The news
On Thursday, Donald Trump became the first former US president to be convicted of a crime, with a jury in New York finding him guilty of all 34 charges of falsifying company records. The reaction from all corners was swift and loud — but not from Trump’s main opponent in the presidential race. Joe Biden.
The response from Biden and his camp followed the same path as in recent months: muted. Despite last week’s rumors that he might address Trump’s sentence from the White House, Semafor was told shortly after the guilty verdict was handed down that the president, who is in Delaware for the anniversary of his son’s death, has no plans to make a speech tonight. .
If he does speak about the verdict, it will likely be informal — perhaps in response to a reporter’s question — as opposed to official comments at the White House or a high-profile campaign speech. And the government, which has carefully avoided the appearance of meddling in legal matters, is unlikely to become involved.
“We respect the rule of law and have no additional comment,” Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House counsel’s office, told reporters.
Biden’s campaign offered the most direct commentary yet on Trump’s legal issues, but gave little indication that it would change its approach by largely ignoring them in favor of other topics.
“Today in New York we saw that no one is above the law,” Michael Tyler, Biden’s campaign communications director, said in a statement shortly after the verdict. “Donald Trump always wrongly believed that he would never face consequences if he broke the law for his own personal gain. But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people are faced with a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: through the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.
The statement then returned the focus to a key theme of team Biden’s campaign: the argument that Trump is a threat to democracy. The campaign is expected to continue to focus on the arguments they have continued to make to voters: protecting rights, lowering health care costs, abortion and more.
The position of Democrats in Congress
Democratic members of Congress, who don’t face Biden’s unique concerns as CEO, could become a bit more playful as they reiterated the administration’s defense of the justice system in the face of Republican attacks.
“No one is above the law, including a former president of the United States,” Rep. Norma Torres, a California Democrat, told Semafor. “The prospect of a criminal running for the highest office in the land is an insult and, frankly, dangerous to the integrity of our democracy.”
Guidance from the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee advised partisans to emphasize that “our justice system worked the way it was supposed to work” and shows that Republicans “will bend the knee to former President Trump,” but did not include specific attacks around the facts on the House .
It also doesn’t seem like this will be a major issue going forward, especially if they don’t get a signal from the top of the ticket to drive the point home.
‘I do not think so [Minority Leader Hakeem] Jeffries or the leadership will use leadership capital to talk about Trump,” a senior Democratic aide said.
Shelby’s opinion
Not surprisingly, Biden and his campaign will likely continue to shy away from attacks on Trump on this issue: as Semafor reported in January after E. Jean Carroll’s statement, many Democrats close to the White House believe voters already know who Trump is. I know he is under legal scrutiny, and that Biden would be better off focusing on issues that affect Americans day in and day out.
Democratic strategist Eddie Vale told my colleague Morgan Chalfant that the Biden camp should continue to handle the situation as they have done so far.
“They need to cut surgically with a scalpel and not wildly wave a machete like Trump will do,” Vale said. “The fact that Trump is a convicted liar will have an impact, but the economy and abortion will still be the ultimate issues, so they won’t let that core message get away from them.”
The campaign received mixed reactions after poking their nose into coverage of the trial earlier this week by holding a news conference outside the courthouse — largely on unrelated issues — with actor Robert De Niro and two former Capitol police officers. While they claimed the event was successful in increasing coverage of their message, Team Trump used it to bolster their claim that the trial was politically motivated. Leaning fully forward now that a verdict has been reached could serve as more fodder for Trump to make those claims, and is likely a distraction Biden and his team don’t want.
Remarkable
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For more information about the Trump verdict: check out Semafor Signals, which is collecting responses and insights from this groundbreaking story.
