Democrats and Republicans are respectively casting former President Donald Trump as a convicted felon and a political prisoner after his felony conviction in New York City.
The guilty verdict Thursday led to huge fundraising days for both parties, and though President Joe Biden briefly addressed the case Friday, campaign allies say they don’t expect the president himself to “dance on Trump’s grave” just yet.
Multiple veteran Democratic operatives told the Washington Examiner that while the Biden campaign has and will continue to highlight Trump as a convicted felon, they believed Biden himself would seek to avoid fanning the flames among Republicans, at least in the immediate future.
“President Biden was already locked in a tight race, and this doesn’t make things any easier. On the one hand, Trump is a danger to our democracy, and the president’s campaign wants every advantage possible ahead of the general election,” one strategist explained. “On the other, the president doesn’t want to appear like he or his administration had any hand orchestrating the Trump verdict. It’s a very thin line to walk.”
A second campaign operative noted that Biden’s past few months of campaigning have been characterized by increased personal attacks against his Republican opponent. That person said they were truly not sure the lengths to which Biden planned to highlight Trump’s conviction over the next few weeks but that they expected the president to go “all in” on Trump during the first general election debate on June 27.
“Most normal voters aren’t even tuned into the election at this point, but in front of a national audience, I think President Biden will have no choice but to hammer home that Trump is a legitimate criminal now,” the operative assessed.
Biden’s remarks Friday fell short of personally attacking Trump for being convicted, but the president heartily criticized the former president and his supporters for claiming that the trial was “rigged.”
“It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden said from the White House.
“Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case, not a federal case, and it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens — 12 Americans, 12 people like you, like millions of Americans who served on juries,” the president continued. “This jury is chosen the same way every jury in America has chosen. It was a process that Donald Trump’s attorney was part of.”
Biden did, however, smile coyly at reporters when asked about Trump’s claims that Biden weaponized the Justice Department against him. He did not answer the question.
The Trump campaign quickly turned that non response and smile into a sinister campaign ad painting Biden as the “face of corruption.”
Later in the day, following a ceremony celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs’ most recent Super Bowl, Biden told reporters that he has “no idea” if Trump’s conviction will help him in November.
“I didn’t know I was that powerful,” he joked when asked a follow-up question about Trump’s claim that Biden is “pulling the strings behind the scenes” and “doing all of this to help” himself.
The Biden campaign did not answer questions about if Biden plans to work Trump’s felony status into his rotation of Trump stump digs and noted that he addressed the issue multiple times on Friday.
Meanwhile, Republicans have nearly unanimously rallied behind Trump, claiming that Biden’s calls to respect and protect the justice system ring hollow.
Several supporters of the former president have specifically pointed to Biden’s own actions on student loan debt after the Supreme Court struck down his initial proposal to forgive $10,000 in loans for every student borrower.
“Biden claims that ‘the justice system should be respected,’ but apparently he only means it regarding President Trump,” Job Creators Network Foundation President Elaine Parker said in a statement. “When the Supreme Court struck down his student loan giveaway scheme, Joe ignored the law and gave away billions in an effort to buy votes from college grads. Respect is the last thing that Biden has shown to the law or to the American taxpayers.”
And in addition to ushering in a surge of donations, the conviction gives Trump’s campaign a new angle to stand up grassroots organizing programs.
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Trump’s senior campaign advisers, Chris LaCavita and Susie Wiles, announced Friday the creation of Trump Force 47, a “program to engage tens of thousands of new volunteers across the country to participate in a neighbor-to-neighbor organizing program hyper-focused on mobilizing highly-targeted voters in critical precincts across the battleground states and districts.”
“Trump voters and Republicans are more motivated than ever to do their part to defend President Trump from Joe Biden and his band of corrupt liberals while supporting his mission to save our country from destruction,” the pair claimed. “We will continue capitalizing on the unprecedented momentum of our shared movement to ensure President Trump returns to the White House alongside House and Senate majorities.”
