WASHINGTON – A man declares that the millions of Jews massacred in the Holocaust will never be forgotten and strongly denounces anti-Semitism, while opponents sit in court and porn star faces allegations of sexual encounters. I watched him talk about the details.
The race between President Joe Biden and the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, was already unlike any other presidential election. The 81-year-old incumbent was trying to thwart his 77-year-old challenger and his predecessor. He overturned the last election and is campaigning in court.
But what emerged this week was a split-screen reflection of the times that perfectly summed up the unprecedented and strange election of 2024.
“Impressive is the word,” said Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. She said: “For those of us who follow presidential history, it’s very difficult to find similarities. This is unusual. This is unique.
“This has never happened before.”
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On Tuesday morning, Biden delivered the keynote address at a Holocaust memorial service before a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the Capitol, warning of the “flaring rise of anti-Semitism in the United States.” He spoke of the time he took children to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany so that they could “see and testify to the dangers of indifference.”
“This ancient hatred of Jews did not begin with the Holocaust. It did not end with the Holocaust, or after it, or even after our victory in World War II,” Biden said. , continued to denounce the new Jews. A wave of anti-Semitism. “It’s absolutely despicable behavior and it has to stop.”
At the same time, Trump was seated for the 13th day of his hush money trial in New York, and new witnesses were welcomed to the stand. Stormy Daniels is a porn actress who claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Here’s her story. At the heart of the 34 felonies President Trump faces is a charge of falsifying business records.
Daniels described in vivid detail a sexual encounter at a Lake Tahoe hotel. Daniels, who was 27 at the time, said Trump greeted her in his suite wearing silk and satin pajamas reminiscent of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s famous outfits.
She told President Trump to change his clothes, and he complied. She testified that President Trump asked her if she had any sexually transmitted diseases. She said she wasn’t. At one point during the exchange, she said, Daniels spanked Trump with a magazine, and then they had unprotected sex with her.
Judge Juan Melchán rejected the defense team’s request for a mistrial, but later said, “I think there are some things I think it would be better not to say.”
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On the other hand, the contrast between a sitting president and a former president on trial appears to be clearly in Biden’s favor.
“There’s no question that a former president is in court being accused by his ex-girlfriend, a porn star. That doesn’t seem like it would make a good bumper sticker,” Perry said. Compare that image to Mr. Biden. Biden’s speech was “like a president,” she said.
But Mr. Trump long ago upended the political establishment. And in the New York trial, he was allowed to play the victim, accusing his political opponents of “election interference.”
“You should start campaigning now,” Trump said after court Tuesday. Instead, he said, “I’m stuck. Here I am.”
After Biden finished his speech Tuesday, he and others in the audience held up black-and-white photos of Holocaust victims. The President then returned to the White House and held bilateral talks with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.
The harsh split-screen between the two presidential candidates in vastly different circumstances continued over the next few days.
Trump returned to his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, and spent Wednesday’s day off from court fundraising, with supporters spending thousands of dollars on digital Trump trading cards, according to Axios. It also included spending time.
Meanwhile, Biden visited Racine, Wisconsin, on Wednesday. There, he teased President Trump over the announcement of a $3.3 billion Microsoft artificial intelligence data center to be located on the same site as a failed project by tech manufacturer Foxconn, which Trump once hailed as the “eighth wonder of the world.” .
Trump returned to court Thursday for the 14th day of his hush money trial, but this time Trump’s lawyers had the opportunity to cross-examine Daniels. Before the 2016 election, Daniels was paid a total of $130,000 to keep quiet about her sexual encounters with Trump.
Trump’s lawyer, Susan Necheres, suggested that Daniels made up her story about having sex with Trump, and Daniels said, “If the story wasn’t true, I would have written it better.” ” he countered.
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As Mr. Daniels’ latest court appearance unfolds, Mr. Biden addressed the international backlash in an interview with CNN on Wednesday night, warning of specific threats against Israel if it moves forward with a full-scale invasion of Rafah. For the first time, he vowed to cut off the supply of weapons. In southern Gaza.
In the afternoon, he performed the traditional presidential ritual of meeting with the WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces before boarding Air Force One and heading to California for a big-ticket campaign fundraiser.
Biden has only mentioned it publicly once since Trump’s trial began, with the former president joking last month that he was “busy right now.”
The re-election campaign has not focused on the details of Trump’s lawsuit, but Biden’s team has argued that Trump has been slow to organize his campaign in key battleground states and sought to provide an objective perspective. I am incorporating it.
“The divisions between the two camps are likely to become even more intense over the next month,” said Dan Kanninen, the Biden campaign’s battleground state manager. “While Mr. Trump is stuck in New York or hiding out at Mar-a-Lago, we are expanding and deepening our influence in every important battleground state.”
Asked how the president was taking the details of Trump’s trial, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was focused on his job.
“The president is really busy, obviously like many of us here, probably busy with work during the day. But, you know, the president is going to focus on the American people,” she said. Tuesday, without providing further details on how the case was pursued. hush money trial. “I can’t talk about that.”
At one time, it appeared as if Trump could face multiple trials before the November election. But he benefited from this week’s postponement of a classified documents federal case in Florida and a criminal case in Georgia.
The New York hush-money lawsuit could now be Mr. Trump’s only trial before the election, and some are skeptical that its outcome will affect the election, regardless of the verdict.
Veteran pollster Frank Luntz said in an interview with CNN that floating voters in swing states that will determine the outcome of the election are unlikely to be swayed by the court case.
“If you’re a supporter of Joe Biden, you think Donald Trump is guilty. If you’re a supporter of Donald Trump, you think this is completely ridiculous,” Luntz said. , Trump is weaker than he was when the trial began, but does not expect a “meaningful, measurable impact” on public opinion.
“These are people who are focused on the economy. They prioritize inflation, immigration and abortion above all else,” he said of the undecided primary voters. “And the trial for them is a distraction. After all, what happens in May will determine what happens in October and, more importantly, what happens in November. It does not mean.”
X Contact Joey Garrison at @joeygarrison.
