In the circus-like atmosphere surrounding Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial, the former president made the decision to avoid taking the witness stand in his own defense. While Trump had previously claimed he would testify, his legal team ultimately rested their case without calling him on Tuesday.
For Trump’s allies, it was the prudent choice given the perceived political motivations driving the prosecution’s case. By not testifying, Trump denied Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s team the opportunity to try and bait him into perjury or damaging misstatements under a likely hostile cross-examination.
“You don’t subject yourself to that nonsense,” Trump’s son Donald Jr. told reporters, deriding the trial as a “kangaroo court” and “sham” meant to derail his father’s 2024 presidential campaign.
While critics claim Trump’s silence implies guilt over the hush money payments at the core of the case, his defenders counter that he simply avoided an unnecessary legal risk given the inherent biases at play. With the judge allowing questionable testimony like that of porn star Stormy Daniels, concerns over fairness were legitimate.
Ultimately, the defense seems to have calculated that rather than providing potential ammunition to prosecutors, their best path was to poke holes in the evidence and testimonies presented, and then make their final appeal through closing arguments alone. It deprived Bragg’s office of a potential spectacle, but also shielded Trump from awkward contradictions or gaffes.
The trial itself did little to sway public perceptions of Trump one way or the other, with polling showing most Americans tuning out the legal drama entirely amid general fatigue with years of investigations against him. His favorability was essentially unmoved.
For Trump, the stakes remain high despite the perceived flimsiness of the hush money case itself. With his other legal entanglements largely stalled for now, this trial represented perhaps the biggest near-term threat of derailing his third White House run.
By keeping his guard up on the witness stand, Trump denied prosecutors the kind of made-for-TV moment they may have craved while keeping the spotlight on what he claims are the holes and political biases underlying the case itself. Whether that’s enough to survive a jury conviction is yet to be determined. But for Trump, avoiding potential self-inflicted wounds was a risk he calculated was not worth taking.