Trump’s main 2024 election goal is now to save himself
Donald Trump went from courtroom to campaign trail in the blink of an eye on Tuesday, underscoring how the 2024 election – which should address the most pressing issues of the American people – has become a mere tool of his criminal defense strategy.
After scowling in crossed-arm silence as he became the first former president to be charged with crimes by the federal government, Trump quickly transitioned to a Cuban cafe in Miami where he lapped up the adulation of supporters singing “Happy Birthday.”
Later, at his golf club in New Jersey, the twice-impeached former president and the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination falsely presented himself as a blameless victim of a tyrannical government, ignoring the 37 federal charges against him related to alleged mishandling of classified documents.
“Today we witnessed the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country. Very sad thing to watch, a corrupt sitting president had his top political opponent arrested on fake and fabricated charges of which he and numerous other presidents would be guilty, right in the middle of a presidential election in which he’s losing very badly,” Trump said, once again ignoring the facts.
The ex-president, who tried to steal the 2020 election, accused President Joe Biden and a band of misfits and Marxists of election interference and of mounting a political persecution typical of a fascist or communist nation. He also falsely insisted he had to the right to keep secret documents that were the property of the US government.
His remarks were among the most chilling and demagogic ever uttered by a major figure in modern American history. And on a somber day in the nation’s story, they said everything about the former president and the divisive spectacle ahead as he runs for the White House under the shadow of two criminal indictments to which he has pleaded not guilty – with more
Trump’s defiance reinforced the impression he views the law with contempt. By ignoring the gravity of a situation he created, he once again put immediate personal and political needs ahead of the national interest – a trend reflected in his haphazard storage of classified documents in a bathroom, ballroom and shower. The material included secrets about America’s nuclear program and key military plans and, according to the indictment, he allegedly obstructed government efforts to get them to safety.
Trump’s showmanship bolstered a strategy of putting his legal woes at the center of a campaign already rooted in claims he’s the blameless victim of a politicized justice system.
“Some birthday, we got a government that is out of control,” Trump was heard saying in the Cuban restaurant hours before turning 77. This is the kind of victimization theme that has long been at the center of Trump’s grievance-based populist appeal. He’s once again trying to delegitimize the institutions holding him to account, seeking to light a fire under GOP voters and even to shape an eventual jury pool in Florida.
But Tuesday’s political choreography showed this approach is more than a political strategy. It revealed a deeper, emerging reality about the 2024 campaign. Trump’s legal defense strategy is now entirely fused with his electoral one. His bid to regain the White House is no longer a mere political campaign but has now become about self-preservation. As his court battles grind on, his biggest aim appears to be recapturing the presidential authority that might give him the power to make his potential criminal liability – and even the threat of jail time, if convicted – go away.
“He’s not running to save America, he’s running to save himself, and if that means tearing down the judicial system and special counsel, he’ll do it,” CNN political commentator Van Jones said on “The Lead” on Tuesday
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