The past and potentially future leader of the free world spent most of it in a dingy Manhattan courtroom, no longer the master of his domain. It’s a place where he dutifully sits down when the judge tells him to sit, where he’s unable to say whatever he wants, where he’s not allowed to use his phone. And worst of all, where there’s no red button for him to push when he wants a Diet Coke. And according to him, it was bitterly cold — “freezing,” in fact, sounding like your elderly uncle at Thanksgiving. Forget a legal defense; someone needs to give him a sweater.
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The criminal hearing in which he’s facing 34 felony counts is not the trial we deserve. That would be either the Georgia election interference case, the federal classified documents case or the federal Jan. 6 election case (it’s so hard to choose). But perhaps it’s the trial Trump deserves, laying bare the sleazy, tawdry aspects of his existence in a manner that could potentially sway those magical swing voters who apparently live in an alternate universe devoted to moral judgment.
For days, he was forced to listen to his good buddy David Pecker, the CEO of the company that publishes the National Enquirer, report how he cooperated on “catch-and-kill” stories involving such things as Trump's affairs with Playboy model Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, among others. And how the Enquirer basically operated as an arm of the campaign, doctoring photos to publish false stories like the one linking Ted Cruz’s father with Lee Harvey Oswald. Talk about fake news.
The publisher testified that he told Trump and his then-consigliere Michael Cohen that he would be the “eyes and ears” of the presidential campaign. And of course, it’s Pecker. The admission must have been shocking to anyone who considered the Enquirer to be a bastion of journalistic integrity.
In response, Trump was reduced to making impromptu speeches in the building’s hallway, where his inability to articulate without a teleprompter (or even with one) was made painfully clear. “I should be in Georgia now. I should be in Florida now,” he whined. “And I’m sitting here. It’s very unfair.” On Wednesday, when the court wasn't in session, Trump vigorously summarized his campaign. (Just kidding. He went golfing.)