Opinion

'We may be understating the potential, and even the Biden campaign may be understating the potential, impact.’

Podcast episode

Ruth Marcus: We haven’t really internalized the impact of the new reality here, which is that we have a former president of the United States, the soon to be, days after his sentencing, Republican presidential nominee, convicted of 34 felony counts. And there is a group of Trump-adjacent, Trump-curious, potentially Trump-disgusted voters who I think are going to be taken aback by this and turned off by it. The reality of it happening hasn’t really sunk in for people yet. We may be understating the potential, and even the Biden campaign may be understating the potential, impact of this conviction.

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Dana Milbank: Anybody who says they know what the impact is going to be is lying about this, because we’ve never had a convicted felon running for president on the top of a major-party ticket before.

Karen Tumulty: A lot of people had cast doubt on the idea of even bringing this trial. Some people called it the runt of the litter. You, Ruth, were not such a fan of this prosecution. Did your thinking change?

Marcus: Well, I have been a doubt-caster, but I want to put this trial in a larger context. And I think this is a potential argument that the Biden campaign could be making. Which is: It was unfortunate that the weakest and, to some extent,........

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