Even before the Manhattan jury finished deliberating on Thursday (30), the majority of President Joe Biden’s advisers concluded that Donald Trump’s conviction would not drastically alter his strategy for the 2024 elections.
But it has raised some hopes among the current president’s supporters that if 12 people voted to find Trump guilty, there might be enough undecided voters who, if the Biden campaign could get them to look at this issue against Trump, would vote to impeach him. him to return to the White House.
Aides debated among themselves whether Biden’s campaign would use the term “criminal” to describe the likely Republican nominee in his campaign, even as they acknowledged that the former president’s legal problems are broadly defined and voters care more about other issues.
Still, a conviction is a conviction, and 34 of them are hardly bad news for the Biden campaign five months before the election. The convictions may not significantly move the needle on the election, they told CNN people close to Biden’s re-election effort, but an acquittal really could have helped Trump — and that makes Thursday’s historic ruling a victory for Biden’s campaign, if only because it isn’t a defeat.
A sense of despondency has begun to set in among key supporters and donors in recent weeks as moments that reelection campaign strategists predicted would change the race — the start of 2024, the end of the Republican primaries, the arrival of the spring, when they figured more people would pay attention to Trump’s record—passed without any notable movement in the polls or overall momentum. So much frustration built up inside the Wilmington headquarters that, on Tuesday (28) – with attention focused on the Manhattan courtroom – they sent Robert DeNiro to shout at the crowd and reporters.
“This matters”
But the conviction on 34 counts reassured part of his mantra that the more people focus on Trump and the choice in front of them, the better Biden’s November will be — and to resist the “nothing matters” feeling that helped drive Trump through so many other dark moments throughout his last nine years in politics.
Last night, a senior administration official – when asked about the verdict – raised his eyebrows and said, “It matters.” Meanwhile, campaign aides have been told to remain low-key in response to reporters and on social media.
Biden-centric operatives say an acquittal would not only have validated Trump’s claims of being unfairly persecuted, but further fueled the fatalism of already disheartened Biden supporters who have come to believe that nothing can touch Trump.
“An acquittal would have fueled Trump’s view that he is constantly under attack and that everyone is against him — but a 12-person jury convicted him,” said a former Biden aide. “I can’t get 12 people to agree on what to order for dinner.”
And while they expect Trump to receive a tsunami of online fundraising by calling himself “a political prisoner” and assume his supporters will send a flurry of statements attacking the verdict, several said they are partial to the kind of thinking expressed by the anti-Trump Republican pollster Sarah Longwell after conviction: “It will not be an earthquake in public opinion. But in an election where every detail will matter, this has just created a new barrier for undecided voters: voting for a convicted felon.”
Biden’s reaction
Biden’s official reaction to the verdict was almost identical to that of the recently convicted and presumptive Republican nominee.
“There is only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the polls,” Biden wrote on social media, linking to a fundraising page.
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Committee, echoed this while praising the verdict.
“Consistent with the rule of law, a jury found the former president guilty on all counts,” Durbin said in a statement. “Now, it is up to the American people to decide whether he is worthy of the seat behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.”
In substance, if not style, the sentiment exactly matched Trump’s assertion outside the courtroom that the “real verdict will be given on November 5th by the people.”
The day that ended in a historic verdict for his predecessor began with a service for Biden, marking the ninth anniversary of the death of his son Beau, about whom Biden said he wanted to be president instead.
Watching the jury’s decision hundreds of miles south of the courthouse, at his beach home in Delaware, and while his aides were riveted by news coverage in the West Wing, where foot traffic had dwindled to almost zero, Biden did not alter his evening. with the family. There were no hasty plans to appear in public, leaving the answers to members of his campaign and White House spokespeople.
“Convicted criminal or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president,” campaign communications director Michael Tyler wrote in a statement. “The threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater.”
“Ian Sams, spokesman for the White House counsel’s office, said, ‘We respect the rule of law and have no further comment.’”
Biden may speak out
There is also the possibility that Biden will speak on Friday (31), when he will return to the White House for a closed-door meeting with the Belgian Prime Minister to discuss plans to use Russian assets in Western banks to continue financing Ukraine’s defense. .
Later, Biden is scheduled to host the Kansas City Chiefs at the White House to celebrate the team’s second consecutive Super Bowl victory in what is usually a relaxed event.
Rather than a major campaign shake-up centered on his rival’s new convicted felon status, Biden is expected to use the next few weeks to advance his warnings about Trump’s threats to democracy, culminating in the presidential debate. CNN on June 27th.
Two separate trips to Europe, including for the 80th anniversary of D-Day and the G7 summit, will have a thematic focus on democratic issues. The White House said Thursday that the president will deliver a speech on the “importance of defending freedom and democracy” at Pointe du Hoc, one of the sites of the Allied landings in Normandy.
With full coverage of the trial now complete, it may be easier for the president’s message to be heard above the noise.
“The risk of conviction is that there are people who continue to think that there is something that will prevent Donald Trump from being the candidate or president,” said the former Biden aide. “That is not the case. If you don’t want Donald Trump, you need to vote against him.”
(contributed by CNN’s Kayla Tausche)
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