REHOBOTH BEACH, Delaware — Former President Donald Trump‘s conviction last month provides an opportunity for President Joe Biden to appeal to the independent voters who will decide the presidential election.
But as he prepares for the first of two debates with the former president on Thursday, Biden will have to weigh how hard to go after Trump on the hush money guilty verdict as Republicans allege the trial was politically motivated.
The Biden campaign was quick to describe Trump as a “felon” last month in written statements, including billboards, before announcing this week it would spend millions on ads in June amplifying the former president’s conviction. Biden himself called the verdict “disturbing” at his first post-conviction fundraiser.
“Folks, the campaign entered unchartered territory last week,” Biden told donors earlier this month in Greenwich, Connecticut. “For the first time in American history, a former president that is a convicted felon is now seeking the office of the presidency.”
The Biden campaign’s strategy could be working, with a Fox News poll this week finding the president’s standing has improved among independents by 11 percentage points since May, when Trump was found to have falsified business records related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
But Democrats, including former Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler, are urging Biden, who departed Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, earlier this week to hunker down for debate prep at Camp David, to let the verdict speak for itself, given the trial “was wall-to-wall news on a daily basis.”
“I would leave it alone if I were President Biden,” Gansler told the Washington Examiner. “Everybody knows about the convictions. … I would think he would want to stay above the fray on that and not get into the mud with Trump.”
Republicans are eager to convince swing voters that the trial, prosecuted in Manhattan court, was the product of a political campaign to keep him out of the White House, and if Biden leans too hard into the messaging, he risks identifying himself with what was a state-level case.
The Justice Department, which is prosecuting two federal cases against Trump related to Jan. 6 and his handling of classified documents, calls the idea of collusion with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a “conspiracy theory,” but Trump is likely to bring it up given his fixation on the legal battles.
“Except for those irrationally committed to left-wing politics, I firmly believe normal people know these cases against Trump are absurd and assume they will be overturned,” Bud Cummins, a former George W. Bush-appointed Arkansas U.S. attorney and longtime Trump ally, told the Washington Examiner. “I hope the people who make decisions for Biden bring them up as often as possible [during the debate] to remind people how he and his cohorts have politically weaponized our system of laws and justice.”
The allegations by Republicans mean Biden will likely have to address the conviction in some form. Gansler believes a productive way would be to frame the trial as part of the larger narrative that chaos follows Trump everywhere he goes.
“I would certainly think he could focus on the difference in character of the two of them, the mental health between the two of them, and draw out a contrast of Trump being dangerous for the future of democracy and Biden having righted the ship after Trump left office,” he said. “Those types of contrast would be fine.”
Gansler conceded some of the public thinks “those charges against Trump are politically motivated” but argued “most of them don’t think they’re politically motivated by President Biden.” GOP operative Karl Rove, citing debate experts, suggested the topic would largely be a waste of time in a recent Wall Street Journal commentary piece.
Trump could bring up Biden’s son Hunter at the debate, as he did last election cycle to allege the Biden family engaged in influence-peddling during his vice presidency, a claim the White House denies. Recently, Hunter Biden was convicted in a federal gun trial in Delaware and faces a second prosecution in California on tax evasion charges.
But even that line of attack could allow Joe Biden to come across as a sympathetic father to his son, who has praised his son’s recovery from drug addiction, and help neutralize the claims that the court system is weaponized against Trump.
“He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it,” the former vice president said in 2020 during his opening debate with Trump, who brought up the addiction plus Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma. “I’m proud of him. I’m proud of my son.”
Regardless, Gansler recommended that Joe Biden keep his responses “short and sweet.”
“He should say, ‘Unlike some others, I respect the judicial process. I don’t attack our judicial process. I don’t attack our judges. I’m going to let this, the judicial process play itself out,’” he said. “I think any attack on Trump directly on convictions will welcome an attack back to him on Hunter. I think he could talk about preserving democracy and things like, ‘The Jan. 6 treasonous incident cannot and would not be tolerated under his second administration,’ that kind of thing.”
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Joe Biden and Trump’s first debate of 2024 will be moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash in Atlanta on Thursday at 9 p.m. and will air without a studio audience. The 90-minute broadcast will be interrupted for two commercial breaks, during which the candidates will not be able to confer with their campaigns, as part of an agreement made without the Commission on Presidential Debates for the first time in almost 40 years.
ABC will host the second debate on Sept. 10.
