Who is afraid of Donald Trump's 34 felony convictions? Joe Biden

It’s a political gamble to leave such fodder on the floor. And not every Democrat is thrilled by it.

But Biden aides are betting that they don’t actually need to talk about, let alone remind, the electorate about Trump’s personal drama and legal problems. If they do, the thinking is it just bogs Biden down with an issue that they fundamentally do not think moves voters.

Everything about Biden’s past 24 hours was choreographed to project that line of thinking. He did not reshape his Thursday afternoon as the verdict came down. When he did speak about Trump at the White House on Friday afternoon, he did so only briefly. To the dismay of some, he actively chose to give comments on the situation in Gaza — the very topic that is ripping apart the Democratic coalition — rather than address the substance of Trump’s guilt (he did accuse Trump of recklessly attacking the justice system).

Biden aides say that the president’s approach today is the one they will adopt going forward. They’re not foreclosing the possibility that they incorporate the verdict into some of their political pitch. But no one in Wilmington is currently reshaping their 2024 playbook around this. They have a preternatural belief that a steady, sober approach — while maybe not satisfying for the more blood-thirsty partisans — can and will work. They point to 2020.

One Biden campaign official raised recent polling that found a majority of Americans believe Trump committed a crime. “Labeling him a ‘convicted felon’ again and again doesn’t advance the ball,” the official said. Instead, “you use it as another piece of evidence in a larger pattern of behavior,” so the guilty verdict is “the proof point, not the message.”

President Joe Biden’s campaign had been restrained in its attacks on Donald Trump’s New York criminal conviction for weeks until the campaign said internal polling and focus groups showed the verdict turned off voters.

The result, hitting TV sets across the country on Monday, was the campaign’s unleashing of its sharpest attack ad yet, depicting Trump as a “convicted criminal who’s only out for himself.” And the campaign says it’s just the start. Biden advisers say they plan to hammer Trump over the coming weeks — aiming to both set up a favorable narrative ahead of next week’s debate and keep Trump’s felony conviction top-of-mind for voters who haven’t yet fully tuned into the election.

“We’ve seen in polling since the conviction that the more the conviction is front and center in voters’ attention, the worse it is for Trump,” said a Biden campaign pollster granted anonymity to describe internal polling because they were not authorized to do so publicly.

The pollster said their research concluded that Trump’s conviction could effectively be used in a broader depiction of Trump as being self-centered and unwilling to take responsibility for his actions.

"In the courtroom we see Donald Trump for who he is,” the ad’s narrator states as black-and-white photos of Trump in court appear on screen. “He’s been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault, and committed financial fraud.”

The ad concludes by casting the election as a stark choice “between a convicted criminal who’s only out for himself and a president who’s fighting for your family.” It’s a theme the Biden campaign is hoping to sear into the minds of voters ahead of the June 27 presidential debate, particularly as Biden’s approval ratings last week reached the lowest point in his presidency.

The ad marks a strategic shift for Biden, who had so far largely avoided direct attacks on Trump’s legal troubles. Biden’s campaign began engaging on the topic by holding a press conference outside Trump’s courtroom in the final days of the trial.

Michael Tyler, communications director for the Biden campaign, described Trump in a statement on Monday as someone “who will do anything and harm anyone if it means more power and vengeance for Donald Trump.

The fact that Biden even did an ad on Trump’s felonies may be remarkable, since the pathologically risk-averse, poll-driven White House messaging team hesitated to even highlight Trump’s convictions. As Reuters reported: “They wanted to see polls and voter feedback before reacting strongly.” Apparently, their polls counseled reacting, but not strongly.

The White House calls the ad “Character Matters,” but it punts on contrasting the men’s prodigious differences in character. It does strongly characterize Trump as a criminal, but rather than really lean into casting Biden as the law-abiding, Constitution-protecting model of personal rectitude that he is, it follows the description of Trump’s feloniousness with a characterization of a president “who’s been working, lowering healthcare costs and making big corporations pay their fair share…a president who’s fighting for your family.” A spot that should be strictly about personal integrity, values, and devotion to law and order treats Biden as little more than an advocate for lower prescription drug prices and fairer tax policies.

Democratic Party operatives apparently don’t know another way. Day after day, they recite the same bromides about the same handful of policies in exactly the same way. There’s no evidence that this approach is moving the needle for Biden, but if the only thing you know how to do is prattle about policies, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result — the definition of insanity — is all that’s left as a course of action.