You have probably heard about Donald Trump’s record-setting run of four indictments. It has, understandably, received wall-to-wall media coverage. You may well have heard about the Trump indictments from the ex-president’s fellow Republicans, loudly disputing the facts and attacking the prosecutors. Or from the Trump campaign, which is selling his mug shot on T-shirts. But you very likely have not heard much about it from the people with the most to gain from Trump going to trial: President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
The asymmetry is striking, intentional—and possibly misguided, if the Democrats think that court action and press coverage will do a sufficient job of rallying key Biden voters in 2024. Since April, when Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg announced that his office was bringing fraud charges against Trump, alleging that he’d covered up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the former president’s allies have rushed to the microphones and keyboards every time Trump racks up a new indictment. Mississippi governor Tate Reeves: “They have proven they will do anything to ‘get’ Donald Trump.” Florida congressman Byron Donalds: “Nobody can take [the right to challenge election results] away from you, especially some rogue, knucklehead prosecutor out of the Department of Justice.”
The most prominent Democrats, however, have been determined to stay out of the headlines on the matter. Their statements about Trump, if any, are typically written and calculated to be “very muted, restrained,” one senior Democratic operative says. Biden has repeatedly refused to comment on his predecessor’s indictments, even shouting “No!” to a reporter’s request for comment after Trump’s Florida arraignment. Jill Biden, perhaps, has gone the furthest, telling a group of Democratic donors that it has been “shocking” to see so many Republicans still supporting Trump even after the indictments, per the Associated Press. Though those comments were apparently not meant for wide public consumption.
For Biden, the attempt to stay above the fray is a relatively easy choice. His brand is all about returning Washington to functioning normally, and the contrast he wants to draw is that he, unlike Trump, is a believer in the nonpartisan dispensing of justice. “I think the president has been clear on the issues that underlie all of these indictments, like the issues of democracy, of the rule of law, of having an independent justice department,” a Biden insider says. “The irony of people being like, Why won’t the president comment on the indictments? Part of what Trump is indicted for is weaponizing the Justice Department! And people want us, in some sense, to do the same thing? Why would we do that? Our guy stands for the opposite of that.” The ongoing federal investigation of the president’s son is also a disincentive: Biden commenting on the cases against Trump while Hunter Biden is still under scrutiny by a special counsel would give oxygen to Republican what-about-ism.
Beyond the White House, though, the prevailing silence is more nuanced and somewhat harder to understand. Six Senate Democrats have a solid reason: Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Joe Manchin (West Virginia), and Jon Tester (Montana) are running for reelection in states Trump won in 2020; Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Bob Casey (Pennsylvania), and Jacky Rosen (Nevada) are running in states Trump barely lost. Bashing the former president could be counterproductive for them; better to focus their campaigns on local issues as they try to win over independents. But then there’s Hakeem Jeffries, House Democrats’ leader, whose job in the minority could arguably be entirely centered on attacking Trump’s candidacy and legal troubles. He, too, has been careful in his comments. “The Trump indictment and the facts that will continue to emerge from the legal process speak for themselves,” Jeffries told CNN in June.
At all levels, Democrats are following the old maxim that when an adversary is tripping over himself, you stay out of his way. For electeds not facing voters, staying quiet is seen as avoiding a Republican trap. “Our thinking is that Trump is going to inject politics into this no matter what,” the senior Democratic operative says. “So there’s no benefit to us making this a political issue because if there’s a conviction, we want people to have faith it was a fair process. We need to defend the legal process and the legal system, and not make the courts political.”
There’s also the reasoning that we’re still 15 months away from Election Day. Most voters aren’t paying attention, and by next November, it’s possible Trump could be both the Republican nominee and a convicted felon who is looking to be reelected in order to stave off jail—an unprecedented combination that would make Biden’s argument without Biden’s help. “You don’t really need to make this into an issue,” a Biden adviser says. “America knows that Donald Trump means chaos, that he lives in an alternate reality, and that he’s a demagogue. Sixty percent of general election voters believe he probably committed a crime. It has hurt him and it is going to continue to hurt him.” Indeed, a YouGov poll showed 66% agreeing that Trump had “definitely or probably” committed a crime—and that was back when the former president had only been indicted once. Whether that translates into votes for Biden, or against Trump, is a different question. The danger of a cautious approach toward the ex-president’s legal mess (particularly if Trump hasn’t yet gone to trial, or if he has and has been acquitted) is that it could calcify into complacency.
Chris Smith
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