Donald Trump an 'absolute master at taking bad news and turning it into good politics'
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Transcript
00:00 Hi everyone, thanks for joining us here on France 24.
00:02 We begin in New York and with a stunning verdict against Donald Trump.
00:07 A jury found the former president liable for sexually abusing the magazine writer, E. Jean
00:12 Carroll, and then defaming her reputation.
00:15 Jurors ordered Trump to pay her $5 million in damages.
00:19 Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room decades ago.
00:24 The jury found against the rape allegation, but agreed that he had sexually abused her.
00:29 When Carroll made the claims, Trump called her a liar, which was the basis for the lawsuit
00:33 that she filed against him.
00:35 The jury reached its verdict after just three hours of deliberations.
00:39 This is a civil case, not a criminal one, so it's important to point out that the former
00:43 president has not been convicted of a crime and faces no prison time.
00:48 Trump is already reacting to the verdict and his campaign says the former president will
00:52 appeal the decision on his Truth Social account.
00:56 Trump wrote, quote, I have absolutely no idea who this woman is.
01:00 This verdict is a disgrace, a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time.
01:06 And for more on this, we are joined by Todd Belt.
01:09 He's a professor and director of the political management program at George Washington University.
01:14 Thanks for being with us here on France 24.
01:16 First of all, I just want to know what your reaction is to this verdict and what effect
01:19 do you think it will have on Trump's hopes to get back to the White House in 2024?
01:24 Yeah, it's great to be with you again.
01:27 Thanks for having me on.
01:28 This is stunning, like you said, at the top of the hour here.
01:32 But ultimately, the question is Trump getting back to the White House.
01:36 If it were anybody else, I would say that this would be the death knell for them.
01:41 This would be the end of their career.
01:43 However, this is Donald Trump, and we have to remember that he has been an absolute master
01:48 at taking bad news and turning it into good politics.
01:53 And he continues to be able to do so.
01:54 We saw that earlier this year with the mishandling of the documents at Mar-a-Lago, and he got
02:00 a spike amongst his supporters.
02:02 I anticipate he will get a similar spike here.
02:05 However, I do think that other Republicans might think that he's wounded and might jump
02:09 into the race, but that might just continue to divide the field that is the non-Trump
02:14 field and that might actually even help him get the nomination again.
02:17 Well, so dozens of women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the years.
02:23 This is the first time he's actually faced any legal consequences.
02:26 And Trump decided not to appear in court on his own behalf and testify.
02:31 Instead, he appeared in a video deposition.
02:34 Do you think that's a decision that he now regrets?
02:37 Well, I think he might personally regret that because he is ultimately very, very confident
02:43 in his own ability to be persuasive.
02:46 But the lawyers know better.
02:47 He just can't control himself when he starts talking.
02:50 And it was probably to their advantage to keep him off of the stand because he probably
02:54 just wouldn't have done himself any sort of services by being up there.
02:59 It is interesting that he says that he was completely silenced and muzzled and it was
03:03 unconstitutional when in fact it was his own lawyers who decided that he shouldn't be up
03:07 there.
03:09 This is just one of several legal challenges that he's facing.
03:12 How realistic is it for him to mount a campaign with so many legal problems on the horizon?
03:18 Well, not only is it realistic, it is completely possible.
03:22 We've had people run from prison before in the United States.
03:25 Eugene V. Debs did at the turn of the century in the early 1900s.
03:30 There's nothing in the Constitution that prevents it.
03:33 What we should be looking at are the case that's in Georgia with the election tampering.
03:39 There's really the smoking gun there when it comes to that voice tape of him asking
03:43 for more votes and really engaging the tampering.
03:46 I think that's one that can really impact a lot of the independent voters when it comes
03:51 to the general election.
03:52 But again, when it comes to the Republican primaries, he does have his Trump supporters
03:57 that will vote for him no matter what, as he said back in 2016, even if he shot somebody
04:02 on Fifth Avenue.
04:04 How do you explain Donald Trump's hold over the Republican Party?
04:09 It is really a tremendous cult of charisma that he has going on.
04:13 And it's something that we've never seen before in U.S. politics.
04:18 People will just not believe the information against him and are so willing to believe
04:24 that this is a hoax or there's people out to get him.
04:28 Whatever he says, they believe.
04:30 So it's very cultish in terms of how people believe everything he says and how he's able
04:35 to really dissemble anything that comes to bear upon him in terms of his viability as
04:41 a candidate.
04:43 There was a poll out a couple of days ago that took a lot of people by surprise from
04:46 ABC and The Washington Post that showed Trump leading President Biden by six percentage
04:53 points.
04:54 The findings seemed a bit contradictory because the same poll found that a majority of voters
04:58 think that he should also face criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the last election.
05:03 I'm just curious to know what you made of those numbers.
05:06 Yeah, that's a really interesting poll, but still, we're a long ways out.
05:11 Obviously, people think that the president should be held responsible for his actions.
05:16 Those aren't necessarily the same ones who said that they would vote for him.
05:20 But ultimately, once we get past the nomination phase, the election becomes a choice between
05:25 two candidates.
05:27 It's not necessarily going to be a referendum on Joe Biden's handling of the economy and
05:32 the nation if Trump is on the ballot.
05:34 It becomes then, with Trump on the ballot, being a choice between Trump's America and
05:40 Biden's America.
05:41 And so these polls, this far out, don't really reflect the reality of when people get into
05:46 the ballot box and they have to choose between those two and what sort of future they want
05:51 for the United States.
05:53 That's a more hefty choice.
05:54 And as you point out, the election is a long ways away.
05:57 Okay.
05:58 Todd Belt, professor and director of the political management program at George Washington University,
06:01 Thanks so much for joining us here on France 24.
06:03 Great being with you.