When it comes to his criminal crises, there’s one lie that Donald Trump prioritizes above all others: President Joe Biden, the suspected felon routinely insists, is directly responsible for the prosecutions.
The presumptive Republican nominee doesn’t just want this to be true, he needs this to be true. It’s foundational to his political defense and his political vision: It’s essential for Trump that voters believe that a corrupt Democratic incumbent is targeting him with baseless allegations as part of an elaborate electoral conspiracy involving prosecutors and grand jury members across multiple jurisdictions.
It is, by all appearances, a completely delusional idea. It’s also become the one lie Trump values most.
When the former president sat down with Time magazine’s Eric Cortellessa last month, for example, the reporter noted in passing that “there’s no evidence that President Biden directed this prosecution against you.” Trump interrupted to express his incredulity, pointed to evidence that didn’t exist, expanded the conspiracy theory to connect the Democratic incumbent to a civil case, and concluded, “It’s amazing when you say that Biden knew nothing. Biden knew everything.”
Trump didn’t know that to be true, but he wanted it to be true, so in his mind, it became true.
It was against this backdrop that there was an interesting exchange on Fox News yesterday. The Hill reported:
Fox News anchor and legal analyst Shannon Bream pushed back on an assertion made by Alina Habba, one of Donald Trump’s attorneys, that President Biden is responsible for the criminal charges the former president faces in New York.
Habba stuck to Team Trump’s usual script, falsely claiming that the hush money trial brought by local prosecutors in New York is “a Biden show.” Fox’s Bream reminded her guest that the Biden administration has nothing to do with the case.
“How can you say the Biden administration is not responsible?” Habba asked. “It’s a state trial,” Bream explained.
Trump evidently saw the exchange and was gobsmacked.
“I never knew Shannon Bream was so ‘naïve,’” the Republican wrote to his social media platform. “In her interview with my Representative, Alina Habba, Shannon just suggested that Crooked Joe Biden was not involved in my Show Trial. HOW STUPID! Not only is he involved, he is virtually leading it, and all of the other Trials as well.” To bolster his case, Trump encouraged the public to “take a look at the DOJ/White House Thugs involved, and everything else.” Let’s take those claims one at a time. First, it’s true that a former federal prosecutor joined the local district attorney’s office in 2022, but as a recent Washington Post report summarized, “[T]here is no evidence this was orchestrated in any way, and the official previously investigated Trump for the New York attorney general’s office — making him a logical pick to join [District Attorney Alvin] Bragg’s team. The investigation also began in 2018, years before Biden became president.” Second, I have no idea what “everything else” refers to — and chances are, neither does Trump. If he had evidence, he’d share the evidence instead of making vague references to “everything.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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