And I confess I never gave this thing a thought.
jurors offered their unvarnished assessments of
him
He's not used to that, you see.
NEW YORK (AP) — He seems “selfish and self-serving,” said one woman.
The way he carries himself in public “leaves something to be desired,” said another.
His “negative rhetoric and bias,” said another man, is what is “most harmful.”
...
"I wouldn’t believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized’”
...
“Get him out and lock him up!”
...
...one of the women with the harshest assessments of him will be among those who will [be on the jury]!
“I don’t like his persona, how he presents himself in public." The woman said she didn’t agree with some of Trump’s politics, which she called “outrageous.”
“He just seems very selfish and self-serving, so I don’t really appreciate that in any public servant,” she said, adding that while she doesn’t “know him as a person,” how he “portrays himself in public, it just seems to me it is not my cup of tea.”
Trump’s legal team took issue with her responses, but they were out of challenges by the time she was up for consideration.
Over the past week, Donald Trump has been forced to sit inside a frigid [courtrooms are kept cold to keep jurors from falling asleep] 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 2024 GOP nominee, who is accustomed to spending his days in a cocoon of cheering crowds and constant adulation. ...
"He’s the object of derision. It’s his nightmare. He can’t control the script. He can’t control the cinematography. He can’t control what’s being said about him. ...said Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer and critic.
Contrast with:
While Trump is occasionally confronted by protesters, generally he lives a life sheltered from criticism. After leaving the White House, Trump moved to his Mar-a-Lago waterfront club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is surrounded by doting paid staff and dues-paying members who have shelled out tens of thousands of dollars to be near him.
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 amazing he is,” said Stephanie Grisham, a longtime aide who broke with Trump after the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
When he returns to Mar-a-Lago in the afternoon, members lunching on the patio often stand and applaud. He receives the same standing ovation at dinner, which often ends with Trump playing DJ on his iPad, blasting favorites like “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown.
Grisham, who spent long stretches traveling with Trump and at Mar-a-Lago during his 2016 campaign and as White House press secretary, described staff constantly serving as cheerleaders and telling Trump what he wanted to hear. To avoid angry outbursts, they requested motorcade routes that avoided protests and they left a stack of positive press clips every morning on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
Now, Trump...will have to listen to more critics, without being able to punch back verbally — something he revels in doing.
WITNESSES! And he has to sit there quietly and take it until it's his turn. No, not what he's used to a'tall. One outburst and Justice Merchan will rock his strange new world:
Court rules require Trump to be present throughout the trial. He can’t storm out of the courtroom like he did during a recent defamation trial. He is also barred by a gag order from attacking any of the jurors, including on his Truth Social platform.
He has already been admonished by Merchan for audibly uttering something and gesturing while one juror was answering questions.
“I will not tolerate any jurors being intimidated in this courtroom,” said Merchan, who previously warned Trump he could be sent to jail for engaging in disruptive behavior in court.
Among the expected witnesses in the trial are his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, and the porn actor who alleged she had sex with him, Stormy Daniels.
