceivable given the enormous hurdles required to pass a new amendment.

“He’s not going to run for another term,” former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich told NBC News. But, he added, Trump has reason to talk about it: “Don’t underestimate the degree to which he believes any Trump-centered noise is good, because it starves his opponents.”

Yet Trump continues to flirt with the prospect of serving until 2033, when he would be 86 years old. Whether he’ll follow through or not, his assertion that a third term is no joke is something that would-be-contenders ignore at their own peril.

Teasing a third term freezes the 2028 GOP presidential field until aspiring candidates have a clearer understanding of whether and how far Trump intends to push the limits of the Constitution.

Anyone who front runs Trump and mounts a campaign before he declares his intentions might offend the MAGA movement.

Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — none are likely to start building a campaign unless and until Trump concedes this term is his last.

Doing so would invite “total and complete rejection,” said Steve Bannon, a senior White House official in Trump’s first term who is exploring ways for Trump to serve a third term. “Trump is MAGA; MAGA is Trump.”

Asa Hutchinson, a former Arkansas governor who ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, said that Trump’s third-term musings “particularly impact JD Vance and Ron DeSantis and anyone else who wants the favor of Donald Trump. They know they have to stay out of the mix until Donald Trump gives the blessing to go after it and says that he would not be seeking a third term.”

That’s not likely to happen any time soon. The party expects Trump to draw out an announcement about his future as long as he can, according to a Republican who is close to possible 2028 candidates. The more Trump delays, the more he commands attention and averts the perception that he’s a lame duck.

The White House has considerable leverage at this point. No serious GOP presidential hopeful would want Trump’s ire.

Consider the case of DeSantis. Trump endorsed him in the 2018 Florida gubernatorial primary and viewed his subsequent 2024 presidential primary challenge as a betrayal.

On top of that, Trump’s political base began to distrust DeSantis after he jumped in the race against Trump, a sentiment that hasn’t subsided. Before the GOP Iowa caucus last year, Laura Loomer, one of Trump’s most vocal supporters, told DeSantis in the lobby of a hotel: “You killed your political career, and I hope you’re happy.”

The best way for putative candidates to stay on the right side of Trump is by going along with the notion that he might indeed run, a Trump political adviser said.

“I think anyone looking to 2028 is probably the first person to purchase one,” said the adviser, referring to the “Trump 2028” hat, who was granted anonymity to share internal thinking.

Vance may be better positioned than most rivals as Trump floats the idea of a third term. He has a built-in platform as a sitting vice president, complete with the perks that the job brings.

At his disposal is a taxpayer-funded staff and airplane that he can use to build his foreign policy bona fides. It helps that his boss is a bit of a homebody and has eschewed extensive travel. This month, Vance met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome to discuss tariffs. He had an audience with Pope Francis shortly before the pontiff’s death.

With Trump controlling the Republican National Committee, Vance last month became the group’s finance chairman, allowing him to befriend well-heeled donors who can be helpful to a future campaign.

Vance has made no movements toward his own presidential run and has yet to seriously think about the idea, a source close to the vice president said.

When asked if he views himself as Trump’s successor, Vance insisted last month that his own White House bid was not an urgent priority but acknowledged the circumstances under which he’d become a strong candidate. He also suggested that any serious moves would come after the 2026 midterm elections.

“If I do really well for the next four years, everything else will take care of itself,” Vance said in an interview with NBC News. “Now, like, yeah, in two and a half years, will that become harder? Will people be more focused on politics than on what the White House is maybe doing that particular day? Maybe.”

Others can’t be as confident. DeSantis faces term limitations and will be out of office in 2027, so he won’t have the stage that the Florida governor’s office provides. Still, that might not dampen his ambitions.

“He absolutely believes he can still be president. While most on the outside looking in do not think he has viability, that’s just not how he thinks. It’s not how he views the world,” a longtime DeSantis ally said.

If Trump finds a way to run, though, his grip on the GOP is such that serious opposition may well evaporate.

The most direct way for Trump to circumvent the 22nd amendment is to change it. But that’s nearly an insurmountable obstacle in these polarized times, requiring three-quarters of the states to go along, for starters.

More fanciful ideas for overcoming the legal barrier involves a scenario in which Vance runs for president and picks Trump as his running mate. If they win, Vance then steps aside and Trump becomes president again.

Were Vance to go along with that, attention might turn from the 22nd Amendment to the 12th. That amendment states that no one who is ineligible under the Constitution to be president shall be eligible to serve as vice president.

So, the question then becomes, is Trump ineligible to be Vance’s running mate given that he’s barred under the 22nd Amendment from being elected to a third term? And, here, the answer may come down to a careful textual reading of the two amendments at issue.

An argument might be made that because the 22nd Amendment says only that Trump can’t be elected president a third time, that doesn’t mean he can’t be president if Vance were to resign and turn the job over to him.

Such a scenario, “is contrary to the intent of the amendments,” but is not “squarely foreclosed by the words,” said Kermit Roosevelt, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (and the great, great grandson of former President Theodore Roosevelt).

Whether Vance would go along is a mystery. He has not publicly discussed the possibility, and spokespeople and advisers have declined requests to elaborate on what Vance is thinking about such a 2028 calculus.

In an interview with Trump on April 22, Time magazine asked his thoughts about a swap with his number two.

“I don’t know anything about, what, look, all I can say is this, I am being inundated with requests,” he said. “I’m doing a good job.”

While “there are some loopholes that have been discussed that are well known,” he said, “I don’t believe in loopholes. I don’t believe in using loopholes.”

Keeping the nation guessing, it turns out, is paying off. On Thursday, none other than the president’s second-oldest son, Eric Trump, posed for a picture on X, smiling and sporting a “Trump 2028” hat.

World leaders join crowds in St. Peter’s Square 

The poor will receive Pope Francis’ body at his burial in the Basilica

St. Peter’s Square close to full capacity ahead of the pope’s funeral

A series of ancient traditions rule the pope’s funeral and conclave

Major security operation underway ahead of Pope Francis’ funeral

Cardinals, conclaves and popes, in five charts

Tens-of-thousands of mourners have paid their respects to Pope Francis

A former New Mexico judge was arrested by federal Homeland Security Investigations agents Thursday and accused of tampering with evidence in a case against a man suspected to be a member of the Tren de Aragua gang, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday.

The complaint alleges Joel Cano, a former Doña Ana County Division 6 magistrate, destroyed evidence in a federal investigation into the Venezuelan man accused of being in the United States illegally and residing in a back house on property owned by the judge and his wife in Las Cruces.

His arrest came a day before the FBI arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, alleging she obstructed federal authorities seeking to detain an undocumented immigrant by escorting him through a nonpublic jury door at her courthouse. A statement issued on the judge’s behalf said that she “will defend herself vigorously, and looks forward to being exonerated,” the statement said.

On Friday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi linked the two cases under the Trump administration’s mission of zero tolerance for those who come to the United States illegally and any judges believed to be helping them.

“We’re sending a very strong message today,” Bondi said on Fox News. “If you are harboring a fugitive, we don’t care who you are, if you are helping hide one, if you are giving a TdA member guns, anyone who is illegally in this country, we will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.”

The recently resigned New Mexico judge gave notice earlier this spring days after federal agents conducted a search on his property. His last day on the bench was March 21.

An application to search the back house in late February alleges that in addition to the suspected gang member, two other Venezuelans in the country illegally lived there and that the Canos’ adult daughter lives on the property.

Federal officials have accused the judge of destroying a cellphone said to belong to suspected gang member Cristhian Adrian Ortega-Lopez.

In a criminal complaint, the officials said that the judge destroyed the phone with a hammer and that the device was being sought because it may have contained photographs showing Ortega-Lopez possessing weapons, some of which allegedly belonged to Cano, his wife and their daughter.

A separate federal complaint against Ortega-Lopez, which accuses him of illegally possessing a firearm, states that an anonymous tipster accused him of being a member of TdA and that his tattoos support the allegation. The anonymous tip inspired the investigation, according to the complaint.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated TdA as a foreign terrorist organization in February. 

The judge’s wife, Nancy Cano, was charged Friday with conspiracy to tamper with evidence. The criminal complaint alleges that she told Ortega-Lopez to delete his Facebook account where he had posted photos with weapons allegedly owned by the judge, his wife, or their daughter.

It’s not clear if the Canos have an attorney for the matter. Two phone numbers associated with their address, including one for a firm called Cano Insurance, were out of order. It also wasn’t clear if Ortega-Lopez has a lawyer. The federal public defender’s office in New Mexico did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In March, a judge ordered Ortega-Lopez be released on bail and into the “third party custody” of Nancy Cano. The federal government later successfully argued that he be kept locked up after prosecutors said his cellphone had images of a decapitated body and Ortega-Lopez associating with known TdA gang members, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Mexico. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

Joel Cano was booked into Doña Ana County Detention Center Thursday with no bond listed, according to inmate records. Nancy Cano was booked about a half-hour earlier under no bond conditions, too, the records state.

Shedeur Sanders was not selected by a team at the end of the third round of the NFL draft on Friday. The Colorado quarterback and son of football legend Deion Sanders was projected to go as high as No. 3 overall to the New York Giants but remains waiting after 102 picks.

Sanders could be selected in Rounds 4-7 on Saturday.

Five quarterbacks — Miami’s Cam Ward, Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart, Louisville’s Tyler Shough, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe and Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel — went ahead of Sanders.

Sanders began his collegiate career at Jackson State in 2021 when his father was the head coach. Both left for Colorado after the 2022 season, and Shedeur Sanders spent his final two years in college with the Buffaloes.

In his senior season, Sanders won Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year, completing 74.0% of his passes, with 37 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He also threw 4,134 yards.

Sanders was a key figure in Colorado’s turnaround as a football program. The school won only one game the season before his arrival. In 2024, the Buffaloes won nine games for the first time since 2016.

In the lead up to the draft, Sanders was the target of several scouts and coaches, with his character off the field often being drawn into question.

Sanders told NBC News he wasn’t worried about the negativity.

“I truly don’t have any space for negativity, so it doesn’t play a factor in my life at all,” Sanders said in April about the anonymous comments. “I understand the easiest thing in the world to do is to be negative instead of positive. I truly don’t care what people have to say.”