TRIALS OF TRUMP: Donald Trump’s former personal assistant testified yesterday that she once saw porn actress Stormy Daniels in Trump Tower and that she kept contact information for Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, who says she had a 10 month affair with Trump while he was married to his current wife, Melania.

  Trump has denied a relationship with both women.

  Prosecutors also called Gary Farro, the banker who helped Trump lawyer Michael Cohen open an account that he used for the $130,000 payment to silence Daniels about an alleged fling with Trump. Farro’s testimony is expected pick up next Tuesday.

  Those two witnesses followed four days of testimony by former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who explained how he usedthe supermarket tabloid to support Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and how celebrities and politicians try to buy or bully their way out of the scandal sheets.

  The intent was to show how Trump was acutely aware of Pecker’s efforts to protect him from a false story about an illegitimate child, and the former president’s 10-month affair with McDougal.

  But, just four days before the 2016 election, the Wall Street Journal revealed the McDougal “catch and kill” payoff and Pecker said Trump was enraged.  Pecker said Trump was furious asking, “How could this happen? I thought you had this under control.” 

CAMPUS CLASHES: As pro-Palestinian college protests continue, Columbia University says it barred from campus a leader in the student protest encampment who declared on video in January that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” The video that surfaced only this week illustrates how the Palestinian movement at times has drifted into outright anti-Semitism, causing Jewish students to worry about their safety.

    The student, Khymani James, made the comments during and after a disciplinary hearing with Columbia administrators that he recorded and posted on Instagram. The further context of what James said shows the fine line between objecting to Israeli policy and hatred of Jews. During his disciplinary hearing James compared Zionists to white supremacists and Nazis. “These are all the same people,” he said. “The existence of them and the projects they have built, i.e. Israel, it’s all antithetical to peace. It’s all antithetical to peace. And so, yes, I feel very comfortable, very comfortable, calling for those people to die.”

IT’S POLITICAL: President Biden in an interview yesterday with, of all people, Howard Stern, said he’s willing to debate Donald Trump before the November election. “I am, somewhere. I don’t know when,” Biden “I’m happy to debate him.”

  It’s the first time Biden said he’s willing to debate. Previously he has hedged, saying it might be dependent upon Trump’s behavior.

  Both candidates are under pressure from the news networks to debate. A dozen news organizations signed on to a letter urging the candidates “to publicly commit to participating in general election debates before November’s election.”

  Biden ranged over many topics with Stern, his childhood, his parents, his early career as a public defender, dealing with his stutter, the death of his first wife and daughter, the death of his son, Beau, revealing a more personal side of the President.

  He also told about the family meeting after then-Sen. Barack Obama asked him to be his running mate. Biden said his wife Jill told him, “‘You got to do it,’ and I said, ‘What?’ She said, ‘Otherwise you’ll be asked to be secretary of state and you’ll be away all the time.’”

SPIN CITY: A series of powerful tornadoes ripped through the Midwest yesterday, causing a building to collapse with dozens of people inside and ripping apart hundreds of homes, many around Omaha, Nebraska.

  The most destructive twister moved for miles through mostly rural farmland before chewing up homes and buildings in the suburbs of Omaha, a metropolitan area population of about 1 million people.

  Tornado chasers captured spectacular videos of the tornadoes.

  In Elkhorn, dozens of brand oversize homes were damaged or destroyed. There and in other areas, responders went door to door checking for casualties or people trapped.

THE SPIN RACK: Britain’s King Charles, who’s been sidelined three months under cancer treatment, announced that he will be returning to public appearances. He still has not said what variety of cancer he has. — Russian President Vladimir Putin is reported to be about to levy a tax increase on corporations and high earners to pay for his war on Ukraine. — CNN anchor Poppy Harlow has left the network after 16 years and two months after the meltdown of “CNN This Morning” with the firing of her co-host, Don Lemon. Harlow, 41, walked off the set after Lemon said something stupid about women in their “prime” and never found another seat on air. — South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is under fire after writing in her soon-to-be released memoir that she shot and killed her hunting dog, Cricket, because she was “untrainable” and “dangerous.”  Noem writes that she led the dog to a gravel pit and shot her. “It was not a pleasant job,” she wrote, “But it had to be done.” Noem defended herself in a post on Twitter/X, saying: “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm.”

BELOW THE FOLD: President Biden is expected to deliver some barbs tonight at the annual White House Correspondents dinner, which will be shown on CNN. The event will be hosted by Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost, who is funnier than Biden.  

For an audio review of the week’s news, click here.

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