Trump aides are planning how they will keep campaigning if the former president ends up in jail. Here’s what they are considering
Donald Trump’s team is plotting a plan to continue the campaign if the former president ends up in jail or house arrest.
While Trump does not necessarily want to go to jail, he has suggested that he sees himself as a martyr to his supporters and that that view would only be exacerbated if he were ordered to report to jail.
The biggest change would be a suspension of Trump’s ability to travel around the country and hold his signature large-scale campaign rallies.
‘Everyone has come to this realization in recent months [it’s a possibility]and thought about what needed to be done,β a person close to the campaign said Semafor about the strategy if Trump is jailed. “These are all professionals.”
If Trump is taken off the campaign trail because he is behind bars, his campaign will likely deploy its surrogates and denounce even more loudly that the conviction is further evidence of “election interference.”
Donald Trump’s team is considering how to restructure the campaign if the former president is put behind bars or placed under house arrest in the hush money case
Judge Juan Merchan (pictured in a May 3 court sketch) found Trump in contempt on Monday for violating his gag order, fining him $1,000 and warning of jail time if he violates the ban again. Last week, Trump was fined $9,000 β $1,000 for each of nine violations
Trump’s supporters, according to most polls, will not be deterred if Trump is convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison. An ABC survey published Sunday found that 80% of the former president’s supporters would not change their vote in November if their candidate is convicted.
Judge Juan Merchan has already admitted he is reluctant to impose a prison sentence on the former president, calling it a “last resort.” That’s why Trump’s team is also investigating how he would continue his 2024 campaign if he were sentenced to house arrest.
The campaign would almost certainly scale up its fundraising messages and ask supporters to donate money to help Trump “defend democracy.”
Some aides believe that any restrictions imposed on the former president would only further his message that the trials are politically motivated and ways to derail his 2024 presidential campaign.
In the hush money trial on Monday, Judge Merchan found Trump in contempt for violating his gag order again and fined him $1,000. Last week he was fined $9,000 β $1,000 for each of nine violations.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday shows that 80% of Trump supporters would continue to support the ex-president in 2024 if he is convicted of a crime
“It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent,” the judge said Monday before jurors entered the room. “Therefore, this court will have to consider a prison sentence in the future.”
Trump glared at the judge as he delivered the ruling Monday, then shook his head twice and crossed his arms after he finished speaking and warned of prison time.
It is highly unlikely that Trump will remain silent, both in his conversations with the media and in his Truth Social account, making the possibility of punishment beyond fines all but inevitable.
The most obvious thing for Trump’s team is that regardless of the punishment, the former president would still take the lead on reporting.
Since Trump is unlikely to stop speaking to the media and posting to Truth Social about the trial, there is a chance that he will end up behind bars for repeatedly violating his silence order.
The biggest change to Trump’s 2024 strategy if he’s drafted is suspending his signature campaign rallies
Trump’s team claims the gag order is unconstitutional.
After Monday’s ruling marking the 10th violation of the gag order banning Trump from speaking about the trial and his subjects, the former president’s spokesman Steven Cheung accused Judge Juan Merchan of being “a partisan operative.”
βThe threat to throw the 45th President of the United States and the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election in jail for exercising his First Amendment rights is a Third World authoritarian tactic endemic to Crooked Joe Biden and his comrades,β Cheung said.