Criminal case tests Trump’s commitment to campaign as never before
W. James Antle III
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Despite the early talk of a perp walk or even a shooting during the arrest being a PR coup for his 2024 campaign, former President Donald Trump did not look happy during his Manhattan arraignment.
Trump was stoic but not exactly reveling in the experience. He seemed to acknowledge as much in a TruthSocial post at the beginning of his courthouse journey. “Seems so SURREAL — WOW, they are going to ARREST ME,” he wrote.
Back at Mar-a-Lago, Trump was defiant. He criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the judge in the case in terms that seemed almost designed to invite a gag order. But even there, his tone was understated, as it has been for much of his third presidential campaign.
Early campaign ads show Trump plunging forward in the face of prosecution and persecution. One highlights the two impeachments, the Robert Mueller Russia investigation, and the Jan. 6 committee alongside the indictment, as Trump intones that you can never give up no matter what obstacles a “corrupt establishment” places in your path.
“Chills,” wrote conservative Twitter provocateur Benny Johnson.
Another Trump video uses footage of him arriving in court. “The only crime I have committed is to defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” the former president said, calling the charges against him election interference.
Trump enters into uncharted territory as a former president and current top-tier presidential presidential candidate — he has a commanding lead in most national polls of Republican primary voters, though the picture in the early primary states is murkier —facing criminal charges. The same is true for the country.
But the 76-year-old Trump also faces a new test of his perseverance as he wages another national campaign under highly unusual circumstances. He has weathered more adversity than any modern political figure since Richard Nixon — most of it self-inflicted, critics say — and is still running for office.
Trump has won the presidency once. Even with a deadly pandemic leaving the economy in ruins, he came within 43,000 votes in three battleground states of doing it again. He is seeking a rematch against President Joe Biden, who beat him in 2020.
Now Trump has to do it against the backdrop of criminal charges, with more serious to possibly come from Fulton County, Georgia, or the federal investigations into his handling of classified documents and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Already some were questioning whether Trump was doing so with the same gusto as in 2016 and 2020. Former associates derided his third campaign announcement as “low energy,” his term of abuse for Jeb Bush. “He doesn’t have the fire in the belly,” a Republican strategist told the Washington Examiner, requesting anonymity to speak candidly.
Time will tell whether the defiant Trump seen in his ads or briefly pumping his fist in the air in the streets of New York City is closer to what we will get than the former president slumping in his seat in a Manhattan courthouse.
In past campaigns, Trump has fed off the energy of adoring crowds. His patented rallies generated a large volume of free media coverage, closing advertising spending gaps with the likes of Hillary Clinton. There have been glimpses of that this time around, as well as his eagerness to attack foes such as Biden and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
There have also been times when Trump has seemed relatively subdued, sticking to the teleprompter and speaking in what are, by his standards, hushed tones. He appears less frequently with his wife, Melania, and his daughter Ivanka is not going to be involved in the campaign at all, though Don Jr. has become ubiquitous in Republican circles.
Trump’s first run for the White House, after a couple of rumored bids did not come together, was a tour de force in which he steamrolled 16 more established Republican candidates en route to upsetting Clinton. The second was waged from the White House as an incumbent president.
The third could be a tough slog for a businessman and celebrity used to living in comfort. “Is he having fun?” the strategist asked. “That may be an underrated question.”
If Trump remains the front-runner for the Republican nod and is competitive with Biden, he may continue to press forward no matter what happens legally. The conservative base is exercised by what it sees as the Left’s weaponization of the criminal justice system against them.
“They’re not coming after me,” Trump says. “They’re coming after you.”
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Time will tell whether that sentiment can keep powering his 2024 presidential campaign.
Or whether for the former reality TV star, a harsher reality is now setting in.