Former President Donald Trump has employed a court-to-campaign in the run-up to the November election, taking a break from legal battles to make his pitch to voters. Although engulfed in legal battles, Trump has struck "political gold" and is wreaking havoc on President Biden's re-election bid, Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen argued Thursday on "The Faulkner Focus."
MARC THIESSEN: I think this whole thing is helping him enormously. I feel very badly for President Trump that he has to go through this. But it's political gold for him. First of all, it's creating sympathy for him. He's facing 91 charges at the federal, state and local level. Charles Manson faced 10. Our polls show that people think this is unfair. And so it's creating sympathy for Donald Trump. Second thing it's doing is distracting us from the issues that voters say they care about. I mean, our campuses are on fire. The border is on fire. The world is on fire. We've got wars raging on two continents. We just learned that Joe Biden has threatened to cut off aid to Israel if they go into Rafah. And the left wants us to talk about a porn star. Voters look at that and they say, what are these people talking about? They're focused on the wrong thing. And then the third thing is it's forcing him into a basement strategy. So the reason Donald Trump lost in 2020 is because people liked his policies, but they didn't like his inflammatory style. They didn't like the way he behaved and the way he talked. And they were kind of tired of it. Well, he can't say anything inflammatory when he's sitting in a courtroom all day long, right? He can't say things that are offensive to people when he's in a courtroom. And so, the reality is that he's not offending people.
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There was a New York Times-Siena poll that just came out. They asked, 'Has Donald Trump ever said anything to offend you?' Six in 10 Americans said either ‘no’ or ‘not recently.’ And among 18- to 29-year-olds, 77% said either ‘no, never or not recently.’ I mean, that just destroys the whole Biden campaign strategy. Their whole strategy is 'Donald Trump is so offensive we can't let him back into the White House.' And if people aren't finding him offensive, and they find what they're doing to him offensive, then that's good for him politically.
Trump on Thursday returned to the Manhattan courtroom for day 14 of his criminal trial, where adult film actress Stormy Daniels concluded her testimony.
Daniels' testimony was packed with salacious details about her alleged affair with Trump, which the former president's team used as grounds for a mistrial motion. Judge Juan Merchan denied the request.
The New York criminal trial is just one of the former president's legal battles, which include a case relating to the 2020 election in Georgia and a federal probe of his handling of classified documents.
While in and out of court, Trump has made numerous appearances in New York City, including at the bodega of a crime victim and a FDNY station. He has also made campaign stops in other states in between hearings, including a recent visit to Wisconsin and Michigan.
