Biden targets Trump’s conviction as tensions ramp up ahead of debate

CNN —

President Joe Biden is directly trying to exploit Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in a significant new campaign gambit ahead of their pivotal debate clash next week.

The Biden campaign on Monday debuted a new ad that will air in battleground states that blasts the presumptive Republican nominee as a felon who only cares about himself. The strategy appears to resolve a debate among Democrats about how overtly they should highlight the ex-president’s legal woes in a neck and neck White House race.

The new front in the 2024 campaign opened up after Trump sought to win votes among Black Americans, a traditional Democratic power base where the ex-president is trying to make inroads despite his tarnished personal history on race. This comes as Republicans embrace their presumptive nominee despite his conviction and bid to overturn the 2020 election result, going all in on Trump as they seek to win back the White House and the Senate and keep the House.

Biden’s new ad zeroes in directly on the guilty verdict in Trump’s hush money trial and his huge loss in a civil fraud case to strike a sharp contrast with Biden’s character. As the ex-president’s mug shot flashes on screen, a narrator says: “This election is between a convicted criminal who’s only out for himself and a president who is fighting for your family.” The ad marks the Biden campaign’s most explicit strategic use so far of Trump’s legal woes in a campaign message.

Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu explained the thinking on CNN’s “News Central”: “What this ad is about is about showing the American people about the issue that’s going to decide this campaign: wisdom, courage, character.”

Trump’s campaign responded by blasting the hush money trial