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The newly reported delay of former President Donald Trump's sentencing hearing in his criminal hush money trial could have a surprising effect on his campaign, one former assistant District Attorney says.

Kristen Gibbons Feden appeared on MSNBC Friday to discuss New York City Judge Juan Merchan's decision to push Trump's sentencing on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records until Nov. 26, weeks after Election Day on Nov. 5.

Gibbons Feden argued Merchan's decision would undercut a key talking point in Trump's presidential reelection campaign.

"It being after the election really helps to dis-convince, or go against Trump's narrative that the judiciary in this particular case was being politicized," she said.

"Placing it after the November election... allows Trump's narrative to be cut," said Gibbons Feden. "He cannot say that any type of decision made with regard to the sentencing is going to influence the election again because the sentencing decisions are going to be made afterwards."

Gibbons Feden noted Trump for months has targeted the family of the judge, claiming political ties interfered with his criminal trial, which concluded with a guilty verdict from 12 New York City jurors in May.

The former prosecutor also noted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had not pushed back on Trump's demands to delay sentencing until after Election Day.

"The prosecution wasn't opposing it and just requesting it be as expeditiously as possible, which it absolutely is," she said. "It allows him the opportunity to appeal and really seems to meet a middle ground and be an objective decision."

Read Also: How Donald Trump could run for president — and lead the nation — from prison

This is one of four trials that Trump has faced since leaving office.

Trump was ultimately found guilty of falsifying business records to bury salacious stories about his relationship with adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

The former president pleaded not guilty and denied an affair with Daniels, who testified against him in court.

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Donald Trump's former campaign adviser stands accused of working with the Russians and laundering cash they paid him, prosecutors announced Thursday.

Dimitri Simes, a Russian-born U.S. citizen who advised Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, is named in a Justice department indictment accusing him and his wife Anastasia of accepting more than $1 million, a car, and driver as payment from the state television network, a press release shows.

If convicted of the charges, the two face a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

ALSO READ: (Opinion) Something broke Trump’s brain

Russia Channel One was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 over the nation's invasion of Ukraine, according to the Justice department.

Simes, 76, has a home in Virginia but remains at large and is believed to be in Russia with his wife, prosecutors said.

His wife Anastasia is also accused of providing art and antiques to a sanctioned oligarch, prosecutors said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Simes' home in AugustSimes' home in August.

At the time, Simes, speaking to Russian state media company Sputnik, suggested he is a target of political persecution, saying that the FBI search “clearly is an attempt to intimidate, not only somebody from Russia, but just anyone who goes against official policies and particularly against the deep state.” He added, “My suspicion is that instead of trying to get me to come to the United States and to interrogate me or even to arrest me, their real purpose is to make sure that I would not come back.”

Simes' son on Thursday echoed these sentiments on X Thursday afternoon.

"[President] Joe Biden and his stooges are impotent cowards," Dimitri Simes Jr. wrote. "Our family is safe and sound in Russia. We will not be intimidated. In fact, we’re only going to get louder. Stay tuned!"

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggested Thursday that he might be "insulted" if Russian President Vladimir Putin actually endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

Trump made the remarks while speaking to the Economic Club of New York.

"Putin came out today, he endorsed Kamala, and I didn't know, was I supposed to call him up and say, thank you very much, I appreciate it," Trump opined. "But he endorsed Kamala. I have a feeling, I don't know, I don't know exactly what to say about that."

"I don't know if I'm insulted or he did me a favor," he added.

In fact, Putin was most likely joking when he said this week that he backed Harris after the Biden administration sanctioned Russia for interfering in U.S. elections.

ALSO READ: Why Trump's Arlington controversy is actually a crime

Putin claimed he would support Harris just as he had backed President Joe Biden.

"She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means that everything is fine with her," the Russian dictator teased.

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Donald Trump told a crowd at The Economic Club of New York Thursday that his campaign team was taking photos at Arlington Cemetery to mark the "celebrating" of the families of those who died in an attack on American soldiers in Afghanistan three years ago.

Saying that he was at Arlington "four days ago" — though in fact it was a week earlier on Aug. 26 — Trump hit back at criticism that he was illegally using the burial ground for political campaigning.

"They were celebrating three years, honoring their children, and yeah, that's right. They call them their children," Trump said of the parents of the slain soldiers.

"But many of those people that were so badly hurt, they don't talk about them," Trump claimed. "No legs. No arms. Obliteration of their face, their entire body. And nobody mentions that we left Americans behind. Large numbers."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley confessed in March that he wasn't sure how many Americans were left in Afghanistan. After the withdrawal there were an additional 800 Americans pulled out by Aug. 2022, Politico reported.

Trump's campaign said that reports that Trump staff were involved with an altercation with an Arlington official as they took photos in the burial ground was "made up," though the U.S. Army refuted that in a statement that was criticial of the campaign's activities.

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A Democrat used a popular Tim Walz line to hit back at Republicans on his GOP-led House committee after it subpoenaed the vice presidential nominee and Minnesota governor.

Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, took to X on Wednesday to reshare her committee's announcement that it had issued a subpoena for Walz. to compel him to hand over records stemming from his handling of a $250 million fraud scheme involving the Minnesota-based nonprofit Feeding our Future.

"Time for answers," Foxx (R-NC) wrote in the post.

ALSO READ: Dem leaders keep shrugging off Moms for Liberty — even as Trump keeps grooming them

The committee's post asked, "How much did the governor know about the criminal activity that stole $250 million in taxpayer funds intended to feed children in need?"

Axios reported Wednesday that the move was among a flurry of new House Republican probes targeting Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris. The moves also sparked fears among some in the GOP that the probes could backfire and inadvertently make Walz and Harris look like martyrs.

Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), who is the top Democrat on the committee, suggested that the probe is politically motivated.

"The timing of the Republican's subpoena to Governor Walz is weird," he told Axios, a nod toward Democratic lines of attack against Sen. J.D. Vance and former President Donald Trump.

A CNN fact-checker flagged several claims from former President Donald Trump after his town hall Wednesday night with Fox News host Sean Hannity in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Speaking with CNN anchor Abby Phillip, Daniel Dale first addressed Trump's claim about Iran and terrorism.

"Iran was broke. They didn't have the money for Hamas and for Hezbollah, they didn't have the money for anybody," he said.

A second clip showed Trump claiming the U.S. went four years "without any blow-ups."

"We had no radical Islamic terror," he said — twice.

Dale looked at the two claims and bluntly labeled them "false."

"This claim that Iran did not have money for Hamas, Hezbollah and other terror groups during his presidency — that's wrong, as his own administration acknowledged in 2020."

Dale noted that Iran continued to fund terror groups throughout Trump's presidency, though experts say it reduced funding when the Trump administration hit the country with sanctions.

The CNN fact-checker then smacked down Trump's second claim that the U.S. saw no radical Islamic terrorist attacks under Trump.

ALSO READ: Something broke Trump’s brain

"There were terror attacks by Islamic extremists under Trump," he said, including one that Trump repeatedly "lamented" during his presidency. In that case, noted Dale, eight people were killed in a highway attack in New York that federal authorities said was carried out in support of ISIS.

In 2019, an extremist member of the Saudi military attacked a U.S. military facility and killed three U.S. Navy sailors. In that incident, federal authorities said the attacker was a Jihadist and a longtime associate of an Al-Qaeda group.

Phillip and Dale shook their heads after the network played a clip of Trump whining that Vice President Kamala Harris must've been fed questions ahead of time for her first sit-down interview.

"Nobody wants to cover it," railed Trump.

"Nobody wants to cover it," said Dale, "Because it did not happen. Vice President Harris did not have notes during her interview with Dana Bash. You can look at images — photo, video — from that interview if you're skeptical. There was nothing on the table right in front of her. All that's there are Dana Bash's notes."

He stressed Harris was not given questions ahead of time.

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