Former President Donald Trump is likely to become the next U.S. president, according to Scottish-American historian Niall Ferguson.
“A second Trump act is not just possible. It’s fast becoming my base case,” Ferguson, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, wrote in a May 13 op-ed for The Spectator.
Ferguson explained that there is a “campaign of lawfare against Trump” but the effort “has already started to backfire.”
“It may seem paradoxical that the Democrats are harassing Trump in the courts if they want to run against him. But it makes sense: the prospect of him performing the perp walk attracts media coverage, and media coverage is the free publicity on which Trump has always thrived,” Ferguson wrote.
Ferguson added, “Every column inch or minute of airtime his legal battles earn him is an inch or a minute less for his Republican rivals for the nomination.”
On May 9, a New York jury found Trump civilly liable for battery and defamation in a lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. Her allegations, that she was raped by the former Trump in a department store sometime between late 1995 and early 1996, were dismissed.
The jury awarded Carroll $2 million in compensatory damages and $20,000 in punitive damages in the battery claim. She was awarded an additional $3 million in damages in the defamation claim.
Trump, who has denied the allegations, has since appealed the verdict.
In a separate case, Trump was charged on April 4 with 34 accounts of falsifying business records related to non-disclosure payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Ferguson also argued that if it were a two-man race between Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, there would be “a good deal more uncertainty around the outcome,” given that the governor “still looks to be in contention” in head-to-head polling.
“When voters are polled about this crowded field, Trump is the clear frontrunner, leading DeSantis by an average margin of nearly 30 points, 52.1 percent to 22.9,” Ferguson wrote.
By Frank Fang
