All the right-wing networks crowed when Donald Trump’s trial date was set that this was a blessing from above. The trial would give the GOP candidate 24/7 wall to wall coverage in both the mainstream and other media. He would play the proceedings like a master violinist plays a Stradivarius, to great effect. He would ride the exposure to a landslide in the fall. That was the mirage. Here’s the reality. Trump ends each day the way he began, complaining, repeating the same talking points over and over, and the only thing that is new is now he carries a fat sheaf of documents which his fluffer, former OAN host Natalie Harp, prepares for him each day. The result is increasingly pathetic.
"They're keeping me in a court room that's freezing by the way" — Trump pic.twitter.com/6JCUsbkPgq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 23, 2024
This is not the publicity maestro coaxing exquisite music from the instrument that is the trial, as projected and predicted. Instead, this is a pathetic old fool who is coming unglued publicly, while another man, Justice Juan Merchan, is in control of Trump on basic levels that drive him out of his ever loving mind. The complaint about not being able to control the temperature of the room is only one. In Trump world, if the Mango Messiah says the room is too cold or hot, an aide jumps up and runs to the climate control switch and makes it right.
Trump also can’t chug a lug Diet Coke in court, another hardship. The option of drinking bottled water is no doubt repellant to him, although it would be a blessing to him if he did. And as you have observed, the fact that he can’t run his mouth at will is truly the cross he cannot bear. But the problem is, rather than making Justice Merchan the boogey man in this scenario, Trump simply looks and sounds stupid when he complains. Trump is openly admitting how weak and powerless he is, whether he realizes it or not. Merchan is holding all the cards at this point. He’s the star and the rule of law is the script, a development Trump didn’t foresee.
The judge is in control, not Trump. New York Justice Juan Merchan last week lectured the former president about intimidating an excused witness. Merchan barked at Trump for “audibly” commenting and “gesticulating” toward a dismissed juror. “I won’t tolerate it. I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom,” Merchan said. “I want to make that crystal clear.”
And on Friday, Trump was scolded once again. The Daily Beast reported:
Just as the judge neared the end of his sentence, Trump abruptly stood up — apparently thinking the day was over. Immediately, Merchan turned his face to the former president and said in a firm voice: “Sir, can you please have a seat.” … The tone was decidedly sharper than even the one he’d taken when expressing disappointment in Trump’s lawyers minutes earlier.Without hesitation, Trump went and plopped straight back down into his maroon leather chair at the defense table — and remained for another minute, fuming as the judge gathered his paperwork and strolled toward his chambers.
Trump whines that the judge makes him show up every day — even on days his son is graduating from high school or the Supreme Court is hearing his immunity appeal. He is incensed that someone else controls his calendar. It must be a rude awakening to him that in a criminal trial the judge runs the proceedings, not the defendant.
Trump’s apparent naps in court have generated mocking commentary on social media and the late-night comedy shows. Either he wants to demonstrate his disdain for the proceedings or he is exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally. In any event, the irony is not lost on anyone: The candidate who criticizes Biden’s energy has trouble staying conscious. (Meanwhile, the president set a vigorous campaign schedule crisscrossing Pennsylvania.)
When Trump emerged from court to show off pages of comments from loyal Fox News lackeys knocking the trial, he looked downright needy and rattled. By the end of each long court day in which the judge, prospective jurors and prosecutors recite bad things about him, a short rant outside the courtroom only underscores the power imbalance. He seems diminished.
Former Obama strategist David Axelrod summed up Trump’s predicament: “He has been reduced to a criminal defendant in a courtroom where someone else has absolute power and the rules very definitely apply. The weariness and vulnerability captured in those courtroom images betray a growing recognition that he could wind up as the thing his old man most reviled. A convicted criminal? No, worse. A loser.”
And that is where his niece Mary Trump chimes in.
As someone who has known Donald for almost six decades (oy), I can tell you that beneath the bluster, there lies a fear so profound, it consumes him. It’s not the fear of losing his wealth or power or his status — although, to be clear, he lives in terror of these things as well — it’s something more personal: It’s the fear of being seen as a loser.
Donald has spent a lifetime, with a seemingly endless stream of help from various sources, building an image of success and invincibility. He’s crafted a persona that, to people who knew him from The Apprentice, made him appear larger than life. The truth is, though, it’s all smoke and mirrors. The reality of Donald is that he is nothing of what he has claimed to be. And his greatest fear is that the rest of the world will finally find that out.
This is exactly what is unfolding in Judge Merchan’s courtroom — a place in which Donald has no power, no control, and no authority.
Each day something drops into the news from this trial that makes Trump look just a little bit worse than the day before. Today’s contribution was the fact that even though Trump’s lawyer refers to him as a “family man” David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher, says that Trump was “one of the most eligible bachelors” at the time and dated a lot of women, even though he’d been married to Melania for ten years.
Pecker told prosecutor Joshua Steinglass that he had a meeting with Trump and former lawyer Michael Cohen to discuss what the magazine “could do to help the campaign.”
The former publisher described a catch-and-kill scheme where the National Enquirer would intercept “women selling stories.”
Pecker said women wanted to sell their stories because Trump was “well known as the most eligible bachelor and dated the most beautiful women.”
MSNBC contributor Adam Klasfeld noted that Trump married his current wife, Melania, in 2005, 10 years before the meeting with Pecker took place.
Trump is a sham. Every single thing about him is a sham. His *wife* is an ornament and a paid escort, that picture is being drawn very clearly. Trump himself is a pathetic, doddering fool, which is how he depicts Joe Biden. Biden is helming a booming economy and dealing with two foreign war zones, Trump can’t stay awake more than a few hours. Jennifer Rubin wrapped up her column thusly:
The stature, control and importance Trump has grown accustomed to for most of his life seeps away each day. That might come as a shock — both to him and the political media. Both should have understood that was inevitable once Trump faced a judge and jury. They seemed to forget: Trump is an ordinary criminal defendant no matter his former job.
The trial has barely begun. One wonders how Trump will hold up. The time and energy expended in the courtroom, the humiliating lectures and the recapitulation of his misdeeds have already taken their toll. Whether he wigs out when witnesses such as Michael Cohen take the stand or keeps running afoul of the gag order (both strong possibilities), Trump’s temper tantrums only underscore his dilemma. Unable to mask his emotions in the midst of a narcissist’s worst nightmare, Trump has never looked so small, so weary and so feeble.
Exacerbating all this is the fact that Trump had hoped for a circus outside the courtroom. He had hoped for throngs of followers to jam the city streets, for his trial to rival the storming of the Bastille, in terms of scope and severity of public reaction. What has happened instead? Bupkis. He gets a few dozen stragglers outside the court, not at all the hordes of extras that he hoped would show up at his bidding to help him stage an epic.
Trump’s getting close to the final scene of Sunset Boulevard, as the unhinged former star is led away to the psychiatric hospital. Hopefully the temperature of his room can be adjusted to his liking.
Oh, no. May he suffer a total, permanent mental episode where his body and communications abilities are absolutely disconnected from the rest of the world. May he be in total perfect consciousness with absolutely no ability to communicate with the outside world. Then, his family can dump his stinky ass into the cheapest nursing home they can find, fully staffed with BROWN people, those whom he fears the most. May he live there for DECADES, retaining full mental consciousness, surrounded by those whom he hates and demonizes.
Wow … KR, your taste in retribution is cruel and unusual and totally lacking in pity. I love it.
So, basically, a variation of Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got His Gun” meets “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (with a decidedly less Caucasian supporting cast).