Trump has some reason for suggesting he is being persecuted more than prosecuted. Pictured: U.S. President Joe Biden. Photo Credit: Joe Biden/X.
The 2024 election continues to trudge its way through a very winding path. Three issues have dominated election coverage of late. Acknowledging that foreign policy exists as an independent feature of the campaign, the three matters that take up the most space in the voters’ heads, as well as media reporting, are, in no particular order of importance or urgency, the upcoming debates, the Trump trials in New York and beyond, and the selection of a running mate for the former president.
The shocking development of a debate schedule independent of the Commission on Presidential Debates led the news the week of May 13-17. For months many people on both sides of the media divide were either advising President Joe Biden to avoid debates with former president Donald Trump or predicted Biden would avoid, at all costs, appearing on a stage with the ex-president. On Wednesday, May 15th, Joe Biden suddenly decided it would be a good idea to challenge Trump to two debates in June and September.
The analysis behind this decision diverges down two roads. The Biden team insists their man wants nothing less than to face off against Trump because they believe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 debates and putting Trump in front of the American public could easily result in a large blunder that would ultimately reveal Trump to be the nasty authoritarian they claim him to be. The Biden crew also expects to be able to make hay of Trump’s legal troubles, (especially if he is convicted in the New York trial), continue the narrative that Trump’s position on abortion threatens women’s reproductive freedoms, and easily hit the low bar that Trump set for Biden when he described Biden, upon accepting the debate challenge, as “the WORST debater I have ever faced.” The legacy media and Biden supporters will also feed these low expectations. The president’s mere ability to endure the length of the debate will seem like proof he has it all together and remains fit as a fiddle.
The former occupant of the White House looks forward to the debate, believing that Biden’s disastrous record domestically and in foreign policy troubles Americans. Trump also thinks that the president’s extremely progressive positions on social issues ranging from funding transgender college sports to full-term abortions scare the public. Trump’s campaign remains convinced that Biden’s lack of physical fitness leaves most voters afraid that his Vice-President, Kamala Harris, will eventually become the Chief Executive. That’s an idea that does not sit well with most Americans.
Nonetheless, Trump has agreed to most of Biden’s demands and CNN and ABC will host the tandem on June 27th and September 10th. Undoubtedly, the recent polls showing Biden behind in several battleground states convinced the campaign they needed to shake things up. The stakes are huge for both candidates, but Trump’s disregard for setting expectations renews the speculation that his lack of discipline could benefit Biden and remind people of how careless the former president becomes when the adrenaline flows. If the Biden rules prevail, there will be no crowd, no Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and microphones shut off when a speaker’s time expires.
These guardrails combined with the home-field advantage Biden will gain because Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, David Muir, and Linsey Davis, all anti-Trump moderators, will oversee the debates, should help Trump build the case that he is the underdog. Instead, he already has set the stage for Biden to exceed low expectations and defuse the concern that he is too old for the job. Trump would like more debates, but Biden’s negotiators have already shut down those possibilities, ensuring that any damage done from a debate will leave plenty of time for recovery.
Trump’s trial in New York, a clumsy attempt from the Biden Justice Department to protect democracy, has left progressives dissatisfied once again. The Alvin Bragg-led prosecution of Trump for supposedly falsifying business records to pay off Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford), a porn star with whom Trump had an affair, has not only failed to provide strong evidence backing up the charges, but it has also become further proof for the Trump universe and those sympathetic to it, that these charges are completely fabricated.
Trump has some reason for suggesting he is being persecuted more than prosecuted. The trial has produced a few witnesses who have slimed Trump’s character, something for which most Trump voters have already accounted. The only witness who could verify the business transaction implicating Trump is Michael Cohen, a lawyer, but a convicted liar (sentenced for lying to Congress in 2018) who has spent time in jail. Cohen’s testimony the week of May 13-17 the mainstream media assures its viewers, went perfectly well. Journalists from George Conway to Nicole Wallace called the testimony perfect or referred to Bragg’s lawyers as a “crackerjack team of experienced attorneys.” The only problem is this: there has yet to be any proof that Trump’s falsifying of business records furthered another crime.
As Eli Lake wrote in The Free Press on May 15, “Robert Costello, one of the lawyers who worked closely with Cohen at the U.S. Attorney’s Office at the Southern District of New York, testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that his old office declined to prosecute the hush money case against Trump because Cohen was ‘totally unworthy of belief.’” Cohen is Bragg’s star witness. And according to Costello, Cohen told the U.S. attorney’s office in 2018 that the “payment to Daniels was his own idea, designed to try and get him back into the inner circle of Trump people in Washington.” Cohen’s testimony so lacked credibility that rumours are circulating the trial that Trump’s defence team may rest their case with no witnesses, so confident are they that the prosecution missed their mark. The chances of Trump being acquitted are slim to none. Still, suppose the Democrats, using a Democratic prosecutor, a Democratic Judge, officials who have donated to the Biden campaign, and all the earmarks of a political prosecution cannot deliver a conviction. In that case, Trump will look vindicated and victimized.
Finally, Trump’s vice-presidential pick. In a future column there will be much more time devoted to this subject, but suffice to say, with the debates quickly approaching and a proposed vice-presidential on the docket for July, Donald Trump will need to make his selection public in the next month or so. The possibilities have narrowed down to about eight, with serious focus being placed on Tim Scott, an African American senator from South Carolina, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio (author of Hillbilly Elegy), Marco Rubio, Florida senator with a Cuban heritage, Byron Donalds, an African American congressman from Florida, Elise Stefanik, a New York congresswoman, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, and North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum.
Unsurprisingly, each candidate has pros and cons but Burgum may have the inside track. Rubio and DeSantis complicate matters because like Trump, their home state is Florida. Donalds, also from Florida would like to become its governor in 2026 when DeSantis is termed out. Scott does not always look ready for prime time, Vance adds no balance to the ticket, Cotton may be too conventional, and Stefanik’s credentials will get scrutiny from the right and fall short. That leaves Burgum and I will explain further next time. Stay tuned.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who now works part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, where he earned a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
