Former President Trump is reliving his chaotic 2016 campaign from a New York City courtroom as he seeks to return to the White House with a 2024 election victory.
Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan has thrust back into the spotlight unsavory details about his first bid for president, with testimony detailing payoffs to women who alleged they had affairs with Trump as well as his campaign’s scramble to manage the aftermath of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.
Trump has worked hard to convince voters the trial is politically motivated, decrying the judge as “conflicted” and suggesting some witnesses and testimony are outside the bounds of the case. He’s also suggested the trial, which he is required to attend in person each day, is a way to keep him off the campaign trail.
But his allies said that while aspects of the trial may be personally embarrassing for Trump to relive, the political consequences are likely to be minimal.
“Number one is, he won [in 2016]. Number two is … you’re not learning anything new about Donald Trump on any of these issues,” said Sean Spicer, who served as Trump’s White House press secretary. “It’s not new. The Band-Aid’s been ripped off.”
One former Trump White House official suggested the majority of Americans were not paying close attention to the day-to-day developments and testimony in the case, lessening the risk that Trump’s 2016 foibles would hurt him with voters in the short term.
Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the New York case, which centers on a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign, intended to keep her from going public with her story of an alleged affair with Trump.
Trump has denied the affair, and his attorneys have noted hush-money payments are not illegal in themselves. They assert the former president did nothing wrong.
The hush-money payment and the “Access Hollywood” tape released in October 2016 on which Trump can be heard bragging about groping women have been central to recent testimony in the trial.
Hope Hicks, a former senior Trump aide and one of the most high-profile witnesses to date, acknowledged in her testimony that the tape was a “crisis” that left her “very concerned.”
Hicks also detailed learning of the hush-money payments made to Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal, testifying that Trump expressed concern about how his wife, Melania, would react.
That testimony could bolster the defense’s contention that the hush-money payments were meant to save embarrassment for Trump’s family, rather than to preserve his political fortune before the election.
Trump’s 2024 campaign has been a sharp contrast to his 2016 bid, when he was an insurgent candidate joined by aides who had relatively little experience on a presidential campaign. While that operation was often beset by leaks and infighting, his 2024 campaign has been run by Trump and a tight circle of trusted advisers.
Trump has at times appeared irritated with the way the trial has dredged up scandals from his first presidential campaign.
The former president in a social media post last Friday accused the judge handling the hush money case of trying to make the trial “as salacious as possible, even though these things have NOTHING to do with this FAKE case.”
On Monday, Trump told reporters outside the courtroom that the prosecution had “absolutely no case.”
“Even the witnesses they want to bring up, they have nothing to do with the case,” he said. “This is a ridiculous situation.”
Trump has been relentless since the charges were first brought last year in claiming that the hush money case and the three other criminal cases against him are politically motivated and meant to harm his 2024 White House bid.
The former president’s aides and allies have taken to the airwaves to promote the same message, and Trump’s campaign has looked to raise money off of outrage over his criminal cases.
“Americans, the outcome of this trial doesn’t affect them,” North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R), a contender to serve as Trump’s running mate, said Sunday on CNN. “The trial is maybe a spectacle for cable TV, but average Americans have already baked in what they think about President Trump, President Biden — they’re looking at the policies, not at the people.”
But there are some signs that Trump’s conduct around the 2016 election could spell trouble for his 2024 bid if he is convicted.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll published Sunday found 80 percent of Trump’s supporters said they would still back him even if he is convicted of a felony in the hush money case.
But 16 percent of those surveyed said they would reconsider their support, while 4 percent said they would withdraw their support for Trump, which could make a difference in what is expected to be a tight election.