Biden’s Campaign Trolls Trump Outside the Courthouse, in a First

After first ignoring former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, then beginning to make sly insinuations about how he was “free on Wednesdays,” the court’s day off, President Biden’s campaign has jumped in with a stunt designed to emphasize the unprecedented situation of a major party’s presidential candidate awaiting a felony verdict.

The Biden campaign on Tuesday held a news conference outside the Manhattan courthouse with Robert De Niro, the actor whose voice narrates the campaign’s latest ad, as well as Harry Dunn and Michael Fanone, two former U.S. Capitol Police officers who have attacked Mr. Trump over his role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Mr. De Niro said that Mr. Trump had engaged in a “coward’s violence” after the 2020 election.

“He directs the mob to do his dirty work for him,” he said.

After the news conference, Mr. De Niro veered far off the script the Biden campaign wrote for him by directly addressing the prospect of a Mr. Trump conviction.

“The fact is whether he’s acquitted, whether it’s hung jury, he is guilty — and we all know it,” Mr. DeNiro said. “I’ve never seen a guy get out of so many things, and we all know this. Everybody in the world knows this.”

Asked if he thought Mr. Trump should be in jail, Mr. De Niro replied: “I sure do. Absolutely.”

The news conference was the sort of thing the Trump campaign would have done from the beginning if the political situation were reversed.