Two days after winning the New Hampshire primary, Donald Trump was back in court today, testifying in a defamation lawsuit brought against him in New York by E. Jean Carroll, the author who accused him of raping her in a department store with clothing. room in the 1990s.
“I just wanted to defend myself, my family and, frankly, the presidency,” Trump said less than four minutes into the stand. He was responding to a question about whether he had intended to harm his prosecution by making defamatory statements denying her claims, despite the fact that he had been found liable in civil proceedings for sexually abusing her.
And even though the judge told the jury to ignore those remarks, Trump got his message.
It’s a pattern Trump has stuck to for months: Not only has he downplayed his many legal woes, he’s made them front and center, often boasting (apparently falsely) that he’s been indicted more times than Al Capone.
He has characterized his problems in the courtroom in his extreme speeches, portraying them as an effort by Democrats who fear they can’t beat him at the ballot box to weaponize the justice system against him. Casting himself as the victim of a witch hunt, Trump highlighted his four criminal charges in fundraising emails. He enjoys the media coverage of his motorcade speeding to various courthouses. And his confrontations in front of judges and judges are calculated for maximum attention.
So far, the strategy appears to be working, helping rally base Republican voters to his side in Iowa and New Hampshire.
But as he tries to move to a general election, it’s much less clear that making his legal obligations the centerpiece of his campaign will be an effective way to build the broader coalition he needs to win in November.
Early warnings
The risks are evident in the data points from the first two Republican contests.
Nearly half of those who voted in the Republican primary in New Hampshire said in a CNN exit poll that they would not consider Trump fit to run again if he were convicted of a crime. In Iowa, about a third of Republicans who appeared in caucuses said Trump would be unfit if convicted, according to an Edison Research poll.
In a New York Times/Siena College poll last month, nearly a quarter of Trump supporters said he should not be the GOP nominee if he is convicted of a crime, a scale of potential defection that could be decisive in a close race.
Privately, some of Trump’s advisers admit that it is not fundamentally good for him to watch his civil trials. But they say he sees himself as his own best communicator and advocate. He wants it known that he did everything he could to make his case in and out of the courtroom.
Trump has repeatedly gone from the campaign trail to the courtroom, including during the run-up to Iowa and New Hampshire. He traveled first to attend closing arguments in the New York attorney general’s fraud case against him and his company.
Last week, after winning in Iowa, he flew back to New York to watch jury selection in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. He also attended her deposition, sitting next to his lawyers and testing the federal judge’s patience by speaking aurally about the case in front of the jury. He returned today determined to defend himself in his own words.
“This is not America,” he said, raising his voice loud enough for the courtroom to hear in the silent courtroom, as he left after testifying.
Both of the trials he attended in New York are civil cases and therefore do not require Trump to be present, unlike the four criminal cases, in which he will have to be in the courtroom for a long time. Trump has crammed the cases into one giant, undifferentiated mass that he insists without evidence is the doing of President Biden. (It’s worth noting that the origins of the New York civil fraud case date back to the middle of Trump’s presidency.)
Out of court
Mocking E. Jean Carroll, which he has done repeatedly on social media in recent weeks, doesn’t seem like an obvious way to woo more independent voters wary of the dust clouds that follow Trump everywhere, or to secure more support from suburban women, another group she has struggled with.
That’s also true of his election denial, which he has discussed constantly, to the chagrin of some of his advisers, even as he faces a federal lawsuit on charges that he illegally tried to overturn his 2020 election loss. He dug in again for “cheating.” in the election during his victory speech in New Hampshire on Tuesday night.
Trump has repeatedly subverted political expectations and benefited from the fact that voters do not see him through a conventional political lens. But at his own insistence, Trump is making accusations against him that would undoubtedly sink any other candidate. Whether he can continue to make them positive is shaping up to be one of the big questions of the upcoming general election season.
Your questions
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Why is there no date for Georgia’s RICO trial to begin? — Theodore Kazmar, San Diego, California
Alan: This is not entirely clear. The Fulton County District Attorney has proposed an August start for the racketeering trial. But Judge McAfee has not settled on a date yet. Pretrial motions are still being discussed, and it’s possible the judge will want to complete that process before choosing a trial date. The proceedings have also been complicated by allegations of ethics violations by one of Trump’s co-defendants by the prosecutor, Fannie T. Willis, involving questions about her relationship with a lawyer she hired to help oversee the prosecution.
How testing delays could pay off for Trump
Trump faces four criminal trials this year, but the delays have already begun. Chances are no more than one or two will end before the election — can take several months or more, and are unlikely to happen at the same time because defendants usually have to appear in person at criminal trials.
And the delays are a crucial part of Trump’s strategy, which is to avoid a jury before November. See how the programming could be combined.
