Stark contrast between Biden, Trump
Main supporters unlikely to be swayed by trial
WASHINGTON − While one man forcefully denounced antisemitism, declaring the millions of Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust would never be forgotten, his opponent sat in a courtroom and watched a porn star share details of their alleged sexual encounter.
The race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, was already like no other presidential election: an 81-year-old incumbent trying to hold off his 77-yearold challenger − and predecessor − who tried to overturn the last election and is campaigning from court.
“Striking is the word,” said Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “It’s so hard for us who follow presidential history to draw parallels. This is unusual. This is unique. We’ve never had this before.”
On Tuesday morning, Biden warned of a “ferocious surge of antisemitism in America” as he gave the keynote address at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony before a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the Capitol.
“This ancient hatred of Jews didn’t begin with the Holocaust; it didn’t end with the Holocaust, either, or after − or even after our victory in World War II,” Biden said, as he went on to condemn a new wave of antisemitism. “It’s absolutely despicable, and it must stop.”
At the same time, Trump sat for the 13th day of his hush money trial in New York as Stormy Daniels, who says she had a sexual exchange with Trump in 2006, took the stand. Her story is at the heart of 34 felony counts Trump faces on accusations of falsifying business records.
Daniels described in detail a sexual encounter at a Lake Tahoe hotel. Daniels, who was then 27 years old, said Trump greeted her at his suite wearing silky pajamas that reminded her of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s famous attire. She told Trump to change clothes, and he obliged. She testified that Trump asked her whether she had any sexually transmitted diseases. She said she did not. At one point during the exchange, Daniels spanked Trump with a magazine, she said, before they later had unprotected sex.
“I do think there are some things that would have been better left unsaid,” Judge Juan Merchan later said, though refusing the defense team’s request for a mistrial.
Trump: ‘I should be campaigning right now’
On the one hand, the contrast of a president on the job versus a former president in trial is one that seems to favor Biden.
“There’s just no doubt that you have an ex-president who’s in court being accused by his former lover, a porn star. That just doesn’t seem to work its way into a good bumper sticker,” Perry said.
Yet Trump long ago upended conventional wisdom in politics. And his trial in New York has allowed him to play victrump tim, decrying “election interference” by his political foes.
“I should be out campaigning right now,” Trump said after Tuesday’s day in court. Instead, he said, “I’m stuck. I’m here.”
After Biden concluded his remarks Tuesday, he and others in the audience held black-and-white photos of Holocaust victims. The president then returned to the White House, where he held a bilateral meeting with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.
Trump returned to his home in Mara-lago, Florida, where he spent his day off from court Wednesday doing fundraising activities – which, according to Axios, included spending time with supporters who spent thousands of dollars buying digital Trump trading cards.
Meanwhile, Biden traveled Wednesday to Racine, Wisconsin, where he announced a $3.3 billion Microsoft artificial intelligence data center, set for the same site of a failed project by tech manufacturer Foxconn that Trump once hailed as the “eighth wonder of the world.”
It was back to the courtroom for on Thursday, for Day 14 of the hush money trial. This time, Trump’s defense team got their chance to crossexamine Daniels, who received payments totaling $130,000 to keep quiet about her sexual encounter with Trump before the 2016 election.
Trump attorney Susan Necheles suggested Daniels made up her story of having sex with Trump, prompting Daniels to respond: “If that story was untrue, I would have written it to be a lot better.”
Will the hush money trial have any impact on the election?
Since Trump’s trial began, Biden has only once publicly made reference to it, joking last month that the former president is “busy right now.”
Although his reelection campaign hasn’t focused on the details of his Trump’s case, Biden’s team is embracing the optics as they argue Trump has been slow to organize his campaign in key swing states.
“While Trump is stuck in New York or hiding at Mar-a-lago, we’re expanding and deepening our reach in every critical battleground state,” said Dan Kanninen, the Biden campaign’s battleground states director.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-pierre, when asked how the president is consuming the details of Trump’s trial, said Biden is focused on his job.
“The president is really busy. Obviously, he probably catches up during the day, like many of us here. But, look, the president is going to focus on the American people,” she said Tuesday.
Veteran pollster Frank Luntz, in an interview with CNN, said swing voters in the battleground states who will decide the election aren’t likely to be swayed by the trial.
“These are people who look at the economy. They prioritize inflation, immigration and abortion, more than anything else,” he said of key undecided voters. “And the trial to them is a distraction. In the end, what happens in May is not going to determine what happens in October and, more importantly, in November.”