Former President Trump's tough week demonstrated better than any other to date why he faces a new and unprecedented reality as a presidential candidate, as he oscillates between a dizzying array of court appearances, judicial rulings, competing accusations and subsequent grievances.
On Thursday, he was complaining about the overlap of his busy legal schedule, criticizing that Judge Juan M. Merchán, who is presiding over his secret money case in New York, would not allow him to leave that trial to attend a Supreme Court hearing. . in Washington, D.C., on whether he could face criminal prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election. That decision could also affect Trump's classified documents case in Florida.
“I should be there!” Trump was furious with the Supreme Court. “He wouldn't let that happen. He puts himself above the Supreme Court.”
Most of the week, Trump sat in Merchan's Manhattan courtroom as former National Enquirer editor David Pecker testified. Pecker, a key witness in the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, helped prosecutors outline the alleged conspiracy involving the tabloid's use to suppress negative stories about Trump and cover up payments during the 2016 campaign.
A break in the trial on Wednesday could have offered respite for Trump. Instead, he was full of more actions against the former president. Trump was identified as a co-conspirator in two states: Michigan, during a pretrial hearing involving a group of “false electors” who were charged as part of an electoral subversion scheme; and Arizona, where some of Trump's closest allies were accused of another plot to overturn the election using fake electors.
That accusation hit close to home for Trump because it included Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff, and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who became Trump's confidant and political fixer.
It didn't end there. When Trump returned to court on Thursday, prosecutors alleged that his attempts to misrepresent perceptions about his Manhattan case – including calling Pecker “a good guy” – violated the gag order because he was trying to influence a potentially harmful witness.
To make matters worse, a federal judge in New York rejected Trump's attempt to dismiss an $83.3 million civil defamation judgment against E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist who accused Trump of raping her in a department store. in the 1990s. A jury ruled that Trump defamed Carroll by denying her sexual abuse allegations.
Will it matter in the elections? Trump appeared unscathed during the presidential primaries, and many Republican voters dismissed the charges as a distraction or agreed with Trump that he was being persecuted for disrupting the establishment.
In interviews last week with voters in Arizona, a key swing state, one supporter dismissed the fury around Trump's actions on Jan. 6, 2021, as overblown. Other supporters and potential supporters said his concerns about the economy and immigration and his frustration with President Biden were more important than anything else.
But a poll released Wednesday had some data that could worry the Trump campaign. Six in 10 voters said the charges in the Manhattan case, considered the weakest of the four allegations against the former president, were very serious or somewhat serious, according to a Quinnipiac University survey of registered voters.
Just under half of respondents said Trump did something illegal, while more than a quarter said it was unethical but not illegal.
Most voters said a conviction would not influence their vote. But a sizable minority, including 5% of Trump voters, said they would be less likely to vote for Trump if he is convicted.
That may not seem like much, and some of those voters might change their minds. But in an election that both sides expect to be close, even a relatively small number of lost votes could matter.
“Any 2% to 3% of people who are persuaded matters,” said David Paleologos, a pollster and director of the Center for Policy Research at Suffolk University in Boston.
There is also an opportunity cost, as Trump is losing time getting in front of voters in swing states.
“The only way you can reverse a week like this is if you get a positive result in one of your trials,” Paleologos said.
For Trump, a positive outcome could include not only an outright victory but also a Supreme Court ruling that delays one or more of his trials until after the election, allowing him to further scuttle or nullify the proceedings if he returns. be president.
“It's one thing to be busy in court for a week and then win,” Paleologos said. “And another is to have wasted all that time and lose.”
