Call him ‘President Trump,’ pretty please
Donald Trump is shrinking. Not by choice and not without a fight, but the bombast and bluster that have kept his public persona afloat is fading – at least during these early days of the New York criminal trial in which he is accused of falsifying business records to influence the 2016 election.
Each day, Trump is forced to sit in a courtroom in Lower Manhattan where the hallways are lined with industrial fans and the lighting is best suited for autopsies.
Trump’s designated place is in a burgundy padded chair in the midst of his lawyers. They insist on referring to him as “president Trump” – rather than simply Mr Trump. He earned the title, said his lawyer Todd Blanche, “he was our 45th president.”
They throw him this bone of authority and prestige at a time when he has been stripped of both.
Trump’s lawyers speak for him while he sits mostly in silence – his raspy tenor of a voice reduced to the occasional whisper in the ear of his attorneys. He sits, sometimes with his eyes closed and his head drooping, sometimes at a distinct remove from whatever issue his lawyers, the prosecutors and the judge are sorting.
The first day of jury selection merged into the second and then whoosh, the jury was seated, the trial was in its second week and the first witness was called.
David Pecker, the former chief executive of the company that published the National Enquirer, was a longtime friend of Trump’s.
The prosecution called Pecker to discuss his relationship with Trump, which allegedly evolved into a conspiracy to bury negative stories about Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign while highlighting possibly damaging stories about his political adversaries.
Through all of this, the defendant has been little more than a blur in a red tie. Then a blue-striped tie. Then a solid blue tie. Then a red-striped tie. Then a blue tie. And so on.
His French-cuffed shirt is sometimes stretched tight across his midsection. His suit jacket hangs off his shoulder. The courtroom sketch artists do not treat him kindly. He is slouching and gaunt-faced with his hair sitting atop his head like a ragged ship’s sail inflated with air.
On most days, Trump has an American flag pin affixed to his lapel, as political candidates do. But he sits and stands at New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s instruction, as defendants must.
Trump has been rewarded by the electorate for his unfiltered speech, for his put-upon verbiage, and for his ease with slinging insults and decrying unflattering facts as fake news.
Now his ability to speak about the trial’s witnesses and jury is bound up in a gag order – one that the prosecution says he has already violated nearly a dozen times.
Any caterwauling is likely to put him at odds with the judge. As a political candidate Trump popularised the phrase “fake news,” using it as a shield to protect himself from any criticism, but according to Pecker, Trump was a key instigator of the fake news stories that ran in the National Enquirer about his political rivals. Trump used them as a sword.
Trump has been diminished. For now. The American judicial system has brought a former president down from his lofty perch.
That’s a testament to a system that can be clunky, unyielding and discriminatory; but in this case, has operated with a measure of elegance.
When Trump steps outside of the courtroom and his tongue is somewhat unbound, he holds court in the hallway – pontificating and sometimes answering questions from the news media. He waves. Because of security, metal bicycle racks cordon off the area. The point is to keep the public away from Trump, to keep the media at bay. The result, however, is that Trump is left standing in his own little fenced-off court.
Back then, he had the benefit of the Oval Office as his backdrop. With its history and symbolism, it shines a light like no other on its occupant.
In Room 1530 at New York County Supreme Court, the light is not nearly as flattering. – Washington Post