ANALYSIS — Donald Trump on Friday left a Manhattan courtroom and aired a laundry list of grievances about a range of topics, including being found guilty of sexual assault and his presidential rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, just days before their high-stakes debate.
Remarkably, in the midst of a neck-and-neck presidential race, the Republican nominee — unprompted by reporters from whom he took no questions during an hourlong appearance in New York City — brought up allegations of rape and assault by three women and insulted each of them. Women voters will be key in November, analysts say, especially in battleground states.
The former president referred to the women, who have accused him of physically assaulting them in a retail store, on an airplane and at his Florida resort, denying each accusation, calling them fabricated “stories” and saying he didn’t know the women.
“When you’re rich and famous, a lot of people come up with a lot of stories,” he said at Trump Tower. “We have a very corrupt system of laws.”
His gripes were not limited to his accusers. Trump also took verbal shots at Harris, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, multiple “rigged judges,” the “fake news” media — and even his own high-priced attorneys, with whom he said he was “disappointed.” Trump called his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen — who has testified against him — a “sleazebag.”
Though Trump promised when he stepped to a lectern in Manhattan to talk about the latest “job numbers, which are horrible,” he complained about his legal problems for more than a half hour. He finally circled back to the jobs data after speaking for nearly an hour. The Labor Department said earlier Friday that new data showed 142,000 new jobs were created last month and the unemployment rate fell to 4.2 percent. Before Trump’s Manhattan appearance, President Joe Biden in a statement called the new numbers a sign his and Harris’ policies have worked.
Trump claimed the data showed non-U.S. citizens are taking jobs that, in his view, should be going to Americans. “Our country is being invaded,” he said of illegal migrants. He was able to focus on the jobs report for about three minutes before pivoting into an assessment of the CNN journalists that moderated his lone debate with Biden and criticism of reporters and anchors at ABC, which will moderate his Tuesday showdown with Harris. Then he was back to his legal cases, which he collectively called a “disgrace,” adding: “Every single one of these cases that I’m mentioning is a hoax. … They’re hitting us as hard as possible.”
The 78-year-old Trump at times referred to note cards, something he and Republicans criticized 81-year-old Biden for doing — alleging it was evidence of his “cognitive decline.”
Trump spoke after attending a court hearing in New York over his appeal of a civil verdict that found him liable for sexually abusing columnist E. Jean Carroll in a department store in the 1990s.
He repeated his claims that he has “never met” Carroll, calling her a woman “I do not know” and accusing her of plagiarizing her account of the incident from the popular NBC show “Law & Order.” The judge in the civil case ruled otherwise. And Trump himself on Friday added a caveat to the issue, saying, “As far as I know, I’ve never met her.”
“This case,” he griped, “it’s a scam.”
Friday news blitz
With Harris behind closed doors in Pittsburgh preparing for the only planned debate between the general election foes, Trump set up his Friday to dominate the headlines.
There was cable news video footage of his motorcade arriving at a New York City courthouse. Then his campaign announced the midday press conference. And the former president already was slated to speak at a Fraternal Order of Police conference in Charlotte, the largest city and media market in battleground North Carolina.
Trump’s day in the spotlight came as polling shows him trailing Harris nationally, with a calculation of recent polling data by Project FiveThirtyEight putting her ahead 47.3 percent to his 44.2 percent.
On Friday, Trump distorted that data, calling himself “the former president who is now leading in the polls.”
But in the seven battleground states that will decide who is sworn in on Jan. 20, the race is much closer. Harris has pulled ahead in Georgia, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin — but very narrowly, according to polling averages tabulated by RealClearPolitics. Trump has even smaller leads in North Carolina and Arizona, and the duo was tied in Pennsylvania.
Democratic strategists and left-leaning activists have been gleeful since Biden announced on July 21 he would end his reelection bid amid pressure from within his own party to do so over concerns about his age and ability to defeat Trump.
But that swell of excitement has not produced a significant lead in the polls, and some Democratic operatives, like former Bill Clinton adviser James Carville, have warned their party mates against being too overconfident.
“On the face of it, the surge in popular support that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has enjoyed since President Biden withdrew from the race has moved her into the lead, not only in the national popular vote but also many of the states that have emerged as crucial in this era of close elections with historically small margins separating the parties,” according to William Galston of the Brookings Institution.
“We should also be cautious about concluding that Harris now enjoys a clear lead over Trump,” Galston added, predicting a photo finish in November. “In recent elections, not just individual polls but also poll averages have turned out to be misleading.”
That’s a big reason why Trump went right after Harris at his lunch-hour session in Manhattan.
He continued criticizing Harris for not conducting more media interviews since she ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket, saying she “refuses to do an interview because she can’t talk. … The people are getting it.”
But in audio posted by her campaign shortly before Trump began speaking, Harris said: “We need to turn the page on the Trump era.”
“This is a person who says immigrants ‘poison the blood of America.’ He seeks to divide our country,” the VP added. “He belittles people. He belittles members of the military for goodness’ sake. The sign of strength is not based on who you beat down, but on who you lift up.”
The rivals’ comments suggested Tuesday night’s everything-is-on-the-line debate almost certainly will focus on personal attacks as much as policy proposals.
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