NEW YORK – Donald Trump puts New York City on trial.
In his first campaign event since jury selection began in the highly anticipated political case, the former president is expected to dismantle the city where his fate will be decided as a crime-ridden city.
Trump prepares to visit a bodega after his second day in court in a criminal hush-money case. The store was the site of a fatal stabbing in 2022, which the perpetrator described as self-defense against an unprovoked attack in a case that inflamed conservatives.
The action is an attempt by Trump to go on the offensive after two days of being under siege in court while he keeps Alvin Bragg, the Democratic prosecutor handling his case, on his knees. Unfolding on the sidelines of the trial, it will serve as the opening of the weeks-long, courtroom-limited phase of Trump’s campaign — a brutal critique of the Democrats’ handling of crime to counter public attention to his own criminal cases. to go.
Trump spent much of Tuesday in court before a planned trip to the Harlem bodega where clerk Jose Alba fatally stabbed a customer who attacked him in a case that drew national attention from Republicans. Bragg initially arrested Alba, but later dropped the charges.
Trump’s visit will put him on Bragg’s turf – the area where the top prosecutor has been charged after two days in a courtroom where he is being tried on 34 felony counts of falsifying corporate records.
The incident underscored the complications of running for president while on trial.
The drama unfolding in the Manhattan courtroom and the demands the trial places on the former president’s timetable are not welcome by the candidate and his campaign. They repeatedly tried to postpone the trial. But Trump has decided to make the most of it and use it to bolster his claims that the justice system is unfairly rigged against him and that he is the victim of political persecution.
Trump’s campaign has also worked closely with his allies to ensure they cover the airwaves with talking points connecting the trial to President Joe Biden. Surrogates have been asked to call this the “Biden trials,” a phrase the former president himself used when railing against the proceedings over Truth Social.
On the social media site, Trump wrote on Tuesday: “MY TRIAL IS AN ATTACK ON AMERICA!”
