THINGS DONALD TRUMP CAN STILL TALK ABOUT ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL IF HE'S UNDER A GAG ORDER

We're being told that that the judge who's overseeing Donald Trump's criminal case in New York will probably put Trump under a gag order:

His freedom to rant on Truth Social and say what he wants about his case at rallies will likely change once he surrenders and appears in a Manhattan courthouse, according to Duncan Levin, who is also a former federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice.

Manhattan's Acting Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who is expected to arraign Trump on Tuesday, is likely to put conditions on his release, and that's "most likely" when the judge will issue a gag order, restricting Trump from discussing the case, Levin said....

"I think it's not only a possibility, but it's extremely likely that there will be a gag order in the case," said Levin, known for representing clients including Harvey Weinstein and Anna Sorokin. "Gag orders are very common in criminal cases, particularly in cases where there is an enormous amount of pretrial publicity like this one."

On Fox News last night, Tucker Carlson interviewed Harmeet Dhillon, a former vice chair of the California Republican Party who finished second in the last election for chair of the Republican National Committee. Carlson and Dhillon implied that the gag order -- which affects only Trump's ability to discuss the case in public -- is somehow a total ban on campaigning by Trump. Here's a partial transcript, via Gateway Pundit:

Tucker Carlson: You have seen cases, politicized cases, as with Roger Stone, in which the person charged is gagged by the judge and not allowed to speak about the charges. This is increasingly common, in violation of the First Amendment, obviously. But it happens. If this happens to Donald Trump, he will lose his free speech rights as a candidate in a presidential race. And I’m just wondering if you think that could potentially happen.

Harmeet Dhillon: Well, it very much could happen. In fact, we’ve seen it talked about on television already, and in fact, the President has been subject to similar allegations in other litigation that he’s involved in and also way beyond the statute of limitations. The story is that because he says mean things about people sometimes on his free speech platforms, that he should not be allowed to speak about a fundamental issue of due process that governs the future of our country and how we look at justice and how we look at the politicization of this political process. So that would be a gross miscarriage of justice if it occurs. And I would not be surprised to see this politicized prosecutor make that request of this judge.

Tucker Carlson: I honestly think it’s impossible to imagine greater election interference, a greater or more aggressive attack on our democracy, than gagging a presidential candidate in a presidential year. I mean, Vladimir Putin has never dreamed of any attack on the United States more damaging than that. Would anyone be able to stop it?

Harmeet Dhillon: Well, certainly the lawyers in this case will argue against that... But at the end of the day if a court sets those rules, then the litigant has to abide by them or be in contempt of court. And that itself would be a very dangerous course to pursue.

(Emphasis added.)

Oh, please. Even with a gag order, Trump will remain perfectly free to campaign, and to talk about anything he chooses, apart from this case. That includes talking about:

* The inefficiency of low-flush toilets.
* Windmills and how many birds they kill.
* The perfection of his phone call to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
* The perfection of his phone call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger.
* "Russia, Russia, Russia."
* Hillary Clinton and the ongoing need to lock her up.
* Ron DeSantis's likely second career as a manager of a Pizza Hut.
* Big, strong men who've come to him with tears in their eyes.
* How dirty American airports are.
* How smart Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are.
* How romantic the love letters he's exchanged with Kim Jong Un are.
* How difficult some of the questions on that cognitive test were.
* How much he won by in 2020 ("a lot").

Trump will be fine, Tucker. At rallies, he'll tease the crowd by starting to talk about the case and then stopping: "In New York, there's an animal who really doesn't like me -- ooops, I'm not allowed to talk about that. Do you want to me to talk about that? (Crowd cheers.) I'm not allowed to. If I talk about it, the FBI will raid this place and arrest all of us. I want to talk about it, but I would never do anything to hurt you people, so I'm not gonna talk about it!" (Crowd goes wild.)

Or will he defy the gag order? Nahhh. He won't risk another arrest. He'll just use it as material, because you can never have too many grievances.