Welcome to the online version of From the Political Bureauan evening newsletter featuring the latest reporting and analysis from the NBC News Politics team from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.
In today’s edition, senior national political reporter Jonathan Allen explains why it’s important to note the different names Donald Trump has been called during his criminal trial in New York. Additionally, chief political analyst Chuck Todd examines the impact a disinterested electorate could have on the 2024 race.
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What’s in a name? Trump’s legal team faces an unusual balancing act
By Jonathan Allen
Donald Trump was abused a lot in the first six days of his hush money trial in New York.
“We will call him ‘President Trump’ out of respect for the office he held from 2017 to 2021,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told the jury on Monday. “And as everyone knows, this is the office he now heads. He is the Republican candidate.”
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David Pecker, a longtime tabloid publisher who testified that he conspired with Trump in 2015 and 2016 to “capture and kill” stories that could harm Trump’s election efforts, told the court that if they spoke, “I would call him Donald to call.’
Judge Juan Merchan greeted the former president Tuesday with a standard address for a defendant: “Good morning, Mr. Trump.” That is also the form preferred by prosecutors.
The what’s-in-a-name question is just one of the unusual aspects of the first criminal trial of a former US president, but highlights points of tension for Trump and his defense team.
Blanche has a difficult balancing act between the audience of one at the defense table and the audience of twelve in the jury box — and between Trump as once the most powerful man in America and now as a common defendant.
Trump demands that his employees call him “president,” which is not unusual for former presidents.
But there are other reasons why Trump’s lawyers call him that. First, his broader legal and public relations strategy for the more consequential federal charges he faces rests on the argument that he should be immune from prosecution for actions he took as president.
And while the New York defense team would certainly want jurors to conclude that Trump was too powerful to be bothered by the details of how an aide was rewarded for silencing a porn star, Blanche suggested he was aware the risk that a jury could indict. alienated if the suspect seems to think he is above the colleagues who have to judge him.
After explaining why he would call Trump “the president,” Blanche immediately tried to portray his client as a normal man.
“But – and this is important – he is not just our former president. He is not just Donald Trump that you have seen on TV, read about and seen pictures of,” Blanche said. ‘He’s a man too. He is a husband. He is a father. And he is a person, just like you and just like me.”
Trump is perhaps the most recognizable man on earth. And yet the jurors will have to decide whether this Trump, by any other name, would be equally guilty or not guilty.
Read more here →
Will voters wake up on Election Day?
By Chuck Todd
The latest NBC News poll contains an alarming result. We asked a question we ask every election year: On a scale of 1 to 10, how interested are you in the upcoming election? And according to the results, we recorded the lowest interest in the elections this decade. Fewer people chose a “10” in this poll than in any other election year we’ve tested since 2004, with one brief exception in early 2012 that quickly went back up.
As I recently documented, it is not surprising that so many voters have shown disinterest in this election. The electorate is desperate to change leaders, and yet both political parties offered more of the same. So it makes sense that the electorate shows less interest in this election than in the first meeting between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in 2020 or Trump’s race against the election. Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Ultimately, barring an event in the fall that will reset the electorate’s mindset, it appears that we are headed for a lower turnout election. That has its own consequences during the election, and it makes the third-party candidates — and the various quirks of each battleground state — matter more than usual. As the variance increases, so do the potential outcomes of the Electoral College.
In short, this survey only reinforces the trends I’ve been writing about in recent weeks. This will be an electorate that decides late, thanks to voters who have decided to postpone an election they think they already understand, without needing any new information. I truly believe that most polls between now and October will tell us very little. We know what 90% of the electorate will do – it will be the last 10% of “swing” voters who switch between the two parties or alternate between voting and not voting who will decide this election.
And the lack of appeal from the top of the ticket, combined with the feeling among some voters that neither party has the answers on the economy or foreign policy, means that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a very powerful ‘none of the above factor in deciding who will fight their way to victory.
Read more from Chuck here →
That’s all from The Politics Desk for now. If you have any feedback – like it or not – please email us at politicsnieuwsbrief@nbcuni.com
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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
