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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good Monday morning, everyone. Did you know jury selection is beginning today in a historic criminal trial in the middle of a presidential election year brought by the Biden Justice Department? It's the trial of President Biden's son, Hunter. That other trial you may have heard about that ended last week with 34 guilty verdicts was not brought by the Biden Justice Department, in case anyone is keeping score, which a lot of people are.

It was brought by DA Alvin Bragg of Manhattan, who may himself be brought to testify before Congress, brought there by Republicans as both parties try to maximize any political advantage they may get from the Trump trial and its outcome. There's been a lot of that going on on both sides over the weekend, with the verdicts still so new. A Politico headline, for example, reads: Why both parties see a silver lining to Trump's conviction.

Jill Colvin is reporting on the trial and its aftermath for the Associated Press. She is a national political reporter covering the 2024 presidential campaign and joins us now. We'll also touch on her latest AP story headline: Trump joins TikTok and calls it an honor. As president, he once tried to ban the video-sharing app. Jill, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jill Colvin: Thanks so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Would you like to do the TikTok story first? Your article reminds us that, as president, Trump tried to ban TikTok through an executive order that said, "The spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned" by Chinese companies was a national security threat. The courts blocked the action. You remind us after TikTok sued. What's this about-face?

Jill Colvin: Now he's on it and has millions and millions of followers. It was a surprise announcement where Trump was at a UFC fight in Newark, just across the river on Saturday night and filmed his first video from there. I will say the White House, which has banned TikTok on government devices, Biden has signed legislation that would effectively ban TikTok in the US if its owner company in Beijing doesn't sell it in the next nine months. His campaign is also on TikTok as well.

What we're seeing there is both sides deciding that regardless of what they think of potential national security risks and those concerns, that it's nonetheless more advantageous for their campaigns to be on this platform that reaches especially young voters that are so difficult for campaigns to reach these days. If you're a campaign, you're releasing ads on radio, on cable, trying to reach these voters. TikTok is just this huge audience of 70 million people in the US that both sides have decided it makes more sense to try to target.

Brian Lehrer: Do either the Trump campaign or the Biden campaign try to explain at a policy level why they're going against what they've both said, in effect, as President Trump, through his executive order, banning TikTok, Biden signing this bill just recently, banning TikTok if the current China-linked company doesn't divest?

Jill Colvin: Yes. The Biden people have said directly, look, we need to be going after voters where they are. That's what's most important now. We're going to be trying to speak to people, whether it's on TikTok, whether it's on Facebook, whether it's on any of these platforms. That's what's most important to us. For Trump, the argument he's been making is actually that he is opposed to the idea of banning TikTok because he believes it would help Facebook.

Now, if you'll remember, Trump has a longstanding beef with Facebook since the 2020 election. He has put forward a bunch of false accusations about the company's efforts during that election. Basically, his argument is one of those, our mutual enemies who we're going to align against. For him, his argument has been, let's not ban TikTok because that'll help Facebook.

Brian Lehrer: I guess, we did a segment last week on how the Biden campaign is responding to these multiple polls that have been going on for months now that show, surprisingly to a lot of Democrats, more Black and Latino voters, more voters under 30, all of whom you would expect to be very allergic to Donald Trump, considering what he has stood for, what a lot of his rhetoric has been, a little bit of a movement.

Maybe it's just a few points. Maybe it's a little more than a few points. Even if it is only a few points, that might be enough to move a few swing states, and therefore make a difference in the election. One of the conclusions that the analysts came to as Biden launched a particular phase of the campaign in Philadelphia last week, targeting specifically Black voters, Latino voters, young voters, is that a lot of the people who they need to reach are what are often called low information voters or people who are not engaged in politics, like a lot of listeners to the show, a lot of readers of your articles from the Associated Press might be relatively engaged politically.

A lot of people who vote, who therefore can help determine the outcome of the presidential election, are not so engaged, so they only know what they hear in passing or on social media. That's where we come back to this use of TikTok by both of them. There's a lot of political content being shared on TikTok and before audiences who in many cases do vote but are not in the weeds of the details of policy or what each candidate would really, really do, like some people might be listening right now.

Jill Colvin: Absolutely. We really need to remember that this is an election that both sides believe is going to be extraordinarily close, won by tens or several hundred thousand voters in this very small segment of five to seven swing states that they're focused on right now. Everything they're doing is trying to move votes at those margins. If you can just chip away a percentage point here, a percentage point there, that's what could determine this election.

You've actually seen the Trump campaign doing this throughout the campaign, sort of focusing on non-traditional kinds of outreach. He certainly is continuing to hold his rallies that he's known for, but we've also seen him do a lot of other things. He held a smaller rally in the Bronx. He has been going to UFC fights, these ultimate fighting championship, very masculine energy, thousands of people, rah-rah, people chanting, swearing anti-Biden chants from the stands, going to football games.

At one point, he launched a sneaker brand at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia. Doing those kinds of events that they hope will break through to just the kind of voters you were talking about, people who are most certainly not listening right now, who are not watching Cable News, who are not reading newspapers, and trying to figure out ways that they can permeate the various sources where they are getting their information to see if they can get Trump in front of those kinds of audiences.

Brian Lehrer: Would you say that those are male-oriented events that Trump is trying to emphasize? There's always a gender gap in the polls, and I think it's worse or better, depending on how you look at it for Trump than a lot of other candidates. Politically recently or over time, in any of the groups, any of the ethnic groups, let's say, when you break down the polling results, there's a gender gap that I think exceeds the traditional gender gap. Often males vote more conservatively than females, but more so in the case of Trump. He's going to ultimate fighting events. You mentioned the sneakers. It sounds like he's going after guys.

Jill Colvin: The Trump campaign definitely sees especially Black younger men as a prime demographic that they might be able to appeal to here. Black women have been one of President Biden's most loyal and consistent voting blocs, certainly in the 2020 election. Anecdotally in polling, it's very clear that there definitely remains that gender gap there. When it comes to other groups that he's trying to win over young people, definitely their rhetoric seems to skew towards men as well. When it comes to winning over more Hispanic voters, that feels a little bit more broad, hoping to win over both men and women.

Certainly, there is, especially at these fighting events, very much that macho male energy that he's trying to seize upon. Also remember the moment that we're in right now, where he is coming off of a criminal conviction at a moment of personal and what should be in a normal world, a moment of political and personal weakness as a candidate, and choosing to put himself into this hyper-masculine environment where he's going to be cheered on by a room full of rowdy supporters, the image that projects, the strength that they hope projects in this particular moment.

Brian Lehrer: All right. On to the post-Trump conviction presidential campaign unprecedented in US history, as no former president has ever been found guilty of a crime before, and this, of course, is happening at the height of a presidential campaign that involves that person. Do you agree with that Politico headline that I cited earlier that both parties see a silver lining to the convictions in a campaign context?

Jill Colvin: Yes and no. I think for Democrats certainly, when you're running against an opponent, who is now somebody who has been criminally convicted, who will be sentenced in July and potentially face jail time, it's something that strategists would see as advantageous. On the Republican side, I think it's a little bit more complicated. Certainly in the short term, Trump's campaign has seen a pretty extraordinary wave of contributions from small-dollar donors online. They were up after the first 24 hours more than $50 million, which is just a ton of money. They literally crashed the payment system that Republicans used to process online credit card payments.

They saw a wave of support, both from those everyday donors, as well as across the political spectrum across the hill, in races across the country of people coming to the former president's defense. Do they feel energized by that? Does it feel like there's a bump and new momentum? Absolutely. We also have to keep in mind what the end prize here is, which is winning in November. Just the way that the electorate is, which so most people have very clear opinions about the two candidates, being very clear where they stand, your universe of swing voters of people who are undecided who are on the fence is so small.

The question is, how does this resonate with those voters? That's the million-dollar question that we don't know the answer yet. Look, you can pull people and you can ask, does this conviction make you more or less likely to vote for Trump come November? The fact is that the voters are notoriously bad at predicting their future behavior, or if you want to look at it differently, are not necessarily honest when they tell pollsters how this might impact their behavior. Maybe they want to look like they're saying, of course, this makes me less likely, and when it comes to what they do in the voting booth, that may be different.

Looking at the kinds of demographics that will win this election, those independent voters, those suburban women, people who dislike both Biden and Trump and are trying to figure out which of the two lesser-- who's the lesser evil? Do I even show up? Is this decision or is this verdict going to motivate those people is the question, and we just don't know.

Brian Lehrer: There are some early polls on this. Like you say, people may not always tell pollsters the truth, also, it's very, very early, but you've probably seen them just since the verdict. There's a Reuters Ipsos poll that found 25% of independents saying they're less likely to vote for Trump because he was found guilty of a crime. A Morning Consult poll, half of independents, 49% said, they framed the question as, should he drop his campaign for the White House? Should he drop out of the race because he's now a convict? 49% of independents who talked to Morning Consult said that. What do you take from those polls? I realized we always take polls with mountains of salt, but those are some pretty striking numbers.

Jill Colvin: Yes. That's exactly why I was saying that even though the Trump campaign feels very energized right now, feel like they have this new anger and verve to the former president's campaign. They've got all of this money that's been pouring in. When you actually look at what this means in terms of November's outcome, just thinking about if you're somebody who's on the fence, does the news that a jury of Trump's peers have found him guilty of all of these crimes, how does that end up helping him?

Certainly, there are segments of voters who feel as Trump has been alleging now for more than a year, this is politically motivated, that this is an effort by Democrats at large to take him down and to hobble his campaign. There are certainly those people out there, but I think we'll see as the coming months develop as well. It's only June now, the election is in November. There's a lot of time between now and then. We'll see as the polling continues over the next couple of months, how raw this remains and how important it remains in voters' minds.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, I wonder if any undecided presidential voters happen to be listening right now who have a reaction to the verdicts in terms of if they make you more or less likely to vote for either Trump or Biden. Some people told the pollsters that they're more likely to vote for Trump because of the verdicts because they do see the criminal justice system as singling him out. More people told these pollsters from Ipsos Reuters and Morning Consult, a lot more people who are political independents, as they self-identify anyway, that it would work against their voting for Donald Trump.

Anybody like that, one way or another, who really considers yourself a presidential swing voter? You're really like undecided at this point between Trump and Biden, assuming they get through their convention, and they're actually their party's nominees. Anybody who has a reaction that you're experiencing over the last few days, even if you haven't landed on anybody yet? If you're really an undecided voter, we'd love to hear from you. Other people may call too with comments or questions for Jill Colvin, political reporter for the AP covering the presidential campaign. 212-433-WNYC call or text, 212-433-9692.

Your article is headlined: Trump tries to move past his guilty verdict by attacking the criminal justice system. Do you mean the whole criminal justice system, not just the judge or the prosecutor in this case, who of course, he was going after daily while the trial was underway?

Jill Colvin: Yes, because of his criticism on Friday. This was an event that he held at Trump Tower on Friday. It was his first time outside of the courthouse addressing reporters, addressing the world's post-verdict, and really signaling to all of us what this campaign is going to look like moving forward. This is a campaign that has really wrapped itself around these first indictments and then moving into these trials, and gives us a sense of how he will continue to run against the criminal justice system in the country, run against prosecutors, and judges, even as he moves past that phase of the campaign. He really did attack.

He was going against the judge whom he labeled the devil, going after Bragg, tying it to the broader Biden Justice Department, even though of course, this was brought by state prosecutors, not the federal government, and just trying to, as he so often does, to sully the whole system and to paint it against him.

Also, notably in language we've heard before, but that feels particularly notable now, he tries to frame it as if they can do this to me, and if they're against me, they can also do this to you. You just a normal person, wasn't a former president, not a candidate, not somebody who has a ton of money, if they can do this to me, what does that mean for you? He's really trying to cast himself as this underdog fighting this justice system and political system and establishment that's against him, in a way that he's been able to do since he first ran for office.

Brian Lehrer: How does he even make that case? Have you been at rallies or in any other context where you see whether that connects with ordinary voters or not? If they're going after me, me in this case being Donald Trump, who was running for president and falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to an adult film star who said they had sex because he didn't want the public to know after the Access Hollywood tape came out. How does that relate to [unintelligible 00:20:04]?

Jill Colvin: Yes, I think maybe some people would be surprised, especially feel like New York is sometimes a political bubble. I've spent a number of years covering Trump and speaking to voters and supporters all across the country. This message does resonate with a lot of people. Oftentimes you'll hear them talk about ways that they feel like they have been alienated or been discriminated against because of their political views, talking about things like on Facebook having their account suspended because they're engaged in political speech or being told that things that they believe, like the 2020 election, there's folks who continue to believe that the election was stolen and unfair, being told that that's wrong, people feeling like they are unfairly labeled as racist or as sexist because they support the former president.

They'll say because they feel like he made the economy better or they like his policies or they're drawn to him in various other ways. There definitely is this feeling of anger, of people feeling like they are out of place in the country, that the country at least that they're seeing in the news or portrayed by the media or by Hollywood doesn't fit their idea of what they want America to be. The way that Trump is able to use and articulate this language of anger, of vengeance, of wanting things to be back the way they used to be, that kind of framing really does seem to resonate with a lot of people across the country, even if they're not specifically thinking like, oh, I could be in trouble for falsifying business records in an election case.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Associated Press national political reporter Jill Colvin covering the presidential campaign. We have some interesting-looking calls lined up. One of them, if it's really who she says she is, looks like it's the Democrat running against Elise Stefanik in Upstate New York. We'll take that call and maybe yours, 212-433-WNYC, your calls and your texts, right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC in our usual Monday morning politics segment to start the week focusing today on the aftermath, the politics over the weekend of the Trump verdicts, and how both presidential campaigns and a lot of people in Congress are trying to use it to their advantage or minimize the disadvantage. I said we're going to talk to the caller who says she's the Democrat running against Elise Stefanik in Upstate New York, but we can let a professional politician from either party wait for a minute, hang on, we're going to get to you.

I had invited listeners who were genuinely undecided and might be weighing this verdict now as to whether it's going to affect how likely you are or more likely or less likely to vote for either Biden or Trump. We have a couple of those potential undecided voters calling in, and we're going to hear from the voters before we hear from the candidate. Mark in Westchester, you're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling.

Mark: Hey, thanks for taking my call. I am a true independent, which means I have an equal level of disdain for both of these political parties and their candidates because of their variety of things, but including their extreme partisanship, which I think is really hurting this country. That being said, this trial made me more undecided because of the one hand Trump's behavior once again was just, for me, unacceptable. His rhetoric, the way he talks about people involved in the trial, and all the rest of it. At the same time, the whole endeavor from Bragg to me was so unbelievably political from day one. Come on.

Most people who just honestly take a look at this thing say at best this should have been settled out of court quickly. He decided to make this into a show trial, is what it ended up being. Where does it leave me? It leaves me just nowhere because right now the alternative is perhaps Kennedy and he's not acceptable to me as well.

Brian Lehrer: You don't like how either side went about this. It sounds like it hasn't moved the needle for you in either direction toward Biden or toward Trump. It's just left you more disgusted with the whole thing.

Mark: Right, disgusted. Politics is what it is. We have these two older candidates, both of whom are, to me, unacceptable. Biden based on his performance as president over the last number of years, which I think has been weak. Trump is Trump. I've never voted for Trump and it's going to be tough for me to vote for him this time. There I am.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Mark, thank you very much. Thank you for sharing. Call us again, keep us posted on where you land as we get closer to election day. We really appreciate it. We have another like this. Jason in Yonkers, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jason. Thank you for calling in.

Jason: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I am a lifelong Democrat. I am I believe profoundly in women's rights and the need to address climate change. I've always voted Democrats. I am undecided in this particular election, specifically for the migrant crisis issue in New York City, which our mayor has expressed will destroy our city fiscally within the next 5 to 10 years. I don't think Biden is doing enough to address the issues that Trump really has honed in on as what he's going to tackle on day one. I think if Biden can really step up his game with talking about the migrant crisis because I'm very worried as a New Yorker and it would break my heart to vote Democratic, but I feel like this issue might be the most important issue in our country right now. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: The trial, the verdict, does it tip you one way or the other? Because it's not something you just brought up. Is this irrelevant to the decision that you'll ultimately make?

Jason: I think that Trump is not a good person, but I think that this country if I could think about how people vote, they vote for transactional relationships. I don't think Trump is a moral person. I don't think he's a good person. He's obviously a cheater and a con artist, but at the end of the day, people have to worry about putting food on the table for their families and making sure their cities are safe. I'm very torn, but there are issues on both sides that are calling to me right now as a voter. I don't think there is a perfect candidate, to be honest.

Brian Lehrer: Jason, thank you very much. Please, you call us again too, as you come closer to your decision. Our guest is Jill Colvin, national politics reporter for the Associated Press covering the presidential campaign. There's a tiny sample of two voters, but I wonder what you were thinking listening to those two undecideds.

Jill Colvin: Yes, I think the question for two of them is whether they actually end up voting. If you're that frustrated by both of the choices in this country, you're so frustrated by both of the choices long before the trial, do you just stay home? When you're in that voting booth, if you decide you want to vote, is it a protest vote? What is it that in your heart makes you choose between one or the other? I think the other thing that stuck out to me is just the focus on those issues that have been the dominating issues of this campaign from the start.

Inflation and prices remaining difficultly high for people if they're making their grocery purchases and filling their cars up with gas and also immigration and the way that that is going to continue to define [unintelligible 00:28:19] one of the defining issues of this election.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Next here is Paula Collins calling from Canton, New York in the Adirondacks. That's in the district currently represented by Elise Stefanik. Paula Collins is the name of the Democrat who's running against her. Is this the real Paula Collins? Hello, thank you for calling in.

Paula Collins: Hello. This is the real Paula Collins. Thank you for taking my call, big fan of your work. To answer the question of the hour, which is how has the verdict affected us in terms of how I'm navigating my own campaign to draw the line against MAGA and to potentially oust Elise Stefanik, who calls herself an Ultra MAGA. Whereas previously I was not going to direct very much of the campaign effort to registered Republicans, of which there are many in my district. Since the verdict, I will be reaching out to those voters, both with canvassing door to door and with postcards, and hopefully finding those Republicans for whom this is just aligned too far.

This has gone a little bit over their sense of what is acceptable. Prior to this, we were reaching out and are reaching out to what we call blank voters, those voters who are registered to vote, but they have not expressed any party preference in terms of any of the parties, Democrat, Republican, Working Families, Conservative, Green Party, Libertarian. Any of those that we can indicate in our voter registration records. I will say that on Friday and on Saturday, actually on Saturday and Sunday, I had two different events. One was in St. Lawrence County in Canton, the Dairy Festival. A big parade, wonderful celebration of St. Lawrence County's biggest industry, which is dairy. We had a booth and we also had the parade.

We had many people come up to the booth and ask questions. The Democratic Committee had a wonderful sign-in sheet where you could express your opinions, and it was just a big sheet where you could scroll, whatever. We had last year's opinion sheet on the table as well, so it was interesting to compare. There were Republicans who came up and expressed their opinions, and many of them are galvanized. We did have some who came up who seemed confused, like, well, what do we do now? There was one man in particular whom I remember who said, yes, he voted for Trump, but he can't go there this time. It's too much.

During the parade, I had one person come right up to me and say, are you a Democrat? I said, yes, I am a proud Democrat. He said, get the hell out of here. In the moment, wanted to make sure I didn't say anything that then would show up in the press, so I said, peace be with you. [laughs] I think at some point, there are some voters that will never vote for me. My hope is that there are other voters who will vote for either the Democrat or vote for me on the Working Families Party line.

Brian Lehrer: What would you say to the caller who was just on, particularly the one Mark in Westchester, if you were listening, who said he was very judgmental of the way Trump behaved during the trial, but he also thought that it was political from the first with Alvin Bragg. How would you try to tip him to the Democrat side of the ledger if he was in your district in the context of the trial and say that Trump was worse than whatever, however, he may be judging Bragg, or maybe that's not the way you would go about it. Were you listening to those two callers and would have anything to say to them?

Paula Collins: I was, and thank you for that question. This was not just Alvin Bragg rendering a verdict, nor was it Judge Merchan. It was 12 people chosen randomly. If you've ever gone through jury duties or seen the selection process, these were not people that were vetted. These were random people drawn from the jury pool, and these 12 people found Donald Trump guilty, not only of 1 count but 34 counts. They reached that decision rather quickly in terms of jury deliberations.

The other thing I would point out is that I'm not so concerned about Donald Trump. I mean, I am concerned about Donald Trump. I'm in this race because I'm worried about what comes after Donald Trump. I'm worried about the younger Republicans such as Elise Stefanik, who are well-educated, they have a lot of money, and they have now been really programmed in this MAGA way of thinking to the extent that we have a document, 920 pages, called Project 2025, which is a highly detailed description of how they plan to dismantle our entire federal system. They will do it from within, and they will do it from without, from outside of the federal framework.

Let's look beyond Donald Trump and let's see what happens if we put not only Donald Trump, who is 77 years old, and many of us who observe him think, gosh, surely he's going to have a stroke at any moment. Of course, if we elect him, we're electing him for four years, but what comes after Donald Trump? That's what I'm really, really afraid of.

Brian Lehrer: I have one more question for you, Ms. Collins.

Paula Collins: Oh, yes.

Brian Lehrer: That is, why do you think your district-- and I know it's upstate in a largely rural area. I've spent a lot of time in the Adirondacks myself in my life, I talk to people who live there. I know one thing that's made them conservative over time is that they don't like how big the footprint of the New York State government is on what they can do with their land in that big region of the state known as the Adirondack Park. What has politicized the people in your district to the point where they have voted and voted again for Elise Stefanik who is this ultra-MAGA member of Congress?

Paula Collins: Well, a couple of things. One is when Elise was first elected in 2014, she was not ultra-MAGA, that predated MAGA. She was viewed as young, a woman. She was the darling of the district, if you will.

Brian Lehrer: Originally, but she has definitely moved to ultra-MAGA for a few election cycles now.

Paula Collins: In fact, she has and continues to do so, even since I announced my candidacy in February of this year, has even moved further to the right. I think where the voters are is it's-- I am a true blue Democrat, I love my party, but we have made mistakes. We have ignored rural America. We have not invested our time and our dollars in rural America. I will say nor have the Republicans.

The Republicans will typically come in, what I'm told, the last three or four weeks before an election, send around some postcards, put up some billboards, and that's what people remember, and that's what has captured the large numbers of votes. Now years later, we have these people who are entrenched. I drive around here and I do see Confederate flags. Those are not the people I'm trying to appeal to. I will not access those voters.

Brian Lehrer: You think there are many others who could be reached, but the Democrats haven't been doing a good job reaching them. I hear you. I have to go for time, but I appreciate you calling in. Thank you very much.

Paula Collins: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe we'll have a debate between you and Congresswoman Stefanik on the show at some point. Paula Collins, the Democrat running against Elise Stefanik, calling in as a caller, unsolicited. We just have two minutes left in the segment to go back to Jill Colvin, Associated Press national politics reporter covering mostly the presidential campaign. What'd you make of that?

Jill Colvin: I love your caller base. It's interesting to see how on the fly candidates are trying to tailor their messages to this new reality and trying to figure out, well, if I want to try to win over registered Republicans, what's the most effective way to do that? Maybe that doesn't include completely bashing Trump all the time since those people may have previously voted for him. How do you try to win over those people who might at this moment be reconsidering their decisions or figuring out where they're at?

Brian Lehrer: Thirty seconds. How do you think the beginning of the Hunter Biden trial today, brought by the Biden Justice Department, or the one that they brought against Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, now ongoing, plays into the politics of spinning the verdicts for Trump, if you think at all?

Jill Colvin: I think what you'll see Trump doing here is basically, even though this is quite literally Biden's Justice Department that is now putting his son on trial, I think what you'll see him do is trying to play this as the entire justice system is just corrupt and out of control and going after all of these people and then can't be trusted, and it's all a mess. It's the line that he consistently tries to achieve.

Brian Lehrer: Jill Colvin, national politics reporter for the Associated Press, focusing mostly on the presidential race. Thank you for joining us today, Jill. We really appreciate it.

Jill Colvin: Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We turn the page. Much more to come.

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