President Joe Biden’s campaign appeared outside former President Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial in New York City on Tuesday with actor Robert De Niro and a pair of former police officers in an effort to reorient the presidential race in the role of the former president in the January 6 elections. , 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol.
It was a sharp change of course for Biden’s team, which had largely ignored the trial since it began six weeks ago and now seeks to capitalize on its drama-filled final moments, sending the good friends The actor and the first responders who were at the Capitol on January 6.
Biden’s campaign had been cautious about fueling Trump’s argument that his criminal trials were the result of politically motivated prosecutions, but ultimately decided to participate because his message about what was at stake in the election struggled to break the intense focus on trial.
Actor Robert De Niro, center, arrives at a news conference outside Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, U.S., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. Former U.S. President Donald Trump faces 34 felony charges serious charges of falsifying business records as part of an alleged scheme to silence allegations of extramarital sexual encounters during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A senior Biden adviser said they were not there to talk about the trial (and De Niro and the officials made no direct reference to the sordid criminal case), but to exploit mainstream media attention on the legal process. But Trump’s advisers argued in a dueling news conference that the Biden team’s presence validated the former Republican president’s claims that his prosecutions are driven by politics.
“We are not here today because of what is happening there,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler told reporters, pointing toward the courthouse. “We are here today because you are all here.”
The back-to-back news conferences were a side show to the main event unfolding inside the courthouse, where closing arguments were being held in the only Trump trial likely to come before the November election. There are two others directly related to the Republican’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, a Democrat: A federal case in Washington is related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and a state case in Georgia is related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. accused of electoral interference. He has pleaded not guilty in those cases.
The Biden campaign last week released a new ad narrated by De Niro harshly criticizing Trump’s presidency and his plans if he is re-elected.
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“I don’t want to scare you. “No, wait, maybe I want to scare you,” De Niro told reporters. “If Trump returns to the White House, they can say goodbye to these freedoms that we all take for granted.”
The actor presented himself as the real New Yorker and mocked Trump’s history of sometimes fruitless business ventures and self-promotion, saying Trump sought to “destroy” the city.
“We New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another shitty real estate hustler dressed as a big shot,” De Niro said. “I love this city. I don’t want to destroy it. Donald Trump wants to destroy not only the city but the country and, eventually, he could destroy the world.”
Former Washington, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone and former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn spoke about their personal experiences on January 6, with Fanone describing injuries suffered at the hands of the mob of Trump supporters who sought to stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s 2020 presidential victory.
“I came here today to remind Americans of what Donald Trump is capable of and the violence he unleashed on all Americans on January 6, 2021,” Fanone said.
The two former officers were also witnesses during a congressional investigation into the riot on January 6, 2021. Hundreds of law enforcement officers were beaten and bloodied in the attack by Trump supporters, who descended after a rally and crashed against the Capitol while Trump remained silent for hours.
“Americans need to wake up. This is not a drill,” said Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police officer who ran unsuccessfully for office in Maryland.
Actor Robert De Niro, left, points to a supporter of former U.S. President Donald Trump during a news conference outside Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, U.S., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. The former US President Donald Trump faces 34 felony charges of falsifying business records as part of an alleged scheme to silence allegations of extramarital sexual encounters during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“We cannot count on these institutions to stop Donald Trump,” he added. “It will take us Americans to go to the polls to defeat him once and for all.”
Trump campaign staff held their own news conference at the same location outside the courthouse to respond to De Niro, Jan. 6 officials and the Biden campaign.
Trump’s top campaign adviser, Jason Miller, called out De Niro, who won Oscars for his roles in The Godfather: Part II and raging bull – “a failed actor” and said Biden’s press conference demonstrated Trump’s arguments that the trial, like the others facing the former president, was motivated by politics.
“After months of saying politics had nothing to do with this trial, they showed up and did a trial-day campaign event in lower Manhattan for President Trump,” Miller said.
Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for the Trump campaign, called the Biden campaign “desperate and failed” and “pathetic” and said their event outside the trial was “a complete concession that this The trial is a witch hunt. “That comes from above.”
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