Let’s check in with our party nominees! Oh God!

• Twelve jurors have now been selected to hear disgraced former president Donald Trump’s Manhattan hush money trial, making it the most exclusive club in New York City that no one wants to join. During voir dire, defense lawyers and prosecutors combed through the social media accounts of potential jurors, and if they were found to have expressed opinions suggestive of bias for or against Trump, they were eliminated. Weirdly, Donald Trump was seated and present for all of these exchanges, like when the defense read a potential juror’s tweet from 2016 in which she called him a “racist, sexist narcissist,” before dismissing her. Couldn’t have said it better myself, quite frankly.

• Lawyers for the defense and the prosecution still must select alternate jurors for the trial, and opening statements could take place as soon as Monday according to Judge Juan Merchan. Jury selection started this past Monday, but because Trump is arguably America’s most famous and most polarizing person, the process has been particularly thorny. Due to Trump’s penchant for harassing witnesses, prosecutors, et al., Judge Merchan imposed a partial gag order against the former president. All of this being said, it’s difficult to believe that anyone in America could be truly “unbiased” against Trump one way or another, but I guess there are some people who don’t follow politics at all and maybe live in an alternate dimension. Must be nice!

• About a hundred miles away, President Biden was in Philadelphia on Thursday, his third campaign stop in all-important Pennsylvania this week. He was joined at a North Philadelphia recreation center by over a dozen members of the Kennedy family, who made a pointed appearance to endorse Biden over their crackpot relative, RFK Jr. Imagine, your own sister saying: “The Kennedy family endorses Joe Biden for president.” Damn, that’s gotta hurt!

Just two guys having very different weeks!