ATLANTA — One month after a New York jury found Donald Trump guilty in his hush money trial, the former president is returning to Fulton County, not to face his election interference charges in Georgia but to debate President Joe Biden.
But with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis‘s racketeering charges hanging over Trump’s head, this make-or-break debate as he seeks reelection will be broadcast from CNN’s studios, blocks away from the Fulton County Courthouse, where the trial over allegations he and 18 other co-defendants conspired to overturn the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election is taking place.
Trump was charged alongside his co-defendants in August 2023 but hasn’t had to appear in court for the case since. But for one-time Georgia Republican state Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, speaking with the Washington Examiner, “It feels like he’s never left.”
However, other Republicans, such as Fulton County GOP Chairwoman Stephanie Endres, are not connecting Trump’s return to the county to his charges, instead focusing on the debate.
“I don’t know that we’re really viewing it that way, but you might as well come back, and stand tall and strong, look down those who are using the legal system to impact your ability to be successful in a political campaign,” Endres told the Washington Examiner.
Georgia state Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican who represents parts of Fulton County, similarly downplayed Trump’s return and Willis’s charges against him, saying they were “bogus” and already “baked into the news” as the trials are paused pending appeals over accusations of a conflict of interest because of her personal relationship with lead prosecutor Nathan Wade.
“I don’t think that the conviction or the court cases are the backdrop of his return to Georgia,” Dolezal told the Washington Examiner of the New York and Georgia state charges. “Everybody wants to see how these two guys are going to do in the debates.”
But after Trump raised $141 million last month following his New York hush money trial conviction, other Republicans, including Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), who also represents part of Fulton County, but in the House of Representatives, contend the former president’s charges, even the federal ones brought by special counsel Jack Smith, have helped him.
“Now voters are leaning toward Trump,” Loudermilk told the Washington Examiner on the sidelines of the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference in Washington, D.C. “A lot are saying, ‘Look, this has all been a witch hunt, it’s gone overboard now. It’s one thing to prosecute him in the press, but now they’re taking legal action.’ People are saying if they can do this to a former president, they can surely do it to us.”
Former educator Gloria Barker, whom the Washington Examiner met in Georgia this week at the opening of the Trump campaign’s DeKalb and Fulton counties office, is one such Republican who does not consider the 2020 election nor Willis’ charges against the former president to have been “fair.”
“The indictments and all these charges against him, I think it’s a setup,” Barker said. “I think it’s very unfair to Trump and our nation.”
At the same event, black Democrat-turned-Republican Janet Prioleau told the Washington Examiner there is “a major shift in black America towards Trump, with him being dragged up into the Fulton County Jail for mug shots and everything.”
“From the mug shots to the actual courtroom, it resonates with a lot of black Americans as far as fairness is concerned,” Prioleau, another educator, said. “A lot of people can relate to that.”
At the same time, the Biden campaign is hoping to capitalize on divisions within the Republican Party over Trump, particularly in states like Georgia, where former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley received 78,000 votes in the GOP primary in March. In fact, this week, it announced that former Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Duncan have endorsed Biden.
“There’s millions of Republicans that want an excuse to not vote for Donald Trump and I’m hopefully going to be able to give him that excuse,” Duncan said of Trump’s return to Fulton County at the George State Capitol after a Biden event. “You don’t have to turn in your Republican card just because you vote for Joe Biden. You can still be a Republican. You’re just going to do the right thing as a Republican.”
The Biden campaign has sought to underscore Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and his New York conviction to draw a contrast between the two candidates, from a $50 million ad spend this month alone to other pre-debate events in Georgia with Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Atlanta Democratic Mayor Andre Dickens.
“In this election, you have a choice between someone of poor moral character, who lacks the integrity and the moral compass to lead the nation, who raised a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol as he sought to cling onto power, and President Biden who succeeded in passing bipartisan infrastructure legislation, who is thinking about and looking for opportunities to help small businesses here in Georgia and across the country every day, and who has a clear moral compass and leads with dignity and integrity,” Ossoff told the Washington Examiner at She Salon.
“I want Georgia just to have a real good memory of how we felt four years ago,” Dickens added. “Remember the lies that were told, the deception, the broken promises, that hate, the vitriol. … He’s been to the Fulton County Jail to get fingerprinted and to get a mugshot, and he still has to stand trial in the city of Atlanta. I want Atlantans to absorb and to remember that.”
After the Biden black small business event, Demetrice Dixon, a hairstylist, told the Washington Examiner that Trump’s charges were a reminder of his “superiority” because “we have times where convicted felons, they can’t return to a place.”
“They should be hard on him like they’re hard on the other convicted felons,” Dixon said.
Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch, a Democratic criminal defense lawyer who represents parts of Fulton County as well, defended Willis, repeating that her charges would not “crumble” and, “at worse,” her cases would be reassigned to another district attorney.
“I assume it’ll be Fani Willis, but if not, then it’ll be another DA,” Panitch told the Washington Examiner. “I don’t see a dismissal of the indictments as the remedy any court would grant. It would be that Willis would be replaced. That’s if the court agrees with the defense.”
Panitch did dismiss Wade as “an embarrassment,” claiming “any woman watching her ex-boyfriend talk about her and their sex life on TV is cringeworthy.”
“Does that reflect on Willis’s judgment? That’s a question. That’s an open question. But who hasn’t had an ex that they wish that they didn’t? Who hasn’t had an ex that they regretted?” she said. “We’re all tired of it. We’re tired. We’re tired of [Trump]. If he could have been a rational actor during his presidency, we wouldn’t be here, but he’s not capable.”
University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock noted to the Washington Examiner that Willis won reelection last month by a “landslide,” and argued that Trump’s charges could undermine him in Georgia among white, college-educated Republicans and independents.
“The conviction is something front and center in the ads that are being run and trying to get voters to recall what they didn’t like about Trump four years ago,” Bullock said of the New York trial. “So just trying to make this a choice between the two and not an evaluation of the four years of the Biden presidency because, if it’s on that, then Biden loses almost every one of the items, everything, except maybe for abortion.”
For Emory University political science associate professor Zachary Peskowitz, Georgians have been following Trump’s Willis charges “more closely” than their counterparts around the country.
“A lot of people were curious and interested in what was going to happen, particularly because it’s state crimes that a president can’t pardon himself for,” Peskowitz told the Washington Examiner.
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Georgia State University political science professor Jeffrey Lazarus additionally emphasized “a lot of anger” among Democrats regarding how the Trump charges have “been handled” and Willis’ “missteps.”
“What does it mean for the state of Georgia that he’s coming back?” Lazarus asked the Washington Examiner about Trump. “The 100% truthful answer? A lot of traffic jams.”
Amy DeLaura contributed to this report.
