President Joe Biden needed to address the elephant in the room before moving on to other business, like an Israel-Hamas cease-fire proposal, and that elephant in the room — in rooms across the nation — was the conviction on 34 felony counts of his Oval Office predecessor Donald Trump. Biden began remarks after the conviction was delivered by saying he wanted to “say a few words about what happened yesterday in New York City.”
Biden’s purpose in addressing the trial result was to defang the counter-narrative pushed by Trump and his MAGA defenders, who are seeking to benefit from his conviction by decrying the due process the defendant received in the Manhattan courtroom as “rigged,” in an attempt to delegitimize the justice system, which Biden called the “cornerstone” of America.
“It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s irresponsible,” Biden said, “for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”
Trump has referred to the trial repeatedly as “Biden’s trial” — casting himself as a victim of illegitimate political persecution rather than a felon, as the jury saw him. Trump’s fervent GOP backers like Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) and others — deputized to repeat this claim loudly and often — have pushed this counter-narrative hard, a push meant to undermine the jury’s unanimous conclusion that Trump is a felon.
In his first remarks on Trump’s conviction, Biden displayed a deep awareness of and sensitivity to the elements of this MAGA counter-narrative. The President went out of his way to emphasize that the prosecution and trial were not federal pursuits and were correspondingly not under his auspices — as the MAGA Trump defenders accuse. “Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself,” the President said, emphasizing that “it was a state case, not a federal case” that was “heard by a jury of 12 citizens, 12 Americans, 12 people like you.”
Biden: The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed. Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. After five weeks, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts. pic.twitter.com/cOKy7LxX8x
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 31, 2024
[Trump is also charged with multiple felonies in two separate federal cases being brought by the Department of Justice, which operates independently of the White House — notably, the DOJ is also pursuing criminal charges against Hunter Biden, the President’s son — though the President nominates the Attorney General who is then subject to Senate approval. Current Attorney General Merrick Garland was officially appointed by a 70-30 Senate vote.]
Praising the justice system, Biden painted the trial as a moment when “the American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed.”