Trump forced to listen silently to people insulting him as he trades a cocoon of adulation for court
NEW YORK — He seems “selfish and selfish,” one woman said.
The way he behaves in public “leaves something to be desired,” said another.
His “negative rhetoric and bias,” said another man, is “the most damaging.”
This past week, Donald Trump was forced to sit in a frigid New York courtroom and listen to a parade of potential jurors in his criminal hush-money trial share their unvarnished assessments of him.
It’s been a dramatic departure for the former president and presumptive Republican Party nominee, who is accustomed to spending his days in a cocoon of cheering crowds and constant adulation. Now that he is a criminal defendant, Trump will instead be subject to strict rules in the coming weeks that strip him of control over everything from what he can say to the temperature of the room.
‘He is the object of ridicule. It’s his nightmare. He has no control over the script. He has no control over the cinematography. He has no control over what is said about him. And the outcome could go in a direction he really doesn’t want,” said Tim O’Brien, Trump biographer and critic.
Although Trump is occasionally confronted by protesters, he generally lives a life sheltered from criticism. After leaving the White House, Trump moved to his waterfront Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is surrounded by dedicated paid staff and dues-paying members who have spent tens of thousands of dollars to be near him to be able to be.
Many days, Trump heads to his nearby golf course, where he is “swarmed by people wanting to shake his hand, take pictures of him and tell him how great he is,” said Stephanie Grisham, a longtime aide who has worked with Trump for years. broke. the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
When he returns to Mar-a-Lago in the afternoon, the members eating lunch on the patio often stand up and applaud. He gets the same standing ovation at the dinner, which often ends with Trump playing DJ on his iPad, belting out favorites like James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.”
Grisham, who spent extensive time traveling with Trump and at Mar-a-Lago during his 2016 campaign and as White House press secretary, described the staff who constantly served as cheerleaders, telling Trump what he wanted to hear. To avoid outbursts of anger, they requested motorcade routes that avoided protests and left a pile of positive press clippings on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office every morning.
Now Trump faces a trial that could result in felony convictions and possible prison time. And he will have to listen to more critics without being able to hit back verbally – something he enjoys.
Expected witnesses in the trial include his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, and the porn actor who claimed to have had sex with him, Stormy Daniels. Both have savaged him in interviews and books, as well as on social media.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump proved during his first week in court that “he will remain defiant in the face of this unprecedented political litigation” and said: “It is clear that his support from the American people will only grow as they are watching Joe Biden, Alvin Bragg and the Democrats are running this bogus show trial six months before the election.”
New Yorkers who said they could not approach the case fairly were excused during jury selection. But one of the women who judges him harshest will be among those who decide his fate on 34 charges of falsifying company records.
“I don’t like his personality, the way he presents himself in public,” said the woman, who has lived in upper Manhattan for the past 15 years. The woman said she disagreed with some of Trump’s policies, which she called “outrageous.”
“He just seems very selfish and selfish, so I don’t really appreciate that in any official,” she said, adding that while she doesn’t know him as a person, she knows how he portrays himself in public. , it just seems to me that this is not my thing.”
Trump’s legal team disagreed with her answers, but by the time she was considered, there were no further issues.
Judge Juan Manuel Merchan has withheld the names of potential jurors for security reasons.
On Friday, a prospective juror who said she attended the 2017 Women’s March to protest Trump’s inauguration complained about the influence he has over his base.
“I think his rhetoric sometimes makes people feel like they have permission to discriminate or to act on their negative impulses,” she said, citing people she has heard make homophobic or racist comments. Still, she said she did not have strong feelings about the former president and was unsure of his current policy positions.
Another man said he grew up admiring the former president and business mogul’s real estate portfolio and even thought he might one day live in Trump Tower. But he had come to oppose Trump’s “negative rhetoric and prejudices against the people he speaks about.”
At other times, lawyers read out social media posts from potential jurors mocking Trump and celebrating his defeats.
One prospective juror, an older white woman, was removed from the jury by the judge after Trump’s legal team discovered years of social media posts describing Trump as a “racist, sexist” narcissist.
One of Trump’s lawyers called the posts “toxic.”
“She has a deep hatred for him,” said attorney Susan Necheles. “She said that ‘I wouldn’t believe Donald Trump if his tongue was notarized’” and that he was “an abomination” to everything she was taught about love.
Confronted with the posts in court, the juror said she understood why they alarmed the defense, but that her views had evolved. “Election politics can get pretty feisty and Mr. Trump can get pretty feisty,” she said.
Merchan, the judge, also fired a man who shared a Facebook post in 2017 celebrating the defeat of one of Trump’s policies in court. “Take him out and lock him up!” it has been partially read.
According to court rules, Trump must be present during the entire trial. He cannot storm out of the courtroom as he did during a recent libel trial. A silence order also prevents him from attacking any of the jurors, including on his Truth Social platform.
He has already been admonished by Merchan for audibly speaking and making gestures while a juror was answering questions.
“I will not tolerate jurors being intimidated in this courtroom,” said Merchan, who previously warned Trump he could be sent to jail for disruptive behavior in the courtroom.
Trump’s courthouse ratings weren’t all bad, though: A perhaps surprising number of potential jurors said they had no strong opinions about one of the best-known and most divisive men in the world.
In fact, the process appeared to generate more supporters than one might expect in a borough where President Joe Biden captured 87% of the vote in 2020.
A potential juror who spoke highly of Trump on Thursday said he was “impressed” by Trump’s career as a successful businessman.
“I mean, he was our president, pretty amazing. He is a businessman in New York. He’s made his way, you know, he’s kind of made history in terms of where he started and where he’s become,” said the man, who said he sees his own story the same way.
On Tuesday, another man expressed regret that he could not combine the trial with his job.
“Your Honor, as much as I would like to serve New York and one of our great presidents, I could not leave my job for more than six weeks,” he said.
Many said they had read his book “The Art of the Deal.”
Even the woman who criticized his personality and ended up on the jury acknowledged his appeal to voters anyway.
“Sometimes the way he behaves in public leaves much to be desired. At the same time, I can imagine being a little unfiltered at times,” she said. “I see him speaking to many people in America. I think there’s something to be said about that.”
___ Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz and Jake Offenhartz contributed to this report.