2024 split screen: Biden condemns antisemitism as Trump watches Stormy Daniels testify

A striking split-screen between the two leading candidates for November’s presidential election played out Tuesday, as President Biden delivered remarks condemning a rise in antisemitism while former President Trump sat through salacious courtroom testimony.

In Washington, Biden stepped to the lectern at the U.S. Capitol for a particularly somber occasion: The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Days of Remembrance Ceremony.

In New York City, Trump sat in court during his hush money trial, where porn star Stormy Daniels was recounting the time she spanked Trump with a rolled up magazine before they allegedly had sex in 2006.

“Not much has changed since 2016,” Michael LaRosa, a former aide to first lady Jill Biden, posted on X.

Daniels took the stand on Tuesday in Trump’s hush money trial. She the most high-profile witness thus far in the Manhattan district attorney’s prosecution of Trump over a $130,000 payment made to her to keep quiet about allegations of an affair during the 2016 campaign. 

Daniels went into great detail about her encounter with Trump in 2006, describing at length the features of the hotel room where they met up, how Trump was behaving and some of the details of their affair.

Daniels said “yes” when asked if the sexual encounter with Trump was brief. She also testified that Trump did not wear a condom but she did not say anything about it to him.

At one point, Judge Juan Merchan told prosecutors the degree of detail “is just unnecessary,” sympathizing with the concerns expressed by Trump’s team.

As Daniels was on the stand, Biden was stepping to the microphone at the Capitol to decry the scourge of antisemitism and express concerns that much of the public was moving on from the horrors of last October’s terrorist attacks that left more than 1,000 Israelis dead.

“Now, here we are. Not 75 years later but just seven and a half months later and people are already forgetting, they’re already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror,” he said. “It was Hamas that brutalized Israels. It was Hamas that took and continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten and nor have you and we will not forget.”

CNN, MSNBC, and Fox cut away from its play-by-play coverage of the Trump trial to show Biden’s speech.

Trump has for weeks bemoaned that the New York City trial is keeping him off of the campaign trail, and he has repeatedly claimed that the Biden White House is orchestrating the charges against him. There is no evidence the Biden White House is involved in the legal cases against Trump.

Biden and his aides, meanwhile, have been careful not to weigh in directly on Trump’s trial, instead choosing to keep the focus on the president’s day-to-day events and his trips to battleground states. But even some Biden allies couldn’t help but take note of Tuesday’s contrast.

“[T]his is an accurate description of what is happening today,” Biden campaign aide TJ Ducklo wrote on X in response to a post characterizing the dramatic difference in Biden’s and Trump’s activities for the day.