Trump faces challenges in NYC court, resorts to unconventional strategies for White House victory

Former President Donald Trump‘s New York trial case will keep him in court daily, severely curtailing his ability to appear on the campaign trail.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought 34 felony charges against Trump in 2023 for falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment scheme to porn actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the New York case, along with the other three criminal cases, totaling 88 indictments, that he faces. The New York case, though, may be the only one that will be tried and finished before the Nov. 5 election.

If he is convicted, the former president could face jail time, and if enough voters are uncomfortable with a convicted president, it could also spell the doom of his third presidential campaign.

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Jury selection begins on Monday in a trial that could last roughly six to eight weeks, marking the first time in U.S. history that an ex-president is facing a criminal trial.

In a close election race against President Joe Biden, Trump’s inability to campaign fully and fundraise for roughly a month could cost him crucial time shoring up support in battleground states that will determine which candidate will win.

Trump’s campaign slammed the trial as a form of “election interference” and a “political witchhunt” from Democrats hoping to prevent another Trump presidential victory.

“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 press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “This Biden Trial is the culmination of a Democrat-orchestrated witch hunt based on phony charges from a far-left Democrat district attorney and lies from the least credible witnesses on the planet.”

The trial was originally supposed to start on March 25 but was delayed to give Trump’s defense time to look at more documents. Trump’s lawyers lost their third appeal to delay the trial this week after a New York appeals court declined the effort on Wednesday.

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan imposed a more expansive gag order against Trump after the former president attacked his daughter Loren, who works for a Democratic marketing firm, in several social media posts, as well as Bragg’s family members.

The former president’s defense called for Merchan to recuse himself from presiding over the trial, but Merchan has not yet issued a ruling on the recusal, which Bragg opposes.

But it’s unlikely Trump will contain himself from outbursts during the trial or on social media, which he has done repeatedly in the past.

The trial will not be televised, but there are potential ways for Trump to make his voice heard to the public, including press conferences, statements through his campaign, and posts on Truth Social.

“When it comes to earned media, you’re probably talking about the person who may be best at it in American history,” said Ford O’Connell, a Florida-based GOP strategist. “What I wonder about is how hard Alvin Bragg makes it, when he does get creative.”

Trump can continue to campaign on Wednesdays and the weekends and hold virtual events with supporters. Along with the media attention the case will bring, he’ll have ample opportunity to make statements to appeal to GOP voters watching the case.

Trump’s allies have long maintained Bragg’s indictment is the weakest of the four criminal cases the former president is facing.

“I think people see it exactly for what it is. It’s politics at work in New York. Most Americans realize that New York City is not like the rest of the country,” said Wayne King, the president of Old North Strategies and a former chief of staff to former North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows. “And obviously, this is a very targeted case against President Trump and his family, and I think most people see that as a disgrace.”

But Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, disagreed in an interview with the Washington Examiner.

“I’m not so sure that that conventional wisdom is accurate. This seems to be a pretty serious case. Michael Cohen did jail time for it and was an underling to alleged individual No. 1, to Trump,” Dallek said. “And so I don’t think it’s fair to say that people are just going to dismiss it as a nothingburger or at least, you know, people who are more on the fence.”

Bragg’s indictment against Trump claimed his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid $130,000 to Daniels to cover up the alleged affair during the 2016 election. He pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and lying to Congress in 2018 and received a three-year prison sentence. Cohen would spend almost 14 months in prison and a year-and-a-half in home confinement.

Now he’s set to become the key witness in the hush money case.

Additionally, roughly 64% of voters called the New York charges “somewhat serious” compared to 34% who said the charges lacked seriousness, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. Even more concerning for Trump is that about 4 in 10 Republicans said the hush money charges were serious, while two-thirds of independents said the same.

Yet the Trump campaign remains defiant and says he will emerge from the trial unscathed.

“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,” Leavitt said. “President Trump will continue to fight for truth in the courtroom and to share his winning message on the campaign trail.”

Gregg Keller, a Republican consultant based in Missouri, concurred that the trial will not hurt Trump as some Democrats may privately hope.

“Trump’s entire political raison d’etre is that he is against the establishment. And every time there’s a court hearing, every time a judge finds something, every time they impanel a jury, it’s one more opportunity to go out there,” Keller said. “And it gives Trump an opportunity to burnish his anti-establishment credentials. So it’s actually a positive for him.”

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But Dallek, the political historian, offered some caution.

“The specter of having to sit in court every day on a criminal trial, I mean, there’s a reason Trump has been desperate to delay it and not to have these trials start,” Dallek said. “He’s not stupid in that sense. He knows that this is probably not a positive development for him. That’s not to say he can’t monetize it or weaponize it in some ways. I think that we’ve seen that he has.”