It’s “complete lunacy” that all the trials that former President Donald Trump is facing are increasing his popularity among voters, one of his former aides said this week.
During a recent episode of “The View” on ABC, co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin — a former aide in the Trump administration — brushed off the assertions from some of her former boss’ supporters that the legal troubles he’s facing could actually vault him to victory in the November presidential election.
During Tuesday’s episode of “The View,” Griffin commented:
“There’s this myth out there that somehow these trials are going to make him — win him over more voters, and there’s going to be sympathy. I reject that as a Republican because, yes, his base is going to be with him, and they’re going to vocally defend him.
“But, to this sort of 30%, call them the Nikki Haley voters or the ‘somebody other than Trump’ Republicans, there is no way that hush money payments to Stormy Daniels or this fraud case in New York are going to make them more sympathetic to him. I find it to just be complete lunacy.”
Trump has claimed recently that his upcoming trials might make him more popular “because the people know it’s a scam.”
Similar remarks were made on Monday by another one of Trump’s former advisers, Steve Bannon. He said that all this free press that Trump is getting in regard to his criminal and civil trials only helps him in the upcoming election.
As he said:
“One of the reasons President Trump is back and leading is because half of his campaign is these court appearances. The lawfare is not working. It’s a major part of Trump’s campaign.”
A more than $450 million judgment was handed down against Trump in the New York civil fraud lawsuit brought by Democratic Attorney General Letitia James. Trump’s legal team is in the process of appealing that decision, and won a small victory this week when the judge lowered the amount of bond he had to put up in order to do so.
The next trial on the docket is the hush money criminal trial he’s facing. It was announced this week that jury selection in that case will begin on April 15.
The former president has said that he’d be willing to testify on his behalf in the case, but it’s not sure just yet if his lawyers will be in favor of him doing that.
As Trump said Monday:
“I would have no problem testifying. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Most general election polls have Trump and President Joe Biden neck-and-neck. Over the last few weeks, Biden has been able to achieve some small gains on Trump.
A average of polls compiled by The Hill/Decision Desk HQ shows that Trump is ahead of Biden by one point nationally.
