CNN
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Donald Trump is turning his final dash to the Iowa caucuses into a showcase for his claims of political persecution as he seeks to suck the oxygen out of his trailing Republican opponents.
Trump’s expected alternation between court appearances and campaigning this week will serve as a metaphor for an entire election overshadowed by the former president’s legal entanglements.
His strategy of basing his campaign on the falsehood that he won the 2020 election is at the center of two of the four pending criminal trials, as well as his explicit calls for “retribution.” This has helped make him a strong front-runner for president. Nomination in several years. It also complicates efforts by his main rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who will meet this week in a CNN debate, to disqualify him as a leading candidate. It has become.
Trump’s rhetoric has made many Americans uncomfortable, but his refusal to embrace civility and recognize the constraints of the rule of law has left many disaffected grassroots Republican voters feeling uneasy. has become an important part of Trump’s brand. The Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses are set to put Trump, who faces 91 criminal charges in four separate incidents, on track to win the nomination for a third straight year. It would sum up the fateful collision between predicament and the 2024 election.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s increasing authoritarian thinking, which pulsated throughout the weekend’s events, echoed his predecessor’s threat to destroy American democracy if he wins in November, a core theme of his campaign last week. It appeared to justify President Joe Biden’s warnings.
The coming weeks are likely to show the extent to which the country’s future is intertwined with President Trump. President Trump has made it clear that he will be an even more unchecked force in his second term, and will likely seek to end the federal lawsuit there. he.
This week alone, he is scheduled to arrive in Washington, D.C., for a key appellate court hearing in a federal election interference case, and in New York for closing arguments in a civil fraud trial.
Unusual conflict between the legal and political worlds
No other presidential candidate has spent the days leading up to his first critical nomination battle in court as a defendant in two separate trials. But no other White House candidate would have wanted to run a viable campaign under the same legal cloud as Trump, who has made it his life’s work to avoid accountability.
The former president’s vow to use the new administration as a vehicle for personal vendettas is such that his lawyers in a federal appeals court in Washington on Tuesday argued that all of his actions after the 2020 election fall under the cloak of constitutional executive privilege. Claiming that it was hidden would be a precursor to that. That means he can’t be prosecuted for trying to overturn the election. His strategy in federal election interference cases suggests that future presidents may be able to get away with crimes committed to stay in power, which is a long way off legally, but the case is It encapsulates President Trump’s clearly un-American vision of granting almost monarchical powers to the office of president. proposition.
Multiple sources told CNN that President Trump plans to attend the hearing, as closing arguments begin in the civil fraud trial targeting him, his adult sons and the Trump organization. , said he plans to appear in court in New York on Thursday. In between these two elections, he plans to fly back to Iowa on a private jetliner on Wednesday and then return to the Hawkeye State again over the weekend, preparing for the 2024 election season when he is likely to submit the U.S. political establishment. It is expected to take place in the final hours before the first vote. Toward a historic test.
Mr. Trump used the criminal charges and civil fraud trial in New York as a campaign platform to portray himself as the innocent victim of Banana Republic-style justice, and as a precursor to how the Republican base would respond. Trying to monopolize the press. week.
Haley and DeSantis are desperately looking for ways to slow the Trump train
As the courtroom and campaign events run parallel this week, DeSantis and Haley will have the tough task of thwarting the Trump campaign’s dominance of polls in states such as Iowa.
The two parties will clash Wednesday night in a CNN debate in Iowa at the most critical moment in the campaign, while also relying on strong performances in Iowa and next week’s New Hampshire primary to stay afloat. aim. However, the former president did not attend the event, instead choosing to participate in the safer environment of a Fox News town hall event in Iowa.
Both DeSantis and Haley have accused Trump of running scared. For example, Florida’s governor said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that “the idea that you can go and read a teleprompter for 45 minutes and then go home doesn’t work in Iowa.” “Trump won’t debate with me,” Haley said in Iowa over the weekend. “He supports Biden, but he doesn’t come on stage because he doesn’t want us to ask questions.” ” However, neither Haley nor DeSantis have publicly condemned President Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, or condemned him as a threat to democracy.
Haley likes to refer to her “chaos.” She unveiled a new ad in Iowa on Sunday, drawing a contrast with President Trump, with a narrator saying, “Imagine a president with grit and grace and a different style, not a name from the past.” I have summarized what I hope to do.
Meanwhile, DeSantis also concocted another indirect jab at Trump as he sought to echo the mistaken belief of many Republican voters that the 2020 election was stolen. He complained that the former president had no plan to ensure election integrity, adding that Republicans could not “just repeat the 2020 election and let it happen again.”
Haley and DeSantis’ measured and euphemistic attacks demonstrate how reluctant they are to anger Republican voters who still sympathize with Trump, even as they consider other options. It shows that they have not found the courage or political skill to use policy. The biggest responsibility a former president can take on in the primary and general elections.
Is Mr. Trump toying with Mr. Biden?
President Trump’s outrageous behavior at campaign events in recent days lent credence to Biden’s warnings of a crisis in democracy Friday in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. There, General George Washington prepared his army for battle against the all-powerful forces of the British King. War of Independence.
In response, Trump uncharacteristically accused Biden of the same violations he is accused of in two criminal indictments. “He’s a threat to democracy because he’s incompetent. … I mean, they’re messing up our elections. They’re doing things to the Department of Justice and the Department of Justice that no one has ever done before in terms of weaponizing them. We’re working with the FBI,” Trump said Saturday at a campaign event in Des Moines.
The context of his remarks shows the former president’s brazen tendency to rewrite truth and history for personal gain. The third anniversary marks the day rioters left a rally in Washington, stormed the U.S. Capitol and beat police officers in an attempt to stop the certification of Biden’s election victory, the most blatant attack on American democracy. He was giving a lecture on the same day. In modern times. Since then, President Trump has called for the abolition of the Constitution, suggested that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley should be executed for treason, and vowed to turn his second term into a campaign of “revenge” against the Constitution. Ta. his enemies.
The former president has also displayed disrespectful behavior that has alienated voters in key battleground states in previous elections, and the Biden campaign is hoping to offset his unpopularity in the general election and create a contrast with the incumbent president. He said he was looking forward to it.
President Trump delivered a bizarre, incoherent monologue about how a civil war over slavery could have been prevented through negotiations, and mocked the late Sen. John McCain’s injuries sustained in the Vietnam War. He repeatedly went on a rant about his various indictments and lawsuits, calling Special Counsel Jack Smith a “horrible, horrible human being” and “the embodiment of evil.” Trump also spoke at length about E. Jean Carroll, who won a civil suit after a jury ordered him to pay $5 million for assault and defamation after pleading guilty to sexual assault. . A second trial will be held the day after next week’s Iowa caucuses to determine damages in a second lawsuit against Trump after a judge found Carroll liable for defamatory statements. It begins.
The extent to which the former president convinced millions more Americans that the election system was rotten and that 2020 was stolen from him speaks to the deep rifts in American society. Yes, and likely poses a danger to the legitimacy of American elections and the presidency. A cause for democracy for years to come. The success of his disinformation campaign in conservative media was reflected in last week’s Washington Post/University of Maryland poll, in which 34% of Republicans and 30% of independents said they wanted to return to the U.S. Capitol. incorrectly answered that the mob attack was organized and encouraged by the FBI.
The erosion of truth and trust was a concern that echoed throughout Biden’s speech at Valley Forge. “Defending, protecting, and preserving American democracy will remain, as always, the central purpose of my presidency,” Biden said in his speech, which means no U.S. president can fulfill it. I felt it was necessary, and it was the most impressive for the following reasons. He warned that some 250 years of democratic tradition could soon expire.
On Monday, the president plans to drive his message home with a visit to Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, the site of a racially motivated shooting in 2015. The president’s appearance is not just a tacit appeal to the black voters who saved the primary. He campaigned in the state in 2020 amid declining support from minorities and recent signs that his coalition was fraying. Biden is likely to argue that the political violence and racist rhetoric unleashed by Trump could have a devastating impact on humanity, even if the massacre occurred before the former president was elected. is high.
The key political issue for Biden is that his plea to the American people to save their souls, as he puts it, has been compounded by skepticism about the 81-year-old’s ability to serve a full second term and the nation’s turmoil. The question is whether the people’s dissatisfaction with the government can be overcome. Despite recent data showing falling inflation and solid employment growth, the economy is weak.
As the 2024 political season moves into full swing ahead of the Iowa caucuses, it is already becoming clear that the election will be about not just traditional issues, but also the character and political destiny of America itself. be.
“This is the first national election since the insurrection of January 6th held a dagger to the throat of American democracy,” Biden said Friday. “We all know who Donald Trump is. The question we have to answer is: Who are we?” That’s the problem. Who are we? ”
