Trump’s criminal hush money trial to collide with 2024 campaign

Former President Trump’s legal troubles and his 2024 White House campaign are fully colliding this week, with Trump’s trial in New York City over an alleged hush money scheme set to begin Monday.

While Trump is set to spend four days a week in court for the next several weeks, his campaign is planning to use virtual appearances, in-person campaign stops on the weekends and an expected flood of media attention on the proceedings to sustain enthusiasm among supporters in the face of what Republicans have decried as a partisan ploy to prevent him from running again.

“Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrats’ failing election interference strategy is to try and keep President Trump away from campaigning by confining him to a courtroom,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to The Hill. 

“Unfortunately for Crooked Joe, voters see that President Trump is the strongest candidate to lead our country and nobody fights back harder than he does,” she added. “President Trump will continue to fight for truth in the courtroom and to share his winning message on the campaign trail.”

Trump’s trial in Manhattan on Monday comes after a series of efforts last week to delay its start date. The former president is charged in the case with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to reimbursements to his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, who paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 just before the 2016 election to stay quiet about an alleged affair with Trump, which he denies.

Trump has denied wrongdoing, framing the case as a partisan, political hit job led by Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg. In a Truth Social post days before the trial began, Trump decried the trial as “Election Interference at its Best.”

But Trump aides downplayed the threat to his campaign for the White House and have already mapped out ways to maximize the former president’s time on the trail over the coming weeks.

One Trump ally argued the New York City trial may also be less bothersome to Trump’s campaign because of the timing. 

“If you’re going to have a trial, better to have it in the spring than in September,” the Trump ally told The Hill.

The Trump ally also noted that the former president saw his lead in the GOP primary expand after his indictments last year in New York City, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C.

A Trump campaign official said they will take advantage of off days from court on Wednesdays and the weekends. Trump is already slated to attend a fundraiser in North Carolina on April 20, a Saturday.

The official said Trump would also use the intense media attention on him to drive his message that he is a victim of a politically motivated case.

“Every time the president is in court, all of the focus is on him and the message he’s driving,” the official said. “While we wish he were not going through this sham trial and believe it should be dismissed, President Trump’s ability to dominate the airwaves has proven to be undefeated.”

Trump and his campaign are expected to attack Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, for his decision to bring the case at a time when New York City has dealt with its share of violent crime. Trump himself has repeatedly highlighted a viral incident from February in which migrants were recorded brawling with police officers in Times Square. 

While crime is trending down nationally, New York leaders deployed state troopers and National Guard members into subway stations following a number of high-profile violent incidents.

But there are still signs the trial itself could spell trouble for Trump in the long run, especially if he’s found guilty.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll published Wednesday found 64 percent of surveyed voters viewed the hush money charges as at least “somewhat serious,” compared to 34 percent who did not consider the charges in the case to be serious.

But the New York trial was viewed as being less serious than Trump’s other three criminal cases. For example, 75 percent of surveyed voters viewed the case against Trump in Washington, D.C., for attempting to overturn the 2020 election as at least somewhat serious.

A Politico/Ipsos poll conducted March 8-10 found 50 percent of respondents believe Trump is guilty of the alleged crimes in the Manhattan case, and 36 percent of independents said a conviction in the case would make them less likely to support Trump.

Trump being forced to sit in a New York courtroom will also give the White House and Biden campaign a chance to draw a contrast, with the president free to hit the road as he pleases to visit battleground states.

The president will travel to Pennsylvania for three days this week, visiting Scranton, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. And his campaign was quick to highlight Biden’s robust travel schedule throughout the month of March, when he visited every battleground state, while Trump held only a few public campaign events.

In a sign Biden hopes to draw a split screen with Trump by focusing on policy issues, the campaign said his Scranton event will “drive home a simple question: Do you think the tax code should work for rich people or for the middle class? The President has made it clear what he thinks the answer is, and so has Donald Trump.”