Going back and forth between the courtroom and the campaign trail, Donald Trump will exert his utmost concentration in the coming two days to transform his criminal trial into a political weapon.
Tuesday marks the return to New York of the former president’s hush money trial, in which prosecutors will try to establish that Trump influenced the 2016 election by deceiving voters by altering company records to conceal an alleged affair. Because they fear Trump will attack them if they reveal witnesses ahead of time, they have been reluctant to do so. Although Trump denies the affair, the investigation is anticipated to continue interviewing a former banker for Michael Cohen, who was Trump’s lawyer and fixer and who paid hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels. A not guilty plea has been entered by Trump.
The presumed Republican nominee will visit two pivotal states—Wisconsin and Michigan—that might determine the fate of the White House on Wednesday, when courts are closed. These states are at the focus of his battle with President Joe Biden. Having an aircraft at his disposal is a boon for an indicted contender, and this trip will prove it. Plus, this is going to be Trump’s busiest campaign tour in weeks, so he’ll definitely be bringing up his baseless accusations that the White House was behind all four of his indictments.
But Trump’s return to campaigning full-time won’t last. On Thursday, he is required to return to court for another hearing presided over by Judge Juan Merchan. The prosecution asserts that he is persistently disobeying a partial gag order that was imposed to safeguard witnesses, court personnel, and even the judge’s own relatives.
Another historic milestone in Trump’s unprecedented presidential campaign will be the contrast between his imposing campaign character and his quiet, helpless demeanor in the courtroom, where the judge has complete control. It will highlight how court decisions are having an equal impact on the 2024 presidential election as conventional campaigning. This will further demonstrate how Trump’s defense in several criminal cases is identical to his campaign theme: that he is a political rebel who has been unfairly persecuted.
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has told his followers that he is the subject of their ire because he is working to ensure that this does not happen to them. “I am your retribution for those who have been wronged and betrayed,” he declared at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
Negative evidence
Prosecutors presented evidence regarding alleged financial irregularities and former tabloid publisher David Pecker described “catch and kill” schemes allegedly used by the ex-president to suppress negative stories during the first week of the prosecution case. Pecker’s testimony seemed to be damaging to Trump.
It was a scam in the election. “Simple and straightforward,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo stated during his opening remarks. “I am aware of potential spoilers,” Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche answered. Attempting to sway an election is completely acceptable. Democracy is the name of it.
Potential jurors numbering in the tens of millions include the former president. We don’t yet know how voters would react to a conviction or whether an acquittal would help Trump’s campaign. As we learned during Trump’s presidency, though, the ex-president’s followers frequently interpret efforts to hold him accountable in court as an instance of unjust victimization.
Although last week’s AWN polls indicates that the public does not have a strong opinion on the trial, it is still possible that the former president could suffer consequences in the event of a guilty conviction. Feeling confident that the jury will reach a fair verdict is a sentiment shared by only 44% of Americans. As expected, most Democrats believe that Trump is receiving preferential treatment compared to others, while most Republicans hold the inverse view. While most Trump supporters would never vote for Biden, a quarter of them said they could rethink their support if he were convicted. This could be a problem for the president.
Engaging in the fight against Biden in battleground states
Instead of the sleazy courtroom corridor, where Trump has been delivering daily tirades against the case and painting a bleak picture of a collapsing nation, his events in Wisconsin and Michigan will provide him with a more conventional stage. However, Trump’s reported transgressions of Merchan’s gag order raise the possibility that he may get into trouble for speaking freely while on the campaign.
It has been the former president’s gripe that he has been unable to campaign due to his time spent in court. I should be campaigning in North Carolina, Florida, or Georgia, but I’m not. He stated earlier this month that this pertains to interference with elections. Last Wednesday, though, he reportedly played golf at his Bedminster, New Jersey, club on the trial’s off day, according to AWN. However, there are limitations to the four-day-a-week court timetable. For instance, Trump has still not moved a rally that was supposed to go in North Carolina on April 20 but was postponed due to a threatening storm.
Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters are emphasizing the idea of persecution. All these trials seem to me to have a political bent. It seems to me like it’s prejudiced prosecution. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (R) expressed her disapproval of the current situation in New York on Sunday’s “State of the Union” broadcast on AWN. This perspective fails to take into account the realities that all of the charges against Trump were brought to light by grand juries in accordance with the rules of law, and that a few of these charges cut to the very core of the political system that America relies on. To mask the true nature of the accusations, conservative media outlets constantly recycle this kind of language, which Trump supporters find persuasive.
Wednesday’s schedule shows that two states that Trump carried in 2016 but lost to Biden in 2020 are very important to him. The candidates were neck and neck in Wisconsin and Michigan, according to battleground polls released on Sunday by CBS News. Pennsylvania was the third swing state that Biden won over Trump in 2016. The two candidates were neck and neck there as well. If the president wants to run for a second term, he needs to win two of the three states that go toward the electoral college’s total of 270 votes. Unlike the former president, who has remained in New York, Biden has been making campaign rallies all across the country.
A visit to Waukesha, Wisconsin, is being marketed by the Trump campaign as an opportunity for the presumed Republican nominee to emphasize “the peace, prosperity, and security of his first term with Joe Biden’s failed presidency.” It may appear like a tough argument to make for the continuation of a president who was twice removed from office for trying to subdue American democracy.
Even if Trump’s rhetoric may be appealing to certain people amid rising food costs, interest rates, and international unrest, a new AWN poll that was issued on Sunday hints the opposite. The study shows that 61% of Americans consider Biden’s administration a failure, while 55% currently view the time of the former president as successful. Among the many issues that matter to the Democratic coalition’s core constituency—voters under the age of 35—Biden’s performance on the economy, immigration, and Israel’s conflict in Gaza against Hamas stands out as particularly dismal.
Pro-Palestinian rallies on college campuses around the country have already been exploited by the former president and his associates to bolster their narrative that the United States was besieged by radical leftists during Biden’s presidency. The protests have not gained the same traction as the civil rights or Vietnam War era demonstrations, and they usually only involve a small fraction of students at each campus. However, Trump’s demagogic campaign could make selective use of the emotionally charged footage of police officers confronting students who are holding sit-ins. Some voters may be swayed by his claims that America requires strong, aggressive leadership if they feel any political discontent. The present school protests, the former president claimed last week, are far worse than the 2017 gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a woman was killed at the hands of White nationalists. Contrasted with the horde of Trump supporters that descended upon Washington, DC, and violently stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, university protests have largely remained calm.
House Speaker Mike Johnson sought to exacerbate the schism within the Democratic Party that has developed as a result of the student protests by visiting Columbia University last week and requesting the deployment of the National Guard to disperse the demonstrators.
Campaigns build narratives that may not be entirely accurate but can be politically powerful if they appeal to voters’ preexisting notions; his decision to grab the subject exemplifies this. Trump is tracing a similar strategy as he combines his criminal defense by claiming to have been persecuted by political opponents with his political offensive to return to the White House.