NEW YORK (AP) — He appears “egocentric and self-serving,” mentioned one girl.
The best way he carries himself in public “leaves one thing to be desired,” mentioned one other.
His “damaging rhetoric and bias,” mentioned one other man, is what’s “most dangerous.”
Over the previous week, Donald Trump has been compelled to sit down inside a frigid New York courtroom and hearken to a parade of potential jurors in his legal hush cash trial share their unvarnished assessments of him.
It’s been a dramatic departure for the previous president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee, who’s accustomed to spending his days in a cocoon of cheering crowds and fixed adulation. Now a legal defendant, Trump will as an alternative spend the subsequent a number of weeks subjected to strict guidelines that strip him of management over every part from what he’s permitted to say to the temperature of the room.
“He’s the item of derision. It’s his nightmare. He can’t management the script. He can’t management the cinematography. He can’t management what’s being mentioned about him. And the end result might go in a course he actually doesn’t need,” mentioned Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer and critic.
Whereas Trump is often confronted by protesters, usually he lives a life sheltered from criticism. After leaving the White Home, Trump moved to his Mar-a-Lago waterfront membership in Palm Seaside, Florida, the place he’s surrounded by doting paid employees and dues-paying members who’ve shelled out tens of hundreds of {dollars} to be close to him.
Many days, Trump heads to his close by golf course, the place he’s “swarmed by individuals desirous to shake his hand, take photos of him, and inform him how wonderful he’s,” mentioned 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 within the afternoon, members lunching on the patio usually stand and applaud. He receives the identical standing ovation at dinner, which frequently ends with Trump enjoying DJ on his iPad, blasting favorites like “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown.
Grisham, who spent lengthy stretches touring with Trump and at Mar-a-Lago throughout his 2016 marketing campaign and as White Home press secretary, described employees consistently serving as cheerleaders and telling Trump what he wished to listen to. To keep away from indignant outbursts, they requested motorcade routes that averted protests and so they left a stack of optimistic press clips each morning on the Resolute Desk within the Oval Workplace.
Now, Trump faces a trial that might end in felony convictions and attainable jail time. And he should hearken to extra critics, with out having the ability to punch again verbally — one thing he revels in doing.
Among the many anticipated witnesses within the trial are his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, and the porn actor who alleged she had intercourse with him, Stormy Daniels. Each have savaged him in interviews and books in addition to on social media.
Trump marketing campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt mentioned Trump proved throughout his first week in court docket that “he’ll stay defiant within the face of this unprecedented political lawfare” and mentioned, “It’s clear that his assist from the American individuals will solely develop as they watch Joe Biden, Alvin Bragg and the Democrats placing on this bogus present trial six months earlier than the election.” Bragg is the Manhattan district legal professional.
New Yorkers who mentioned they couldn’t method the case pretty have been excused throughout jury choice. However one of many ladies with the harshest assessments of him shall be amongst those that will decide his destiny on 34 counts of falsifying enterprise data.
“I don’t like his persona, how he presents himself in public,” mentioned the lady, who has lived in higher Manhattan for the final 15 years. The girl mentioned she didn’t agree with a few of Trump’s politics, which she known as “outrageous.”
“He simply appears very egocentric and self-serving, so I don’t actually respect that in any public servant,” she mentioned, including that whereas she doesn’t “know him as an individual,” how he “portrays himself in public, it simply appears to me it isn’t my cup of tea.”
Trump’s authorized crew took difficulty together with her responses, however they have been out of challenges by the point she was up for consideration.
Decide Juan Manuel Merchan has withheld the names of potential jurors for security considerations.
On Friday, one potential juror, who mentioned she had attended the 2017 Ladies’s March protesting Trump’s inauguration, complained of the affect he has over his base.
“I feel his rhetoric at instances permits individuals to really feel as if they’ve permission to discriminate or act on their damaging impulses,” she mentioned, citing individuals she has heard make homophobic or racist feedback. Nonetheless, she mentioned she didn’t have sturdy emotions in regards to the former president and wasn’t positive of his present coverage positions.
One other man mentioned he’d grown up admiring the previous president and enterprise mogul’s actual property portfolio and even pondering he would possibly sometime reside in Trump Tower. However he had come to oppose Trump’s “damaging rhetoric and bias in opposition to those that he speaks about.”
At different instances, legal professionals learn aloud social media posts from potential jurors mocking Trump and celebrating his defeats.
One potential juror, an older white girl, was struck from the jury pool by the decide after Trump’s authorized crew uncovered years-old social media posts that described Trump as a “racist, sexist” narcissist.
Certainly one of Trump’s attorneys known as the posts “vitriolic.”
“She harbors a deep hatred for him,” mentioned the lawyer, Susan Necheles. “She mentioned that ’I wouldn’t consider Donald Trump if his tongue have been notarized’” and that he was “anathema” to every part she was taught about love.
Confronted with the posts contained in the courtroom, the juror mentioned she understood why they’d be regarding to the protection, however her views had developed. “Election insurance policies can get fairly spicy and Mr. Trump can get fairly spicy,” she mentioned.
Merchan, the decide, additionally dismissed a person who in 2017 had shared a Fb submit celebrating the defeat of considered one of Trump’s insurance policies in court docket. “Get him out and lock him up!” it learn partially.
Court docket guidelines require Trump to be current all through the trial. He can’t storm out of the courtroom like he did throughout a latest defamation trial. He’s additionally barred by a gag order from attacking any of the jurors, together with on his Fact Social platform.
He has already been admonished by Merchan for audibly uttering one thing and gesturing whereas one juror was answering questions.
“I cannot tolerate any jurors being intimidated on this courtroom,” mentioned Merchan, who beforehand warned Trump he might be despatched to jail for partaking in disruptive habits in court docket.
Trump’s assessments within the courthouse weren’t all dangerous, nevertheless, with a maybe stunning variety of potential jurors saying they’d no sturdy opinions about among the finest recognized and most divisive males on the planet.
In actual fact, the method appeared to disclose extra supporters than could be anticipated in a borough the place President Joe Biden captured 87% of the vote in 2020.
One potential juror Thursday who spoke of Trump in glowing phrases mentioned he was “impressed” with Trump’s profession as a profitable businessman.
“I imply he was our president, fairly wonderful. He’s a businessman in New York. He has cast his approach, you understand, he made sort of historical past when it comes to like the place he began and the place he has turn out to be,” mentioned the person, who mentioned he noticed his personal story equally.
On Tuesday, one other man expressed remorse that he couldn’t juggle the trial together with his job.
“Your Honor, as a lot as I’d like to serve for New York and considered one of our nice presidents, I couldn’t hand over my job for six-plus weeks,” he mentioned.
Many mentioned they’d learn his e-book “The Artwork of the Deal.”
Even the lady who criticized his persona and ended up on the jury anyway acknowledged his attraction to voters.
“Generally the way in which he might carry himself in public leaves one thing to be desired. On the identical time, I can relate to typically being a bit unfiltered,” she mentioned. “I see him communicate to lots of people in America. I feel there’s something to be mentioned about that.”
___ Related Press writers Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz and Jake Offenhartz contributed to this report.