President Joe Biden’s campaign team on Tuesday staged a rally outside Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York City, breaking its months-long silence on the prosecution of the presumptive Republican nominee.
The rally featured Biden campaign spokesman Michael Tyler alongside actor Robert De Niro and two former U.S. Capitol police officers—Harry Dunn and Michael Fanone—as prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers were due to deliver their closing arguments. A 12-person jury will decide whether to convict Trump of falsifying business records in order to pay hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.
De Niro called Trump a "clown" and accused the former president of wanting to "sow total chaos," "buying votes with outrageous lies and empty promises," and "directing the mob to do the dirty work for him."
"Donald Trump wants to destroy not only [New York City], but the country, and eventually he could destroy the world," the 80-year-old actor said at the rally.
Dunn and Fanone described being assaulted by protesters during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, with the latter slamming Trump as an "authoritarian who answers to and serves only himself."
Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed the Biden rally as evidence that the prosecution of Trump is politically motivated.
"What you’ve just heard from is a desperate and failing and pathetic campaign who knows that they are losing," Leavitt said after the rally. "Joe Biden sending his campaign outside of this criminal courthouse—it is a full-blown concession that this trial is a witch hunt that comes from the top, comes from Joe Biden."
The Tuesday rally came after Biden’s campaign team largely ignored Trump’s hush money trial for months.
Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told reporters after the rally, "After months of saying the politics had nothing to do with this trial, they showed up and made a campaign event out of a lower Manhattan trial day for President Trump. In fact, Biden's cronies had a printed-out campaign sign saying 'Biden, Harris.' So why the change?"
"President Trump's numbers continue to rise. And the best that Biden can do is roll out a washed up actor," Miller added.