Trump Trial Temperature Check & Joe Biden’s Reality Check - Top 3 Takeaways – April 29th, 2024

Trump trial temperature check. We’re now a week into something we’ve never seen. A president, current or former, sitting in a criminal trial. While the situation would be far more dramatic if courtroom cameras were in place, there’s still the daily drumbeat of reporting from what’s been happening inside of the courtroom that often leads the news. It led to headlines like these over the weekend: Five Bombshells From the First Week of Donald Trump’s Trial. In that Newsweek story it’s explained that the five “bombshells” were these: 1) Two of the three so-called “hush money payments” made prior to the 2016 presidential election were made by American Media on behalf of Donald Trump, with only one made by Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen. 2) Just prior to being sworn in as president in January of 2017, President-Elect Trump was checking in on the status of the recipients of the NDAs to ensure that all was on track. After NDAs began to be violated, Trump expressed upset over the violations 3) Trump’s former assistant of 34 years, Rhona Graff spoke to Trump being a “hands-on” kind of boss but that he was thoughtful and respected her intelligence. Also, Stormy Daniels had briefly come up as a possibility for potential inclusion in his Celebrity Apprentice TV show (nothing materialized). 4) Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal attorney and convicted liar turned enemy, referred to Trump to others as “The Boss”. Reportedly Cohen’s direction in handling personal matters was always in the context as to what “The Boss” wanted and what would make him happy. It was also revealed that Cohen began to become upset with Trump after the Presidential election in 2016 when he’d not received reimbursement for the Stormy Daniels NDA and also hadn’t received his usual annual bonus from The Trump Organization. It was revealed that Cohen directed David Pecker, CEO of American Media, to stage a paparazzi photo op for him meeting with billionaire Mark Cuban to put pressure on Trump. 5) An unexpected name was a key figure in the mix. Arnold Schwarzenegger. As it turns out, if David Pecker was telling the truth, Donald Trump wasn’t the first celebrity or first politician he’d conspired with to engage in so-called “catch and kill” campaigns with unflattering stories. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the first preceding his successful campaign to become governor of California. In fact, as the story goes, Schwarzenegger’s indiscretions and demands were far more pervasive than Trump’s - this included Schwarzenegger demanding that he become the editor of Muscle and Fitness and Flex magazines for a time about 22 years ago. Whether you consider those bombshells or not, whether you even care or not, that’s the crux of what went down in the courtroom in week one of the New York state Trump trial. Meanwhile, we do have a small temperature check of what Americans are thinking as this has started to play out.
They’re not buying it. Clay Travis founded Outkick precisely because sports media companies were overplaying their hand when it came to interjecting politics into sports. In advance of the trial, polling showed only slightly over a third of Americans thought there was a legitimate reason to proceed with the New York state hush money case. Therefore, perhaps it’s not a surprise that the first bit of polling we’ve received since the trials has taken place is showing Trump’s advantage in the polls over Joe Biden nationally grow. Preceding the start of the trial last Monday, Trump’s lead over Biden nationally had narrowed to 0.3% - a statistical dead heat. The average of the first polls to be produced with samples taken with the trial underway shows Trump’s lead over Biden growing to 3%, a figure which if it were to hold, would be within a point of his biggest advantage in this cycle. It could be the case that most Americans view Democrat are outkicking their coverage in an effort to get Trump – and it may backfire politically. That was my hypothesis heading into the trial, the first bit of data after the first week of the trial shows there may be something to it. Speaking of polls...
Biden’s the worst ever. I know, I know, that could apply to a lot of things. Perhaps the worst hair plugs ever. He’s certainly the worst reader of a teleprompter in history. But of course, it’s not his proclivity to read literally every word on a teleprompter (including the instructions for him to pause for effect on occasion) that’s his biggest problem as we’re now only a little more than six months away from Election Day. It’s his worst ever policies, like with our southern border that are the issue. That’s what’s led to President Biden having the worst ever approval rating at this stage of his presidency according to the country’s oldest accredited pollster – Gallup. Quoting Gallup’s just released approval polling summarizing his performance to start this Presidential Election year: President Joe Biden averaged 38.7% job approval during his recently completed 13th quarter in office, which began on Jan. 20 and ended April 19. None of the other nine presidents elected to their first term since Dwight Eisenhower had a lower 13th-quarter average than Biden. In fact, not only is Joe Biden’s approval rating for the first quarter of this year the lowest they’d ever sampled, but it’s also over three points lower than the next lowest president – George H.W. Bush who went on to lose his reelection bid to Bill Clinton. The lowest approval rating of any president who’s ever gone on to win reelection at this stage of their presidency, is Barack Obama’s 45.9%. A figure that’s over seven points higher than Joe Biden’s currently. And for some added context, just four years ago former President Donald Trump’s approval rating at the same time was over 8-points higher than Joe Biden’s is today. Quoting Gallup’s summary: In this election year, when Biden is hoping U.S. voters reward him with a second term, he is needing some positive momentum to put him in a stronger position to be reelected. However, that didn’t occur during the past three months, with Americans no more positive about how Biden is doing his job than they were in his prior quarter, or for most of the past three years. This is the case even after Biden delivered his election-year State of the Union speech in March, a chance for him to sell his accomplishments directly to the American people. With about six months remaining before Election Day, Biden stands in a weaker position than any prior incumbent, and thus faces a taller task than they did in getting reelected.

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