Do Trumps Crimes Matter on the Campaign Trail?

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In the past two weeks, in a lower Manhattan courtroom, journalist E. Jean Carroll made a straightforward case: a quarter century ago, she says, Donald Trump raped her. The account he gave in the courtroom was the same as when he first revealed this story, in an excerpt of his memoir published in New York magazine, in 2019. Carroll had the opportunity to meet Trump at Bergdorf Goodman, he said, and, flirting, she and Trump moved into the store, grabbed a lacy bodysuit and went into an unlocked dressing room together. Maybe she should try the bodysuit, he suggested. Maybe he should try it, he suggested. Then, according to Carroll, Trump pulled down her pantyhose, pushed her against a wall, and raped her. Within days, Carroll told two friends about the attack: writer Lisa Birnbach, and television anchor Carol Martin. They both testified this week, and Martin admitted that he initially advised Carroll not to go public, saying, I just volunteered that he shouldn’t do anything because it’s Donald Trump and he’s got a lot of lawyers and he’s just going to bury him.

Now Carroll has a prominent lawyer, too: Roberta Kaplan, who famously represented Edie Windsor in the Supreme Court case that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. To establish a pattern of behavior, Kaplan this week called two other witnesses who said they were sexually assaulted by the former President. A stockbroker named Jessica Leeds said Trump groped her on a flight in the late 1990s when he was still unpopular and sent her on the run from first class to coach. Natasha Stoynoff, a writer for People magazine, said that, while she was on assignment to interview Donald and Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago, in 2005, Donald Trump closed a door, locked her in a room with he, and forcefully kissed. to him before being interrupted by a butler. The Carrolls’ story, to begin with, is missing some details that Kaplan wants: there is no physical evidence (no sales receipt, no security-camera footage) to confirm that she and Trump were together at Bergdorf, or even that he was there at all. And Carroll could only place the timing of the alleged attack in late 1995 or early 1996. Trump has denied all of this. But the presence of Leeds and Stoynoff on the witness stand is a reminder of how often Trump has been accused of sexual assault and misconduct (by more than two dozen women, over several decades) and massive collusion, or opportunity , it is if they all do it.

A key uncertainty has shadowed this week’s court proceedings. Does this story amount to a political cataclysm or nothing at all? If you just describe the situation neutrally, like a news anchor mighta civil suit in which a magazine writer accused the former President of the United States of rape is going to a jury trial next week, it’s definitely sounds like front-page material. And yet it is not yet. The test did not crack the front page of the Times last week, losing to the latest economic news, the war in Sudan, warnings about artificial intelligence, the ongoing effort to dispose of New York’s garbage, and the tsunami of press surrounding the killing of a homeless man on the subway. Even the courtroom itself, by the end of the week, was about half full. If you’re in lower Manhattan, and interested, you can wander inside.

I suspect there are two reasons the trial didn’t make bigger news. First, the details of this are not really news. As with many of the former President’s other investigations (in New York, for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money paid to Stormy Daniels; in Georgia, for allegedly seeking urge election officials to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election; in Washington, DC, for allegedly refusing to return classified documents and for his actions surrounding the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot), the main story has almost been told in the press, though it has never been presented in court. . Perhaps more significantly, Trump faces two impeachments, and countless accusations of wrongdoing. He instigated an insurrection. However, his approval rating and political position were, on the whole, almost unchanged. (According to FiveThirtyEights rolling averages, about forty-five percent of Americans view him favorably, and fifty-one percent unfavorably.) At times it seems that Trump’s superpower has been accused of too many transgressions without anyone can change the public perception of him.

But this may underestimate how important even a small amount of tractability is. The margins in American politics are slim right now. Trump first won the Presidency, and then lost it, due to the displacement of tens of thousands of voters in some critical states. Earlier this year, Ron DeSantis briefly threatened Trumps position as Republican standard-bearer due to Trump’s insistence on returning the 2020 election and his promotion of subpar Republican candidates willing to do the same. DeSantis then took some extreme social-conservative stances, and Trump effectively mocked him. In each case, events happened, minds changed. The story of Trumps ascendance is not just about the diehards who support him no matter what. His final coalitions have always depended on people willing to make excuses for him. Republican politicians and operatives, and the swing of voters and his elections will conform to what they will and will not follow. .

Jury trials are unpopular tasks for most politicians in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is currently agreeing to a far-right takeover of his country’s government to overhaul the country’s judicial system in amid his own corruption trial and Trump himself seems to be taking his legal troubles seriously. As his indictment in the Stormy Daniels case approaches, the former President is reportedly focused on stage management. (Would there be a perp walk? A mug shot?) Although his media profile is still extensive, he doesn’t have the same ability now, in 2016 and during his Presidency, to change a story he doesn’t like to the by doing or saying something wild. Trump has said a lot of strange things lately, including that, in retrospect, he plans to make homelessness illegal, and forcibly remove the homeless from urban centers to de- quality tent in the suburbs. But the media largely ignored them. In a video deposition played at the trial this week, Trump said, He accused me of raping him, the worst thing you can do, the worst case.

If the Carroll case is a first glimpse of how Trump plans to fight any upcoming challenges, then his team is off to a rough start. Trump has doubted the primary strategy; he told Sky News that he would likely fly to New York to testify, but later that day, his lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told the courtroom that he would not enter a defense, essentially relying on the jury to find that was not reached. Carroll’s burden of proof. (The judge in the case, perhaps hinting that it might not be so smart, told Tacopina that he would consider any changes to the plan until Sunday.)

But what Carroll’s case begins to suggest is that the seriousness of these charges can be difficult to present, or strategize against: rape, election fraud, sedition. When accusations of this magnitude move from the realm of political ads to detailed accounts on the witness stand, they can be harder to ignore. One way to read the politics around Trump today is that, with partisan allegiances entrenched, nothing matters. But another interpretation is more compelling: with margins so tight, everyone does.

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