Today, Donald Trump became the first former U.S. president to stand trial on criminal charges.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records that arose from an alleged effort to keep salacious — and, he says, bogus — stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign.
“I would never have thought that I would see this day,” longtime Republican Eric Tanenblatt tells the podcast. “But then again, I never thought that I would see someone like Donald Trump.”
Jury selection in the historic trial began today. Trump arrived at the Manhattan courthouse shortly before Monday’s edition of “Politically Georgia.” The former president said the case was “political persecution” before entering the courtroom.
Kennesaw State University professor Kerwin Swint weighed in on whether this case will affect the November election when Trump is expected to face President Joe Biden.
“I’m not even sure at this point that a conviction in the New York case would hurt him in the polls very much,” Swint says. ”I just don’t think it’s going to have that kind of impact.”
A New York Times/Sienna Poll, which was conducted April 7-11, shows Trump and Biden at about even.
Outgoing Democratic DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond says Trump often uses the publicity from these cases as platforms.
“(Trump) has a unique ability to turn these trials into political platforms, even a political circus,” Thurmond says. “There’s not anyone that I know, really, just to be honest, who would think that regardless of the outcome of either Georgia or New York, this is going to impact his base.”
The New York case is the first of four criminal cases against the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee for president. One of those four cases is the election interference case in Georgia led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Tuesday on “Politically Georgia”: Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr will join us to discuss why he’s joined a seven-state coalition in filing suit against the Biden administration’s most recent plan to reduce student loan debt.
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