Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on the political implications of Trump’s first criminal trial

Read the Full Transcript

• Geoff Bennett:

  From the conflict in the Middle East to Donald Trump's first day in court as a criminal defendant, let's discuss the political implications with Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

  It's good to see you both.

  So there's been some news as we have been on the air about U.S. foreign aid. House Speaker Mike Johnson shared with his House Republican colleagues in a private meeting his plan to put on the floor this foreign aid package after months of delay. He's calling for separate votes, Tam, on aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel, aid to Taiwan, and then a fourth vote on this forced sale of TikTok.

  Is this something that the White House can get behind?

• Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:

  What the White House said today even before Johnson presented this plan to his members was, this is not the fastest way to actually get something to the president's desk that would help Israel and would help Ukraine, because the Senate has already passed a bill.

  It is a bill that includes all of these things together. And the way this works is, if the House is able — and that's still a big if — if the House is able to pass these bills separately, then it would go to the Senate, where they would have to pass those bills separately.

  And it's not clear that the Senate can pass those bills separately. So the White House argument, as it has been for months, is, yes, fine, whatever, but please just let's do this package that we have been asking for, I think, since August? It's been a long time.

• Geoff Bennett:

  That's right, since the fall, at least.

• Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

  Yes.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So Donald Trump today became the first former president ever to stand trial for alleged criminal wrongdoing.

  Amy, we have seen how he has used these court appearances to really boost his political standing.

• Amy Walter:

  Right.

• Geoff Bennett:

  He's used them as campaign appearances.

  Does this change now? I mean, will persuadable independent voters see him differently now that this trial is actually under way?

• Amy Walter:

  Well, this is the $1 billion question. I don't even know what number to put on it.

  It is this idea — the idea, of course, that a former president is on trial, who is now the presumptive nominee, would seem to be a problem for that candidate in a general election, when voters start paying attention. The question for the Biden campaign as well is, how much do we lean into this?

  And, right now, it seems to me that the answer is, we're really not going to. We're going to let it sort of speak for itself, these photos and sketches of Trump sitting in court, and also use the opportunity with Trump in court to press our advantage as the incumbent president.

  The president is going to Pennsylvania for these next couple of days. We're going to hear a lot about not Trump's trials, but about the economy. And it seems to me that the Biden campaign's challenge right now is not so much highlighting what they already know to be weaknesses of Trump's, but really trying to make smaller Trump's advantage on this issue of inflation and the economy.

  And whether that works or not is a big question. I talked to at least one Democrat who thinks, yes, it's fine to have this split screen, but, at some point, Democrats, the Biden campaign, need to tell voters why these matter. Just allowing the pictures to go out and the way that the media describes it isn't enough. Democrats need to control some part of this narrative.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Tam, to Amy's point of this perceived split screen, President Biden was in Scranton today talking about Trump's tax plan, how it would benefit the wealthiest Americans.

  Does the campaign, does the White House feel like they need to lean in a bit more?

• Tamara Keith:

  They — when you try to ask them about Trump's trials, run in the other direction. They don't want to lean in on this at all, because they have some challenges in place.

  One is that Trump is calling these Biden's trials, this is Biden's trial.

  President Biden has absolutely nothing to do with this. This is a state case. This is not a federal case. And President Biden has made it clear he does not want to interfere in any sort of prosecutions or prosecutorial decisions.

  However, because that is out there, because Trump makes these accusations, the Biden campaign and the Biden White House don't want to do anything to make it look like they are interfering in any way. So that is a challenge.

  But the other thing to think about is, yes, there is this split screen, but is it really a split screen, or are all screens focused on the Trump trial? And if a president holds three rallies in Pennsylvania and nobody puts it on television or the front page of the paper, is it really happening?

  And this is a challenge that President Biden has had for a very long time, which is, he sort of ran on being boring. And he has succeeded. The challenge, though, is that he isn't really getting much attention. People aren't seeing him. And when his biggest — the biggest question voters have about him is, is he vital, is — is he — does he have what it takes to run a campaign and run — be president again, he needs people to actually see him doing that?

• Geoff Bennett:

  Meantime, President Biden and his senior advisers are highly concerned that an Israeli response to Iran's attack on Israel over the weekend could lead to a regional war with catastrophic consequences.

  Looking at this purely through a political lens, Amy, does this take some of the pressure off of President Biden, at least as it relates to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, now that the focus, at least for right now, is on Iran?

• Amy Walter:

  It sure doesn't seem like it will.

  I mean, the frustration that many within Biden's party have, those on the left, is all about Gaza. And the situation there is not getting any better, whatever happens with Iran and the retaliation for that or the support that some may feel to Israel now that it's being attacked by Iran is not going to make up for what is happening in Gaza.

  So I don't think that helps him there. The other question is, if this does go into a broader Middle East conflict, this has implications not for just geopolitics and the danger there, but also what it means for Americans at home, higher gas prices going into an election year not particularly something that a sitting president wants to deal with.

  And even these votes on the House bill, if they do come to pass, you're going to see once again that split within the Democratic Party between those who think Israel doesn't need much more, they have already gotten enough from us, and we need to put more humanitarian aid into Gaza, also sending a message. Do we need to send a message that — many Democrats are saying, to Netanyahu that it's not OK what he's doing?

  And one way to send that message is to not give them more aid.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Amy Walter and Tamara Keith, thanks to you both, as always.

• Tamara Keith:

  You're welcome.

• Amy Walter:

  You're welcome.