Is Donald Trump shrinking before our eyes?
As he continues his criminal trial known as the “hush-money” or “election interference” trial, photos emerge of an angry, tired looking or napping Trump – who will later emerge and denounce the judge or the court room thermostat.
There’s seemingly a growing consensus among many print and broadcast (minus Fox News) pundits that rather than boosting him in his 2024 election bid the trials and this trial in particular is causing him to diminish in stature. Why? Here are some reasons given for that contention:
5. Trump is sitting in a courtroom where he has zero control over the messsage of the event or its appearance in terms of imagery. 6. The photos of Trump napping – napping on more than one court date – haven’t helped foster an image of a strong Trump versus the candidate he has called “Sleepy Joe.” 7. Reports of Trump….breaking wind…put on Twitter by various people to the extent that it looked like confirmation didn’t bolster his image. Former CNN Anchor Don Lemon said he confirmed the reports. This tidbit sparked a sea of joke-filled Tweets on X. 8. Just like in his COVID news conferences, Trump’s regular statements before and after he leaves the courtroom may be creating an overexposure. 9. Many voters may not completely recall Trump’s term (reportedly there is a segment of the population that consider his term the good old days) but Trump’s behaving going in and out of the courtroom and in the courtroom will likely remind many voters of what they didn’t like about his time in the White House i.e. the chaos. 10. News outlets and social media carry news of Joe Biden out campaigning while Trump is locked into being in a controlled courtroom and unable to get out and campaign to counter Biden.
And there are more. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin has written a column titled “Trump was going to dominate the courtroom. Instead, he is shrinking.” Rubin notes that many had predicted the trials would be a godsend to Trump politically. Indeed, some still predict just that.
But they haven’t so far, Rubin writes:
How wrong they were. When the criminal trial actually began, reality hit home. Rather than dominate the proceedings or leverage his court appearance to appear in control and demonstrate no court could corral him, Trump day by day has become smaller, more decrepit and, frankly, somewhat pathetic.
…The judge is in control, not Trump.
…Trump’s apparent naps in court have generated mocking commentary on social media and the late-night comedy shows. Either he wants to demonstrate his disdain for the proceedings or he is exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally. In any event, the irony is not lost on anyone: The candidate who criticizes Biden’s energy has trouble staying conscious. (Meanwhile, the president set a vigorous campaign schedule crisscrossing Pennsylvania.)
When Trump emerged from court to show off pages of comments from loyal Fox News lackeys knocking the trial, he looked downright needy and rattled. By the end of each long court day in which the judge, prospective jurors and prosecutors recite bad things about him, a short rant outside the courtroom only underscores the power imbalance. He seems diminished.
Former Obama strategist David Axelrod summed up Trump’s predicament: “He has been reduced to a criminal defendant in a courtroom where someone else has absolute power and the rules very definitely apply. The weariness and vulnerability captured in those courtroom images betray a growing recognition that he could wind up as the thing his old man most reviled. A convicted criminal? No, worse. A loser.”
And:
The stature, control and importance Trump has grown accustomed to for most of his life seeps away each day. That might come as a shock — both to him and the political media. Both should have understood that was inevitable once Trump faced a judge and jury. They seemed to forget: Trump is an ordinary criminal defendant no matter his former job.
The trial has barely begun. One wonders how Trump will hold up. The time and energy expended in the courtroom, the humiliating lectures and the recapitulation of his misdeeds have already taken their toll. Whether he wigs out when witnesses such as Michael Cohen take the stand or keeps running afoul of the gag order (both strong possibilities), Trump’s temper tantrums only underscore his dilemma. Unable to mask his emotions in the midst of a narcissist’s worst nightmare, Trump has never looked so small, so weary and so feeble.
Can Biden use Trump’s courtroom commitments to gain a huge advantage?
Perhaps, but maybe not as much as some have suggested. Bill Kristol, writing in The Bulwark’s Newsletter Morning Shots, points to some Biden flaws and think Biden would be better to campaign less:
Taking the stage to accept the endorsement of the North America’s Building Trades Unions, Biden gave a standard and uninspiring partisan stump speech, consisting of conventional Democratic talking points interspersed with some disjointed shots at Trump. Then, after inviting the crowd to chant, “Four more years,” Biden read aloud from the teleprompter the stage direction, “Pause.”
No big deal, really. But plenty of news coverage, overshadowing the national-security win that would otherwise have been the big Biden story of the day. It’s a reminder of the fact that while Biden is a pretty good president, he’s not a particularly good candidate.
I understand all the pressures on Biden to get out and campaign. But perhaps he and his staff should do more to resist those pressures? The routine campaign events add little to his message, and present opportunities for things to go wrong. And in fact they detract from the gravity of the moment, a gravity Biden had explained well that morning at the White House.
Stay in the Oval Office. Govern the nation. Highlight your deeds as president. Explain what you’ve done and what you’re doing. Explain why the alternative the other party is offering is so dangerous. But avoid in public some of the petty and uninspiring party politics.
Of course, of course: Don’t be unaware of politics. (Not that that’s likely.) So in private, think politically. But govern presidentially.
A new poll shows Trump ahead in swing states. However, The Hill reports that a series of polls shows Biden gaining on Trump:
President Biden is gaining on former President Trump in a series of polls, tying Trump in the race in a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday and providing a sense of momentum to his campaign.
A Wednesday update to the aggregate polling kept by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ also saw Biden move into a tie with Trump when independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is factored into the race, a significant change from earlier data.
President Biden is gaining on former President Trump in a series of polls, tying Trump in the race in a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday and providing a sense of momentum to his campaign.
A Wednesday update to the aggregate polling kept by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ also saw Biden move into a tie with Trump when independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is factored into the race, a significant change from earlier data.
While Biden still trails Trump in the polls in several key battleground states, he has closed the gap or pulled ahead in a handful of national polls released this month.…The Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday found Trump and Biden deadlocked, even when factoring in third-party and independent candidates.
The Biden campaign had routinely brushed off polling earlier in the year that showed Trump well ahead of the sitting president, arguing a significant number of voters had not yet fully realized that Trump was going to be the GOP nominee and that Biden’s numbers would stabilize as more Americans began paying attention to the election.
Jim Kessler, co-founder of the left-leaning think tank Third Way, pointed to the president’s strong and vigorous State of the Union address in early March as a turning point for Biden at a moment when many average voters finally started to tune into election season.
