The Reality Show Trump Never Wanted

Timothy O’Brien: “Trump is veering from rage to petulance, and from slumber to intimidation, in the courtroom because he’s the star of a lurid Manhattan reality show he isn’t producing or directing. He doesn’t control the narrative and others are writing the scripts. And some of the scripts say nasty things about him, his sex life, his bookkeeping and his attempts to bury stories that might have derailed his 2016 presidential campaign.”

“The setting, by Trump’s standards, is all wrong, too. Few courtrooms are more endowed with raw ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ mojo than those populating New York State Supreme Court, where Trump’s trial is being held. It’s a beaten-up, old-school nexus for judges, cops, reporters and a steady stream of Manhattan legal dramas. Trump, as a younger man, used to deploy lawyers there to try to secure tax abatements and other goodies for projects he was developing. He also eagerly gobbled up tabloid coverage of celebrated clashes litigated there…”

“Trump, in his younger days, probably never imagined he’d be in the State Supreme Court dock as a former president accused of falsifying business records to mask payments to paramours who might have otherwise upended his political career. Yet here he sits, forced to observe the law.”

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