Analysis: Trump has winning streak on the debate stage and in the courts

Donald Trump used to tell his fans that he would win so much that they would get tired of winning.

This week, that may be true for the first time.

President Joe Biden’s disjointed and painful debate performance in Atlanta on Thursday night (27) handed Trump a huge victory at the most crucial moment of the 2024 White House campaign as he seeks to win a second non-consecutive term and mount a stunning political comeback.

Trump seized on the aftermath of the debate during a Friday rally in Virginia and drew a connection between what he said was the “decline” of both his opponent and America.

“As every American saw firsthand last night, this election is a choice between strength and weakness, competence and incompetence, peace and prosperity, war or no war,” Trump said.

Hours after the debate, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the Justice Department overreached in charging the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters handed the presumptive Republican nominee what he immediately hailed on social media as a “HUGE WIN.” The 6-3 decision was a symbolic victory for the former president a day after he used the debate to try to whitewash the worst attack on democracy in modern times.

There could also be legal ramifications, with some scholars arguing that the ruling could narrow the scope of Trump’s federal election interference trial, even though Special Counsel Jack Smith believes his case can proceed unaffected. The former president’s lawyers have already signaled that they will seek the rejection of evidence and the accusation of obstruction against the former president.

The court issued its ruling ahead of an even more critical case that will more directly affect Trump’s criminal entanglements. On Monday, the justices are expected to finally rule on his broad claim of immunity for acts committed while in office. If the long-awaited decision by the conservative-majority court requires new litigation in a lower court, it could have the effect of delaying Smith’s election interference trial well beyond the November election, even if it does not immediately curtail aspects of the special counsel’s indictment.

Trump’s year of peaks and disasters

With Trump planning a return to the White House, the justices’ assessment of never-before-considered arguments about the limits of executive power is especially critical given his controversial belief that he would enjoy nearly unfettered authority in the Oval Office, effectively placing the president above of law.

There was more good legal news for Trump in Florida when his appointed federal judge Aileen Cannon dove even deeper into pretrial litigation in the case over confidential documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Cannon’s handling of the case — and his frequent clashes with Smith’s team — have already ensured that yet another of Trump’s criminal charges will not go to trial before the election. And like the federal election interference case, the documents issue is something that a Trump-appointed attorney general in a second administration would have the power to dismiss. A second 2020 election case, in Georgia, is also stalled — in part because of a controversy and appeals process triggered by a relationship between District Attorney Fani Willis and a prosecutor she appointed.

There have been many dark weeks for Trump this year, especially during the trial that resulted in him becoming the first former president and presumptive major party nominee to be found guilty of a crime. And on July 11, his humiliation will be reinforced when he attends sentencing in New York before Judge Juan Merchan.

His forced presence will represent his year of personal and political ups and downs, as it will come just days before the former president travels to the Republican National Convention to formally accept his third consecutive presidential nomination. Trump is also expected to take advantage of the event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to present his vice-presidential candidate.

The election is still four months away — a period of time that could see unexpected events and internal and external crises that could transform the race. But Thursday night’s debate could hardly have gone better for Trump, who is in a tight race with Biden, with a slight lead in the swing states that will decide the election.

While it is too early to gauge how voters will react, the president’s disastrous performance has triggered despair among Democrats who are now questioning whether Biden should stay in the race. Even if Biden can bounce back, his campaign will never be able to erase the impressions of millions of viewers who saw an elderly man struggling to finish sentences, losing his train of thought and gaping at Trump, who presents a more vigorous if deceptive figure. The optics of the evening helped reinforce the Republican narrative that the 81-year-old president suffers from impaired cognition and the view of most Americans that he is too old to serve a second term.

Biden’s struggles also gave Trump a free pass on a night when his torrent of lies and conspiracy theories showed that he had actually become more vindictive and threatening to the rule of law since leaving office in disgrace after a chaotic presidency in January 2021.

A more effective performance by the president in the debate could have inflicted lethal damage on Trump’s campaign. But while Biden failed the debate’s vitality test, the former president’s generally calm demeanor in the early, critical exchanges meant he didn’t fall for Biden’s accusations that he was “unhinged” and that something had “snapped” within him. While the president was able to highlight Trump’s extreme behavior and lies later in the night, the early contest was so devastating for Biden that his successes may have gone unnoticed by many voters.

Trump is just three years younger than Biden and often falls into jargon at campaign events. But polls show that voters care less about their mental faculties and their age.

Many senior Democrats argued publicly on Friday that a bad debate did not mean that the reality of the election — involving a Republican candidate who has already tried to destroy democracy and could do so again — has not changed. However, the harsh truth for Biden is that his disastrous performance will only exacerbate the concerns of many voters who cannot imagine him fully executing a second term that would end when he is 86.

Supreme Court delivers more favorable news for Trump

On January 6th, in hundreds of cases, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Justice Department overreached in bringing obstruction charges against people who stormed the Capitol. At least some of these cases will likely be reopened. However, the high court ruled that charges could still be brought against the protesters if prosecutors were able to demonstrate that they were trying to not only enter the building but also prevent the certification of the 2020 election. This detail could allow Smith to also maintain the same accusation against Trump.

Trump’s team hopes to file motions to have obstruction charges against the former president dismissed, a source familiar with the matter told Paula Reid of CNN . Still, Smith’s case against the presumptive GOP nominee is based on a more comprehensive set of events and evidence than that presented against members of the pro-Trump mob.

But even if a new legal strategy from the Trump team succeeds in delaying the proceedings with more litigation, it would reinforce their long-term goal of delaying the trial. As it stands, there appears to be little chance of a jury hearing the case in the coming months unless there is a blanket rejection by the high court of Trump’s immunity claim next week.

However, if Trump loses the election and the case proceeds unimpeded, even the possibility of his lawyers reducing his criminal exposure could be immensely valuable to the former president.

In the Florida documents case, Cannon said Thursday he wants to hold additional hearings into Trump’s attempt to dispute key evidence and will allow his lawyers to question witnesses about the investigation and the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago for documents confidential in 2022.

Cannon has been accused of dragging out the case through multiple hearings. Some critics have attributed the delays to her inexperience. Others have suggested she is acting out of favoritism toward the president who appointed her. But in an 11-page ruling Thursday, the judge rebuked her critics.

“There is a difference between a ‘mini-trial’ that wastes resources and produces delays, on the one hand, and an evidentiary hearing aimed at adjudicating the factual and legal issues contested in a given pretrial motion to suppress,” Cannon wrote.

As far as Trump is concerned, Cannon can prolong the case as long as he wants, especially if it maintains its recent favorable developments.