Fareed Zakaria admits ‘doubt’ that New York charges would have been brought against anyone but ‘Donald Trump’
Fareed Zakaria admitted on his show Sunday that the felony charges brought against former President Trump in New York over falsifying business records appear politically motivated.
"I doubt the New York indictment would have been brought against a defendant whose name was not Donald Trump," Zakaria said.
The CNN host argued that the trial against Trump guarantees to "keep him in the spotlight" and "infuriate his base."
Overall, the trial against Trump, Zakaria said, is making him a more sympathetic figure to the American public.
To Trump's base, the former president is viewed as a "martyr." To the general public, Trump's legal troubles "even may serve to make him the object of some sympathy among people in general who believe that his prosecutors are politically motivated."
"This happens to be true, in my opinion," he said.
TRUMP SUPPORTERS FLOCK TO MASSIVE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN RALLY TO HEAR FORMER PRESIDENT SPEAK AMID ONGOING TRIALS
Zakaria also spoke on growing division in the Democratic Party and the comparative unity in the Republican Party.
"There's no denying that the [Democratic] party seems more openly divided than it has been in decades," he said. "Only 33% of Americans said they approved of Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war, which is now opposed both by people who think he's too soft and people who think he's too hard on Israel."
"Meanwhile, Republicans seem to be uniting behind Trump," Zakaria said.
A recent Trump campaign rally in New Jersey, a deep blue state, drew between 80,000 to 100,000 people, according to a Trump spokesperson who spoke with AP News.
The rally occurred as Trump enters the second week of his trial, in which the former president has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. The charges stem from a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and are related to alleged payments made ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence Daniels about an alleged 2006 extramarital affair with Trump.
Zakaria criticized President Biden and the Democratic Party on the border crisis Friday, saying that Biden "should learn something from Trump."
"So the whole system is broken," Zakaria said of the modern asylum process. "And Biden needs to confront that and say, you know, ‘We are going to have to reform the whole system.’"
"I would wish he’d do something much more extreme, like say, ‘The old asylum system is dead. No one is coming in through that process. You have to apply from your home country,’" he added.
Fox News' Alexander Hall, Brooke Singman and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.