as the victim as he joins 18 co—defendants in the georgia election fraud case. this is the fourth criminal case for the former president, as his legal troubles and election calendar grow even more complicated. while mr trump's rivals try to play catch up at the first presidential debate. welcome to this special us politics addition of bbc news. wea re breaking down this action—packed week of legal developments and political posturing, plus what it all means for the american presidential race moving forward. all 19 defendants in the election fraud case have now surrendered to authorities. the most notable, of course, is former president donald

trump. he appeared at the fulton county jail on thursday evening to be fingerprinted and have his mugshot taken. he then posted that mugshot on x, formerly known as twitter, positioning himself squarely as the wronged party. he will return at a later date to defend himself in court. he denies all 13 charges against him, including racketeering and making false statements — all this is eight of his rivals try to stand out from the pack as they debated in milwaukee, absent mr trump himself. our bbc team have been on the ground all week, covering every twist and turn. this is how the dramatic day unfolded at the fulton county jail on thursday. right now we just have a huge motorcade coming in. i am going to get out of the way, and these are a large number of police motorcycles coming in. there has been a very obvious uptick in security. we have seen some secret service here, sheriff's officers as well as police.

so i want to thank you for being here. we did nothing wrong at all, and we have every right, every single right, to challenge an election that we think is dishonest, and we think it is very dishonest. by by early friday, all other 18 defendants had surrendered to authorities as well. very good to have you want bbc news. take us through the other co—defendants who surrendered and the other happenings today.

we had half a dozen folks who surrendered at the fulton countyjail overnight and this morning, in the hours after donald trump made his very extraordinary appearance at the jail here in atlanta, they include lawyer robert cheeley, stephen cliffgard lee, a pastorfrom illinois who actually showed up wearing his clerical collar, and trevian kutti, a former publicist for kanye west and r kelly who has been accused of harassing a fulton county poll worker at her home. really interesting. and we have seen these motions to sever cases, to move some of them to federal court — take us through what we will see happen in the coming weeks. it is very messy at this point, we are seeing legal filings left and right. just a couple of minutes ago we saw a new speedy trial demand from sidney powell, who is an attorney briefly affiliated with the trump campaign in the aftermath of 2020, who spread a lot of disinformation

and falsehoods about the vote count in georgia and other swing states. under georgia's rules, somebody who files a speedy trial demand will basically have to go to trial in anywhere from two to four months, and the thinking among some attorneys i talked to not affiliated with the case is that sidney powell will likelyjoin kenneth chesebro, another attorney who was indicted as part of this case, when his trial begins on 23 october, that was just granted the other day. we spoke to former republican congress rodney davis yesterday about the co—defendants in this case and this is what he said. the other defendants along with the president, they will be bled dry by trying to afford attorneys, and if president trump is not going to help them through his fundraising mechanisms to pay for their legal fees, i would think they are probably going to say whatever it takes to get an agreement and get a plea deal with the fulton county, with the fulton county district attorney.

tamar, do we know if that is part of the prosecution's strategy? well, that is pretty common with large racketeering cases like this, we saw it into other large rico cases that fulton da fani willis has brought during her tenure as a prosecutor, there was a big famous atlanta public schools cheating scandal where several dozen educators from atlanta public schools were indicted, but in the end of much smaller number ended up going to trial and only 11 were convicted. we are seeing it now as part of a gang racketeering case against the record label and alleged street gang, young slime life. i believe we are only down to eight or ten defendants at this point, so i think the expectation is that there will be plea agreements, reached with some of these defendants. and you are so right, for folks who are not named trump, who are not personally wealthy, these large racketeering cases can be a real drain on your wallet. some of these can take six, eight months to litigate in court, there is a whole crush of paperwork and lawyers are very expensive. and so far the former

president hadn't been willing to help these people financially. the one exception has been rudy giuliani, he will be hosting a fundraiser at his golf club for him in newjersey.— fundraiser at his golf club for him in newjersey. what are we seeinu him in newjersey. what are we seeing play _ him in newjersey. what are we seeing play out _ him in newjersey. what are we seeing play out from _ him in newjersey. what are we seeing play out from the - him in newjersey. what are we seeing play out from the legal | seeing play out from the legal strategy? he seeing play out from the legal strate: ? , , . strategy? he 'ust switched attorneys. _ strategy? he just switched attorneys, just _ strategy? he just switched attorneys, just hours - strategy? he just switched l attorneys, just hours before his booking at the countyjail, he hired steve, a very widely respected defence attorney here known to be very aggressive in cases like this, he has already indicated that he plans to file a motion to sever trumpet from these folks who are doing speedy trials because they want to slow this down, ideally they want this to happen after the 2024 election, ideally trumpet will be president and a lot of this will be able to go away, so we are expecting an effort on that and, and we are expecting the former president

to try to move to basically take this case that is local in fulton county and remove it to federal court, which is something we have seen five other defendants in this case do, and they are hoping they will get a sympatheticjudge will get a sympathetic judge who will get a sympatheticjudge who will dismiss these charges against them, because trumpet is arguing another folks are arguing that they did what they did under the guise of their federaljob, that there was not anything illegal here.— anything illegal here. really aood to anything illegal here. really good to speak— anything illegal here. really good to speak to _ anything illegal here. really good to speak to you, - anything illegal here. really good to speak to you, for i good to speak to you, for joining us. we were talking about donald trump's legal strategy. he has been charged in four cases in the past months, and faces 91 charges in historic first for a former president. and marty was charged on 34 charges related to falsifying business records and connection to a 2016 hush bunny payment made to stormy daniels. then injune, trump was indicted by a federal grand jury was indicted by a federal grand jury in miami fortaking jury in miami for taking classified jury in miami fortaking classified documents from the

white house after he left office. he faces another 40 accounts on the case. he was indicted for a third time as part of special counseljack smith's investigation into his efforts to overturn a 2020 election, and just last week trump and 18 others were charged by georgia's fulton county district attorney for their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election defeat in that state, marking the former president's fourth indictment in a short time ago my colleague spoke with leslie coldwell, a former doj assistant general for the criminal division. thank you so much forjoining us. if we could have a look at the situation in georgia first, the 19 defendants have all now surrendered, including the former president, of course. what is going to happen next with those proceedings? what do we look out for? so i think in the georgia case the next step, as your colleague indicated, is the arraignment, which is going to be in early september. that will be the time when all of the defendants, in theory, should be present in the courtroom all at the same time and appear before the judge who is going to preside

over the case. thejudge has already... sorry, the district attorney has already signalled that she would like the trial to be in october. presumably after the arraignment there will be some discussion of a trial date and some discussion of potential motions that various defendants may want to make, including, as you mentioned, a motion from trump. from the point of view of the justice department, from the da, how straightforward or not would it be to try and try all 19 people at the same time, including a former president? so that's a very — well, first of all we don't know the answer to that, because it has never happened before. but there certainly have been quite a few cases involving 19 defendants, 20—plus defendants. they're not that common, but they're certainly not unheard of. i know that the georgia da has brought some of those cases herself. but it's very complicated. it complicates everything because each defendant has

the right to make motions. each defendant has the right to cross—examine all of the government's witnesses. each defendant has a right to present, if they so choose, evidence on their own behalf, so it could be a very cumbersome process with 19 defendants. trump's legal woes have not impacted his place in the polls. according to a new poll, after this week's debate, republican voters still prefer donald trump by 52%, polling saying they prefer donald trump as the party's nominee. rhonda ron desantis comes at a distant second. mike is an expert on latina voting patterns and a co—founder of the anti— trump coalition, and i spoke to him earlier. thank you forjoining us. first of all, what do you think of that poll? i think it's exactly right. it mirrors precisely what we have seen in dealing

with republican voters for the past eight years, and there's no reason to believe for a moment that will change in light of the former president's legal problems. in fact, a lot of the support for donald trump is coming not despite his legal trouble, it's becoming more intense because of his legal trouble. people — republican voters are rallying around the flag, trying to demonstrate fealty to the leader of the party, and that's why i think we're starting to see such little discussion on policy. it's really more of gearing up for this conflict in the coming 2024 elections. mike, i want to talk more about that phenomenon. we spoke to the former communications director of trump's transition team, bryan lanza. i want to play you a clip of what he told us. i think if the polling numbers showed him dropping, it would be more concerning to him. but i think the fact that the polling numbers have shot up — and i hate to compare polling numbers to the real world of things, but i think you can turn to those numbers

and say, look, even the people see that these prosecutions, even the people see that these das in manhattan, das in georgia, are going too far. that the reason the former president has been able to build so much support of the back of these indictments is because people see it has a witch—hunt. i think this is the problem that bryan lanza just missed entirely. he is saying that the people are saying this, the fact of the matter is that republicans are seeing it, but the majority of the country disagrees with that position. in fact, the same polec came out today shows that independents are decidedly against mr trump's ambitions for precisely the same reasons that democrats see problems with this with legal trouble, and having the president either being convicted or potentially being convicted in being elected to the white house. so while it is true that he has consolidated his base within the republican party, he is dramatically alienating independents and democrats, and moderate republicans. to the point where he is entering this race in a worse position than any presidential

nominee in recent history. let's talk about some of the voter specifically women voters here. because a june poll from nbc news found that 67% of women disapproved of the overturning of roe v wade, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion, as you know, including 67% of suburban women. do you think republicans are going to have a hard time appealing to those voters? there is no question. there is quantifiable evidence now. we just came out of the elections, we have elections every two years in the united states, and those midterms should have by any indicator been an enormous landslide for the republican party. that landslide turned into a barely measurable trickle in large part not because just new women, young women, showed up for the first time to vote, but because of the defection of republican women away from the party. there is no evidence to suggest that that is going to slow. in fact, my guess is and most of the polling shows that it will probably continue

and probably get bigger. so the problem of this gender gap that republicans have had for decades now seems to be a gender chasm, and the likelihood of it limiting the republican party's appeal is significant. i think it's going to be a very big problem for republicans heading into next year's elections. and mike, you are an expert on latino voting patterns. this will be a key thing in 2024. in the last election in 2020, we saw latinos voters move slightly, at least, more towards the republican party. what do you anticipate happening next year? well, it actually wasn't that slight. it was quite measurable, and we did see some slight movement as far back as 2016. so there is this longer—term trend of latinos moving towards the republican party. it is work that i have been engaged in, as you mention, for about three decades now. i expect that will probably continue, not at the same pace that we saw it, during the last

two presidential election cycles. but we are witnessing a realignment here as the demography of the united states changes. latinos constitute the fastest segment of the non— college—educated working class, and they are beginning to vote like they are non— —— like their non—hispanic white counterparts. so i think this divide in america which is largely between the college—educated and the noncollege educated is seeing college—educated voters move dramatically to the left and under the democrats' banner and at the same time you are seeing non— college—educated voters moving to the right under the republican banner and hispanics, latinos, because we are the fastest—growing segment of the electorate, our most and most visible increasing showing that rightward shift. really interesting insights. mike madrid, thank you forjoining us tonight. thank you so much for having me.

now, president trump's top competitors took to the debate stage earlier this week without him, discussing critical issues like the economy, immigration and climate change. but topics like ukraine, israel and china drew some of the strongest arguments among the candidates. earlier i spoke with lanhee chen, former adviser for marco rubio's presidential campaign, about what it shows for the republican party's priorities going into 2024. lanhee, great to have you back on bbc news. thank you forjoining us. so foreign policy played a surprisingly significant role in this republican debate. why do you think that is? well, i think there are very few areas of real contrast between these candidates on a number of different issues, but foreign policy is an area where you are seeing contrasts. for example, what the united states ought to do with respect to the ongoing conflict in ukraine, that is a major source of contention, and there are very real differences between, let's say, nikki haley and vivek ramaswamy, or donald trump, or even ron desantis. and the interesting thing here is you're seeing this divergence within the republican party where the top three polling contenders nationally right now, that would be trump, desantis and ramaswamy, have all embraced a point

of view on the us—ukraine situation that is very much counter to what the traditional republican reagan view of this would be, and so i think it's a very interesting point of contrast. it's one of the few points of contrast, and that's why you see commentators as well as the debate hosts on wednesday evening or earlier this week, they definitely focused on that. i want to dig into those conflicting views, specifically on the war in ukraine. this is what chris christie had to say during the debate. if we don't stand up against this type of autocratic killing in the world, we will be next. lanhee, do you think that reflects where republican voters actually stand on contributing aid to the ukrainians? because there was a recent cnn poll released that shows that 71% of republicans broadly say congress should not authorise new funding. yeah, i think republican voters — many republican voters are quite sceptical of the position articulated by governor christie.

it doesn't mean it's the wrong position. i think the republican party does need to stand for continuing support for ukraine. that's a personal view, but it's not a view, frankly, that a lot of republican primary voters have right now, and i think what it speaks to is this populist influence we see in the republican party and american politics more broadly. it's the ascendant possession, and that's driving what i think is a perspective for many republican primary voters that's quite divergent from what chris christie laid out the other night. you mentioned ramaswamy and his view on the war in ukraine, and that prompted a response from nikki haley. this is what she said. underyour under your watch you would make america _ under your watch you would make america less safe. you have no foreign—policy experience, and it shows. and you know what? lahnee, does that experience matter to republican voters? of course former president trump, when he came into office, he also didn't have foreign—policy experience. at some level the experience of foreign policy does matter.

now, i think we get conflated sometimes, a little bit, between experience generally and experience in foreign policy. i think ramaswamy�*s problem is that he is perceived as being inexperienced, period, never having been in politics. and i think his age, which some would argue is a strength, i think for most republican voters is a liability. i don't think they're ready to pick a 38—year—old to be the nominee for the republican party. so i think that commentary from haley — yes, it was directed at vivek from the perspective of him not having foreign—policy experience, but i think the argument is from a broader frame that haley and others are trying to put around ramaswamy, to make him appear that he doesn't have the proper experience and background to be president. so it is the case that voters generally are not all that responsive to specific appeals on specific kinds of experience, but in this case, as part of the broader narrative that's been drawn around ramaswamy, nikki haley's attack on him could indeed be fruitful. continuing with foreign policy,

china seems to be a topic where there is a bit more convergence, and north dakota governor doug burgum had this to say. china is the number one threat to our country, and every minute that these eight candidates spend talking about the past instead of the future is time wasted. not only does biden love it, but china loves it when we talk about the past. what did you make of that? well, i think burgum was one of the few candidates to really come back to that issue. there wasn't an extended conversation about us—china relations in the debate, not a lot of opportunity, for example, for candidates to critique elements of biden's policy towards china or to articulate what they would do themselves to deal with the problems posed by the us—china relationship. it was disappointing from my perspective to not hear more analysis from the candidates or the candidates not being pressed more significantly on how they would deal with the us—china relationship. it is the single most important geopolitical relationship the us has right now,

not only from a commercial perspective but also from a strategic and military perspective. so the idea that republicans care about the issue — we know republican voters care about it, we know a number of republican officeholders have made this the centrepiece of theirforeign—policy musings, but we didn't hear too much of the debate about specifically what the candidates would do to address this challenge. i expect that in the next debate you're going to hear more about this. lanhee, last question. it looks like republican voters are tending more towards the former president, vivek ramaswamy and ron desantis — are you worried about the republican party moving towards a more isolationist foreign policy? it is a concern. i believe the traditional "peace through strength" orientation of the republican party is something that is no longer ascendant, and i do feel that that's an element of what ramaswamy has talked about. certainly the former president has expressed those points of view at times, and ron

desantis at times has expressed those points of view as well. so it is a great concern, but hopefully in the course of this debate and the course of things working themselves out, the more traditional, conservative republican view on foreign policy is something that will again be part of the conversation in a very prominent way. but if voters themselves are not interested in that perspective, that's going to be a challenge, then, because you're going to see candidates, most of whom have not had a lot of foreign—policy experience hewing to essentially what the electorate wants, and that i think is a recipe for disaster in the long run. lanhee, thank you so much forjoining us. thank you. let's take a look now at what comes next for donald trump. the former president is making his trial part of his politics. this mugshot is part of trump's campaignfundraising.

barbara platt usher has more from atlanta. donald trump is making the most of his mugshot, he has turned into a symbol for his campaign and that will almost certainly galvanise even more republican support, because it has already increased after each indictment. the mugshot might be particularly effective at drumming home his campaign message which is that he is a victim of the washington establishment, he is a political martyr and he will never surrender. but when it comes to how the campaign will play out, there is no question that trump's legal cases will force him to burn more cash, but also create nearly impossible logistics because it is hard enough to run a campaign, never mind when you are also facing 91 felony counts in four different jurisdictions. and the georgia case is particularly complicated because of all the defendants, there is all sorts of legal manoeuvring. for example the location — already a number of defendants have said they are requesting the trial be moved from a state to a federal court — trump is expected to do the same. and the size —

trump has said he plans to request a separate trial so they are not lumped together and one of the defendant already has such a deal. so are you are looking at the possibility of multiple trials in different locations. all this legal wrangling can probably be wrapped up into trump's campaign message as he goes along, but it seems that his goal is to try to delay the trials for as long as he can in hopes that he might be able to win the white house before any possible convictions. but the next most immediate step in the georgia case is the arraignment, which is when trump be able to formally enter his plea of not guilty, and that is expected to happen in early september. barbara boyd usher reporting from atlanta. —— barbara platt usher. as donald trump mount his campaign to return to the white house, he now faces a very busy legal calendar in the months ahead. trump's first trial relating to the federal investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results brought by special counseljack smith is set for 2 january. that trial will begin just 13 days before the iowa caucuses.

georgia's election case brought by fulton county district attorney fani willis is set to start on 4 march, that's what she requested initially but she may seek to speed up that timeframe. the federal investigation into trump's handling and trump will head to trial in new york, to face charges over falsifying business records and hush money payments to former adult film star stormy daniels, and that case was brought by district attorney alvin bragg. that trial will begin on 25 march. the federal investigation into trump's handling of classified documents, that is being held in trump's home state of florida, and that case also brought by the special counseljack smith and that would happen on 20 may. thank you for watching this special edition of bbc news. i'm sumi somaskanda, we will see you at the stop of the hour —— the top of the hour, stay with us.

hello. we'll take a look at the forecast for the weekend in a moment but i want to look back first of all at some of the dramatic weather we saw during friday because in parts of scotland, vicious thunderstorms spawned some funnel clouds — this one here in fife looking like it touched down on the ground, making it a tornado, and you can see the extent of those intense thunderstorms across eastern, central and southern parts of scotland through friday but there were plenty of showers and storms elsewhere as well. now, there are more showers in the outlook for the weekend but i think they will tend to become a little less intense, a little less potent. there'll be some spells of sunshine, too. low pressure in charge of the scene. around the western flank of the low, some quite brisk winds coming down from the north. you'll feel the effects of that across north—west scotland, parts of northern ireland. some rain in the north of scotland tending to spill southwards as the day wears on. cloud amounts increasing for northern ireland. again, some showers here. for england and wales, sunny spells, scattered showers and, particularly for central and eastern parts of england,

some of those showers will be heavy and possibly thundery. 22 in the south—east corner, cooler than that further north and west. at reading and leeds forfestival—goers, i think some showers will be in the forecast but there'll be some spells of sunshine in between. and as we go through saturday night, it's actually going to be quite a cool and fresh affair. some showers will continue, particularly in western areas. temperatures even in the towns and cities down to 9 or 10 degrees. and then, we will see a band of cloud and rain starting to push in across northern ireland. now, this will make very slow progress eastwards. it's also going to peter out as it goes, so just turning cloudy and damp for northern ireland. elsewhere, sunny spells and showers but the showers should be a little bit less intense by this stage. and temperatures north to south 14—21, maybe 22 degrees in the south—east. so, for the notting hill carnival on sunday, a chance for a shower — i think there should be some lengthy dry gaps in between any showers — and monday looks like being a largely dry day

because this area of high pressure is going to try to build in. so, monday — which is a bank holiday for most of us, of course — looks like a mostly dry day. there will be one or two showers, some spells of sunshine too, and temperatures in the high teens or low 20s.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. tim minchin, the cabaret star who wrote matilda the musical. he grew up in western australia, started writing songs in his teens and made his name as a musical comedy performer at the 2005 edinburgh festival. mrtim minchin! after a series of live solo albums, tim was commissioned to write a stage adaptation of the roald dahl book, matilda. the show went on to win olivier and tony awards and has now been turned into a film. in this episode of this cultural life, the radio 4 podcast, he reveals his formative influences and experiences and how, despite fame and acclaim, bad reviews still hurt. no, i'm not good

at taking criticism. you still take it personally?