What is it with Donald Trump and sharks? He seems to be obsessing on the subject somewhat, which only goes to confirm a story Stormy Daniels told a while back. Of course, sharks are pretty scary critters in general, but Trump seems to be exhibiting what can only be called galeophobia -- or, to semi-translate that from the Greek, "sharkophobia."

Perhaps Trump was scarred for life when the movie Jaws first came out, almost 50 years ago? After all, that was when galeophobia sank its teeth (so to speak) into the American psyche in a big way for the first time. Jaws is a frightening movie that is arguably one of the best summer horror flicks of all time, pitting a giant man-eating shark against a peaceful seaside town and Captain Quint (a somewhat-crazed shark-hunter).

Or perhaps Donald Trump recently watched a foreign-language film that's been making a splash (again, so to speak), Under Paris -- which is a sort of cross between Jaws, Sharknado, and Les Miserables. But that's a little hard to fathom -- Trump actually watching a whole movie with subtitles? Sacre bleu! It is to laugh, non?

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President Joe Biden has had to walk a tightrope on the subject of immigration during his term in office. He has supported programs that were a holdover from the administration of Donald Trump, and just recently announced a tightening of the rules on claiming asylum at the border in an effort to slow the flow of people making such claims. Neither one of these policies went over very well with the progressives in his own party, but this week Biden shifted gears and announced a policy that will benefit the lives of approximately 500,000 people. Undocumented spouses of America citizens who have lived in the country for 10 years or more will have a much easier path to citizenship under Biden's new program. Politically, this may provide a balance to Biden's more restrictive moves on immigration.

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The Washington Post is now reporting that Robert F. Kennedy Junior will not meet the criteria that CNN instituted for inclusion in the first general-election presidential debate. This is not really all that surprising, since the criteria were essentially written to exclude Kennedy and other third-party candidates. And while Biden supporters might cheer the news that only President Joe Biden and Donald Trump will participate, it does highlight the hurdles built in to the American political system for those without a "D" or "R" after their names.

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Maryland Governor Wes Moore today signed a blanket pardon that covers 175,000 marijuana crimes committed in the state, reaching back to the 1980s. It could wind up covering even more, since records older than that are stored on paper -- meaning they will not be automatically pardoned, but if people from back then apply for one they will also get a pardon. This already covers an estimated 100,000 people (some of whom have multiple marijuana offenses). Moore is following in the footsteps of other states and jurisdictions who have already either pardoned or expunged criminal records for simple marijuana possession or use. What this all means is that not only is the War On Weed ending in state after state, but in some places people are retroactively trying to heal the damage the War On Weed has done to millions of people.

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Happy Flag Day, everyone!

[We have to begin with a program note here today. We were on vacation last Friday, so this is the first Friday Talking Points column in two weeks. But unfortunately, while flying back home we caught a flu or cold or something on the airplane (not COVID, we tested...). So we're not exactly on top of our game this week, and the column could be a little fuzzy-headed and incoherent. Or "more than usual," we suppose.... In any case, we didn't want to totally punt and leave a three-week gap, so we did what we could with what's been going on over the past week in politics. Hopefully by next week we'll be all better and the quality will improve!]

The biggest political news of the week by far was Hunter Biden being convicted in record time on all three felony gun charges lodged against him. The jury spent only about three hours before returning these verdicts, which completely undercut the narrative Donald Trump has been spouting about how the justice system is "two-tiered" -- by which he means: "weaponized against Republicans while Democrats get a free pass." Kind of hard to make that argument when the president's own son just got convicted of felonies and is facing up to ten years in prison.

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There was significant news today on reproductive rights, from two separate directions. The Supreme Court unanimously (!) overturned a case that challenged the F.D.A.'s approval of mifepristone, one of the two most commonly used abortion pills in the country. The unanimity was possible because the high court essentially punted on the legal question and instead ruled that the plaintiffs had no legal standing to bring their case. Meanwhile, in the Senate, a bill to create a federal right to in-vitro fertilization failed, mostly on party lines. Last week a bill that would have given federal protections to contraceptives also failed. Both will be used in campaign advertising by Democrats to paint Republicans as being against both contraception rights and I.V.F.

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Two weeks from tomorrow, CNN will host the first general election presidential debate of the 2024 cycle. This is unprecedented, because it will happen so early in the campaign season. In fact, neither person on stage will officially be their party's nominee at this point, since the conventions will happen afterwards. It will be "Presumptive Republican Nominee Donald Trump" versus "Presumptive Democratic Nominee President Joe Biden." That alone sets it off from every other televised presidential debate.

So far, only two debates are planned, which makes the first one more important than usual. What everyone is really waiting to learn is what the ground rules of the debate will actually be -- will microphones be cut off when the other candidate is talking, for instance? What ground rules CNN lays down (and how closely they hew to them) is going to be a critical factor in what type of debate the American public gets to see.

Donald Trump loves nothing more than to "win" a debate by being the biggest blowhard anyone has ever seen. He yells over the other candidates, he spews a firehose of lies, and he refuses to admit any reality that isn't part of his bizarre worldview. Other candidates have never quite known what to do when on a stage next to Trump, in fact.

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Today a jury in Delaware returned guilty verdicts on federal felony gun charges against the sitting United States president's son. This is unprecedented in American history. No close relative of any previous sitting president has ever been charged with criminal behavior, so Hunter Biden will go down in the history books as the first.

What I find remarkable in all of this was President Joe Biden's reaction, and how things would be vastly different under Donald Trump. Biden reacted with a heartfelt and saddened statement, and immediately made a trip to Delaware to be with his son. He did not whine about the verdict, he did not immediately issue a pardon to his son, he did not attack or threaten any of the people who brought about this verdict, and he did not fire anyone anywhere as a result of it.

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As I write this, the jury is now officially out on Hunter Biden. The jurors in the case against the president's son have heard all the evidence and have now retired to begin their deliberations. Although not as historical as Donald Trump being tried and found guilty of felonies, this is at least a historical footnote: the first member of an American president's close family to go on trial while his dad is still in office.

After following the trial fairly closely (even while on vacation), I have to say things don't look especially good for Hunter. All the prosecution had to prove was that Hunter was using illegal drugs when he tried to buy a gun, lied about this use on the federal forms, and then possessed the gun while he was still using illegal drugs. That is not very complex a case to make, which is why the trial didn't take all that long.

Hunter's defense is that the prosecution cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hunter was using drugs during the extremely short period when he bought and owned the handgun. This period was less than two weeks long, and Biden's lawyers argued that Hunter had recently gone through rehab and could conceivably still have been clean during this whole period, despite his own admission that he was addicted to crack cocaine both before and after this period.

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Because it is Friday, we are re-running a Friday Talking Points column from four years ago. In June of 2020, the boundless optimism that the COVID-19 pandemic was receding and soon to be over was dealt a huge blow, as the second big wave proved to be even larger than the first. This wouldn't even be the worst wave of the pandemic, which was a long way in the future. But this was the first time Americans realized that this wasn't going to be some relatively-quick disruption of life and that we should instead buckle down for the long haul.

President Trump, at this point in time, had already proven how disastrous his attempts to lead the nation through the crisis truly were. Because to Trump, of course, none of it was about millions dying, the entire pandemic was, instead, a personal affront to him.

People have forgotten what 2020 was really like. Here's a reminder for everyone.

[Program Note: New columns will begin again on Monday! Thanks for your patience....]

Originally published June 26, 2020

America, led by President Donald Trump and (mostly) Republican governors across the country, launched a grand experiment a few months back. Rather than following guidelines and milestones recommended by top epidemiologists, each state would reopen its economy as it saw fit. If your governor felt comfortable enough with the state of things, then the doors would be thrown open. This all started just before Memorial Day weekend, when Trump decided he was bored with the pandemic. And now it's becoming pretty obvious that this experiment has failed, and failed badly. And tens of thousands of Americans are paying a very steep price for this exercise in unfounded optimism.

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