Jury deliberations began late Wednesday morning, and no one is waiting with greater anticipation than the current president. Joe Biden trails in the polls, and his critics says the trial is nothing more than an overt effort to weaken Donald Trump, his political rival.
“I mean, it shows you what we've known this to be all along, that this is a political endeavor, not a justice or a law-and-order endeavor,” Marc Lotter, communications chief for the America First Policy Institute, said on American Family Radio Wednesday.
Lotter, a veteran of political communications, served in the Trump administration and in the Trump-Pence presidential campaigns.
Trump is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to conceal an alleged affair with former porn actress Stormy Daniels. The secrecy equated to an attempt to influence the 2016 election, prosecutors say.
The defense claims that payment was a legitimate business expense and that Trump did not seek to illegally influence the election.
Trump faces 34 felony counts relating to this single allegation.
In spite of the New York case, which is one of four but the only one, analysts say, that is likely to reach a conclusion before the election in November, Trump maintains leads of 4-5 points in many polls.
In a nakedly political stunt, the Biden campaign sent veteran actor Robert DeNiro, 80, to speak out against Trump outside the courthouse Tuesday. DeNiro said a Trump win in November would be the end of the country, but his over-the-top warnings were drowned out by boos and insults from Trump supporters.
Biden has remained silent during the trial but that will change when a jury decision is announced.
“You saw the stories over the weekend from the Wall Street Journal, Politico yesterday. Democrats are freaking out, and they're freaking out about how bad Joe Biden's campaign is going, how badly he is trailing in the polls, and so they've got to do something," Lotter told show host Jenna Ellis.
"They’re grasping at straws with the debate, with this stunt yesterday, and whatever Biden is going to do from the White House," Lotter continued, "because they can't win on the issues, and this is the only case that's going to likely go to trial before the election."
Politico story describes 'freakout'
Three writers combined for a Politico piece Tuesday that described Democrats in “freakout” mode over Biden’s chances of winning reelection.
“A pervasive sense of fear has settled in at the highest levels of the Democratic Party over President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects, even among officeholders and strategists who had previously expressed confidence about the coming battle with Donald Trump.
“All year, Democrats had been on a joyless and exhausting grind through the 2024 election. But now, nearly five months from the election, anxiety has morphed into palpable trepidation, according to more than a dozen party leaders and operatives. And the gap between what Democrats will say on TV or in print, and what they’ll text their friends, has only grown as worries have surged about Biden’s prospects,” Politico wrote.
The Washington Examiner reported Tuesday that now a majority of Democrats, 54%, favor removing the incumbent President from the ticket.
Biden’s removal “would obviously be devastating” for Democrats but is becoming less likely,” Lotter said. “I think more likely it would be if Joe Biden has a brain freeze, mental breakdown, or stumbles, falls, and trips over himself at the debate in June. The one underlying problem that none of this changes is that they don't have a plan B.”
DeNiro’s courthouse speech and Biden’s looming commentary are smoke and mirrors aimed at confusing the electorate, Lotter said.
“They are desperate to do something to change the narrative, and they need to get a guilty verdict, and it looks like Judge (Juan) Merchan is going to do everything he can to help deliver that,” Lotter said.
There are five different possible outcomes for Trump’s fate: conviction on all counts, conviction on some counts and acquittal on others, acquittal on all counts.
In one controversial instruction to jurors Wednesday, Judge Merchan said a "4-4-4" vote for a conviction would be treated as a unanimous verdict.
Biden needs unpopular Harris for black vote
Biden, while tracking the trial, recently made his seventh visit to Pennsylvania, a key swing state. He won the state by less than 100,000 votes in 2020.
“The Democrat Party is bleeding black support. It's primarily from black men who've had enough of Joe Biden and the many failures,” Lotter said.
The dismal approval ratings of the first black female Vice President of the United States also leaves Democrats between a rock and a hard place, Lotter said.
“If they replace Joe Biden with anyone other than Kamala Harris, then black women may not vote for Trump, but they’ll just stay home," he predicted. "They will feel like Kamala has been disrespected. Of course, she’s worse than he is."
The campaigns have agreed on two Presidential debates, the first just weeks away on June 27 in Atlanta. It will air on CNN. A second debate is currently scheduled for Sept. 10 to air on ABC.
The Biden campaign had numerous demands before the debates were finalized, such as no live audience, no live mics except during a candidate’s response time and which media networks will moderate.
Biden’s debate challenges
Lotter doesn’t believe the Trump team is giving up too much to get the two candidates on the same stage.
“Their ultimate goal is to have a direct comparison between Biden and Trump and what we've seen is the fact that (Biden) can't even handle a teleprompter right now.
“So, you're going to have 90 seconds, 2 minutes, whatever that time frame is, where he's got to come up with a coherent thought, be able to think about it, voice it, put it into understandable words, not talk about his uncle being eaten by cannibals or him driving a semi-truck and be able to deliver that speech,” Lotter said.
