"For the good of the country," Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) is calling on New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to pardon former President Donald Trump of his recent felony convictions.
To be clear, Phillips does not like Trump. On X, he called the former president "a serial liar, cheater, and philanderer," as well as "a six-time declarer of corporate bankruptcy, an instigator of insurrection, and a convicted felon who thrives on portraying himself as a victim." Despite all this, Phillips wants Trump to be pardoned in the interest of public civility.
For even making such a suggestion, and on social media no less, Phillips was raked over the coals by the lynch mob. He responded to all the backlash by doubling down on his call for Trump to be pardoned – because to not pardon Trump means increasing his chances of winning the White House in 2024.
"You think pardoning is stupid?" Phillips wrote. "Making him a martyr over a payment to a porn star is stupid. (Election charges are entirely different.) It's energizing his base, generating record sums of campaign cash, and will likely result in an electoral boost."
(Related: Did you know that Judge Juan Merchan has a history of corruption that likely influenced his judgment in the Trump case?)
Will Trump become America's first president to be found guilty of felony crimes?
In case you somehow missed it, Trump was found guilty, albeit shadily, on all 34 counts of falsifying business records during his 2016 run for the presidency. Trump essentially kept secret a payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter he had with her.
The presumptive GOP nominee once again in 2024, Trump stands a very real chance of winning a second – or depending on how you look at it, third – White House term. This would make Trump the first U.S. president to be found guilty of felony crimes.
Trump's sentencing is scheduled for some time in July.
Around the same time that Phillips tweeted his first message calling on Hochul to pardon Trump, he tweeted another one that seemingly contradicted the other:
"Pretty rich for the @mngop to demand the resignation of a Democratic state senator charged with a felony while endorsing a Republican presidential candidate convicted of a felony."
Phillips seems to be all over the place in delineating what he actually wants to happen, in other words. Is he a shameless opportunist or does he have a point in pushing for a more civil response to the Trump scandal?
By the way, a recent poll found that 49 percent of independent voters think Trump should drop out of the race entirely following his guilty verdict. Comparatively, just 15 percent of Republicans feel the same way.
The same poll found that the presidential race is basically tied with Biden hovering at around 45 percent support and Trump hovering at around 44 percent.
Among voters who feel as though Trump's guilty verdict should stand, about half of them, 49 percent, say that the former president should just get probation, this compared to 44 percent who believe Trump belongs in prison.
Nearly 70 percent of registered voters regardless of party feel as though Trump's punishment should be a fine, not jail time. Three in four Republican voters, meanwhile, say Trump's guilty verdict has eroded even further their confidence in the system.
Seventy-seven percent of GOP voters and 43 percent of independents indicated that they believe Trump's conviction is driven by politics rather than the rule of law.
The latest news about Trump's re-run for the presidency in 2024 can be found at Trump.news.
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