What did Donald Trump do today?

He made sure to be seen with Daniel Penny.

In May 2023, Daniel Penny killed Jordan Neely on a New York City subway train. Neely was a homeless man who had been behaving erratically and was ranting about being hungry. Penny, a former Marine, put Neely in a chokehold for over six minutes, holding it for long after Neely had gone limp and lost control of his bodily functions. The bystanders that Penny claimed Neely was threatening begged Penny to stop, saying "he's dying" and "you're gonna kill him now."

Earlier this week, Penny was acquitted of homicide in the killing. He was immediately invited to attend the Army-Navy football game with Trump, Elon Musk, and other administration officials like vice-president-elect JD Vance.

Trump had less luck with a Manhattan jury this year than Penny and was convicted this year of 34 felonies related to his scheme to defraud businesses and taxpayers, and to cover up his hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the porn star he had an affair with. The Trump team put out several statements related to Penny's visit to Trump's luxury suite attacking Alvin Bragg, the New York district attorney who secured those convictions.

Penny's lawyer says he is apolitical and would have accepted an invitation from a Democratic politician, too. Prosecutors acknowledged that Penny may have meant well at first, but argued that the law does not permit the deliberate taking of a life after a reasonable person would know the threat had passed. But he has become a cause célèbre in far-right circles, where he has been hailed as a hero simply because he killed a Black man, regardless of the justification.

Trump's flirtation with those same groups, even before calling on them explicitly during the Jan. 6th uprising, makes his embrace of Penny unsurprising. But it also fits a long pattern of lying about crimes and who commits them, and demanding that Black people die as a result.

Why does this matter?

• It's hard to miss the symbolism of Donald Trump posing for pictures with someone who white nationalist gangs are calling a hero.