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NEW YORK (AP) – After unexpected video appearances by Madonna and Johnny Depp, all that appears to be missing from former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is someone who is trying a new dance routine.
Trump’s lawyers fully embraced a TikTok defense on Friday, using manipulated video to complain about manipulated video and relying on repetitive rapid-fire footage. The approach seemed to be the ultimate end of a process where the use of the media by both sides to make their case – sometimes chaotically, sometimes effectively – took center stage.
It was very 2021.
Or, perhaps, 2011. Team Trump’s presentations owed obvious debt to the creative use of the climax video from “The Daily Show” and other late-night comedies. They were apparently created by someone looking for phrases like “fight like hell” and “throw a punch” and put together all the examples they could find, mostly Democratic politicians.
The intention was to blunt the impact of Trump’s remarks that led to the Jan.6 riot on Capitol Hill, suggesting that they were little more than ordinary political rhetoric and that Democrats were hypocrites because that they use the same language.
The risk, however, is in taking the words out of context and stringing them seemingly for comedic effect, distracted from the points they were trying to make.
“It drew attention to the fact that their whole argument was a shell game in the first place,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.
Madonna and Depp have made cameo appearances in music videos criticizing Trump.
“It’s kind of a ‘Papa Don’t Impeach’ defense,” joked CNN’s Jim Acosta.
“It was a mixed Sean Hannity tape,” CNN’s Jake Tapper said.
“I thought it was ridiculous,” said Chris Wallace of Fox News Channel. Brian Williams of MSNBC couldn’t resist the “fight club” references.
Yet it was an approach designed to appeal to modern media consumers, those who click quickly to avoid buzzing speeches and legislative points of order.
The video shown by House officials earlier in the week was a vital part of their case, starting with a thought-provoking 13-minute clip with violence and explicit language that made the crowd’s actions terribly personal Trump supporters.
A video recently unearthed from inside the Capitol on Wednesday showed then-Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Mitt Romney and Chuck Schumer scrambling to safety and gave a more dramatic view of the danger of the day than what had been seen before. The body camera images of the attacked police officers shocked many viewers.
“The chase, from the start, was very effective,” said Thompson. “The only question one might ask is whether they have repeated this efficiency too much.”
They also made room for a line of attack for Trump’s lawyers. On Friday, Trump’s team released lengthy clips of the former president speaking at a pre-riot rally and press conference following a racial standoff in Charlottesville, Va. , suggesting that shorter versions presented by House officials had been deceptively edited.
This line of defense showed that the way House officials edited some of his videos was “a colossal mistake,” said Jonathan Turley, Fox News Channel analyst.
“They landed some hay today,” Turley said.
Trump’s team found video of impeachment trial participants questioning past elections, even looking to find a 2005 speech by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Using arguments frequently made on cable TV, accompanied by their own vivid images taken during civic unrest last summer, lawyers have attempted to portray Democrats as being more sympathetic to violence when supporting causes with which they sympathized.
In a witnessless trial, House directors relied heavily on media reports and interviews. Trump’s supporters, in turn, have suggested the resort to reporters was unreliable and, again, used the video to make the point clear, showing clips of House officials referring to ” reports”.
Each side was able to walk into an editing room with the same speech and come out with clips that supported their points. This, too, flows directly from how Jon Stewart’s team at Comedy Central used video archives and skillful editing to tell stories they wanted to tell.
In the end, it was an entirely modern impeachment trial, with hours spent in video editing rooms likely rivaling time spent with lawyers.
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