President Biden is planning to address the verdict in former President Donald Trump’s New York City trial regardless of the outcome, according to a new report. The president will comment on the trial from a White House setting in order to give the appearance of impartiality, though he is ready to celebrate and use the trial as a campaign talking point from the Oval Office if Trump is found guilty.
Citing sources within the Biden Administration, Politico reported that Biden intends to address the verdict from the White House rather than a campaign venue in order to “show his statement isn’t political.”
If Trump is convicted, Biden will argue that it is proof of the former president’s unfitness for office and demonstrates the “extremes to which the former president would go to win again.” The campaign social media is also well prepared for a guilty verdict and plans to immediately blitz social media by referring to their political rival as “Convicted Felon Donald Trump.”
Biden’s team is also planning to use an acquittal or a hung jury as a line of attack against Trump and the Republican Party as a whole. According to Politico, the White House intends to portray Trump and his supporters as the party of chaos and lawlessness regardless of the outcome.
“This is an important moment and the president first and foremost needs to stress that the American system works, even and especially in an election year,” one of four anonymous sources from the Biden team told Politico. “And in a measured way, it becomes part of his argument against Trump too: Do Americans really want this?”
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Closing arguments in the case are set to begin Tuesday after more than four weeks of trial proceedings, meaning the jury could reach a verdict as early as next week.
While the Biden campaign is eager to attack Trump over the coordinated lawfare targeted against him, a number of aides have conceded that a guilty verdict is unlikely to change the overall trajectory of the campaign. The report noted that insiders do not believe the trial has resonated with voters outside the Northeast Corridor.
“I don’t think [Biden] needs to run to the briefing room to talk about this,” said Jennifer Palmieri, former communications director for President Barack Obama. “But, at some point, he should address the conviction saying that a jury of Donald Trump’s peers have convicted him of a crime and it would do extraordinary damage to the standing of the United States and to the credibility of our democratic system for someone Americans found guilty of a crime to then be elected president.”
The campaign believes that next month’s presidential debate is far more important to the race and will present an opportunity to sway undecided voters. While aides are hoping that a conviction could help the margins in what projects to be a tight race, they have also conceded that the lawfare mostly appeals to voters who were already reliable Democrats.
Additional criminal cases against Trump — the federal classified documents case, federal election interference case and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO case — are not expected to go to trial before the election.
In the New York case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg used COVID-era policies to expand the statute of limitations on an administrative payment error, which is generally a misdemeanor. Bragg then upgraded the charge to a felony, citing a “conspiracy” to commit another crime. While Bragg has never specified the exact crime, his team has attempted to convince the jury that Trump “interfered” in the 2016 election.