The prosecution witness testified about fronting hush-money payments, keeping the ex-president happy and feeling snubbed

When Michael Cohen took the stand in Manhattan court Monday morning for Donald Trump’s criminal hush-money trial, his appearance was poised to mark a watershed moment: a showdown between the ex-president and his former fixer-turned-prosecution witness.

Anyone expecting a courtroom donnybrook, however, would leave day one of Cohen’s testimony sorely disappointed. Cohen comported himself with civility rather than snark, and calm rather than outrage, with a hint of wistfulness sprinkled in. He sported a tie that could be described as blush pink or pale salmon, perhaps the most conflict-averse color one could wear.

Cohen was Trump’s trusted adviser but the relationship soured after Trump won in 2016 and didn’t offer Cohen a role

• Trump hush-money trial – live updates

Michael Cohen is Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer who was for more than a decade his Mr Fix-It, but is now the prosecution’s star witness as it builds its case that the former US president sought to conceal hush-money payments to an adult film star.

It is a classic story of two men who once worked hand-in-glove together, when Trump was a world-famous billionaire real estate mogul and reality TV star, but now face each other across a Manhattan courtroom with the world’s attention fixed on them.

Donald Trump still leads Joe Biden in five of six swing states, according to a new poll from the New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer

Good morning, US politics blog readers. The Biden campaign woke up to some disquieting news this morning, when a major poll was released showing that Donald Trump still leads Joe Biden in five of the six swing states that will be crucial to deciding the November election. Perhaps the most concerning part about the poll from the New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer was that while it was news, it was not exactly new – surveys have for months found the president trailing his predecessor in states he carried four years ago. What’s notable about this one is that the presidential campaign is now well underway, with Biden campaigning across the country in recent weeks, and his allies spending millions on advertisements intended to rebuild the coalition that elected him to the White House in 2020. Yet despite all that effort, the poll does not show much of an increase in his support.

Perhaps more worrying for Biden’s prospects is what the survey says about the voting groups that are turning against him. While Black voters have been a reliable Democratic voting bloc, Trump’s support among them is 20%, the highest for a Republican presidential candidate in decades. The two men are also tied in support among Hispanic voters and 18-29-year-olds, groups that Biden won majorities of in 2020. We’ll tell you more about what else this poll has to say – and how Biden’s supporters are taking it – later on.

Trump’s trial on business fraud charges continues in Manhattan, with the prosecution’s star witness Michael Cohen expected to take the stand. Follow our live coverage here .

Bob Menendez , New Jersey’s Democratic senator, goes on trial today on a raft of corruption charges connected to allegedly using his position to aid the governments of Egypt and Qatar.

Despite Biden’s worrying poll numbers, the same survey finds Democratic candidates leading in races that will decide control of the Senate.

Trump’s former attorney and personal fixer is expected to take the stand as soon as today

• Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen expected to testify in hush-money trial

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of Donald Trump ’s criminal trial over his hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, which enters its fifth week today with proceedings due to start at about 9.30am ET in New York.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and personal fixer, is expected to take the stand as soon as today. As trial wrapped for the week on Friday afternoon, the prosecution said they expected to call two more witnesses – one of whom will be Cohen. Last week, the jury heard testimony from Daniels, who provided a detailed – and embarrassing – account of an alleged sexual liaison with Trump some 20 years ago.

A guide to Trump’s hush-money trial – so far

The key takeaways from Daniels’ testimony last week.

The jurors: who is on the Trump trial jury?

The key arguments prosecutors will use against Trump

How will Trump’s trial work?

From Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels: the key players

With Trump family members as state delegates, as well as national party co-chair, GOP lawmakers fall in line to support ex-president

In practical terms, Barron Trump’s truncated stint on the political stage as a Florida delegate to the Republican party’s national convention was little more than symbolic. His father Donald Trump’s third successive presidential campaign as the Republican nominee was all but certain anyway, and the names of those who will confirm it are essentially inconsequential.

It did affirm to many analysts, however, how the former president has maneuvered to seize almost total control of the party’s state apparatus nationwide. Nowhere is that more apparent than Florida, where the capitulation was completed by the choice of delegates for July’s convention in Milwaukee.

Key prosecution witness set to take the stand after tough week for Trump in which court heard vivid testimony from Stormy Daniels

Donald Trump ’s criminal hush-money trial enters its 16th day on Monday in New York with the potential for bombshell testimony as his former fixer turned prosecution witness, Michael Cohen, is expected to take the stand.

Cohen is core to the case against Trump, as he is accused of shuttling $130,000 to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 election – in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump 10 years prior.

Mike Pence, Chris Christie and Paul Ryan refuse to vote for the president despite calling Trump unfit – and their harshest critics are fellow Republicans

They have broken with Donald Trump. They have gone public with their concerns about the threat that he poses to democracy and the rule of law. But vote for Joe Biden? That is a bridge too far.

A split has emerged in the “Never Trump” movement in the Republican party. There are some who denounce the former US president and contend that, in what is essentially a two-party system, there is a moral imperative to vote for his Democratic opponent in November.

Ex-president calls Hopkins’ cannibalistic Lecter ‘late, great’ while condemning ‘people who are being released into our country’

Donald Trump on Saturday praised fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter “as a wonderful man” before segueing into comments disparaging people who have immigrated into the US without permission.

The former president’s remarks to political rally-goers in Wildwood, New Jersey, as he challenges Joe Biden’s re-election in November were a not-so-subtle rhetorical bridge exalting Anthony Hopkins’ cannibalistic Lecter in Silence of the Lambs as “late [and] great” while simultaneously condemning “people who are being released into our country that we don’t want”.

WABC owner says Trump ally received warnings not to discuss ‘election fallacies’ and that refusal to do so ‘left me no option’

The former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s troubles deepened on Friday when he was suspended by WABC radio, for trying to use his show to discuss the lie that the 2020 presidential election was lost by Donald Trump because of electoral fraud.

John Catsimatidis, a New York billionaire, Republican donor and owner of WABC, told the New York Times : “We’re not going to talk about fallacies of the November 2020 election. We warned him once. We warned him twice. And I get a text from him last night, and I get a text from him this morning that he refuses not to talk about it.