Donald Trump emerged from a Manhattan courtroom Monday ready for a fight.
After day one of a trial that has Trump facing 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to a porn star, the former president stood in front of reporters ready to unleash a grievance-laced tirade that, at times, did not totally reflect reality but guaranteed he would continue to dominate the headlines even from court.
His immediate focus was Judge Juan Merchan’s decision to not yet rule on whether Trump can attend his son Barron’s May 17 high school graduation. Merchan did not say Trump could not go, but rather he was not yet ready to rule on the matter. Specifics aside, however, it gave Trump just enough to paint the picture for his supporters of a biased judge blocking a loving father from seeing his son’s graduation.
“My son is graduating high school, and it looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation,” Trump told the assembled group of reporters.
It’s emblematic of how Trump has tried to control the narrative — an instinct that has defined his political career — even while stuck in a camera-less Manhattan courtroom. The judge has ordered Trump to attend court hearings in person, so it’s a predicament he will find himself in at least four days a week for the foreseeable future as President Joe Biden continues to run a more traditional presidential campaign.
The false claim a judge was not allowing him to attend his son’s graduation spread like wildfire in the conservative ecosystem, a conflagration helped by some of his top supporters with huge followings. Kari Lake called Merchan “heartless & cruel.” Piers Morgan used a New York Post column to call the-decision-that-was-not “disgusting.” Donald Trump Jr. called it “pure evil.”
For millions of Trump supporters, the half-truth became the truth and a cause celebre for those eagerly looking to maintain the belief that the entire legal fight is an attempt by Democrats to get Trump locked up.
Those sorts of distortions and fights about nearly every aspect of the trial dominated the first week, which focused on jury selection.
It was often reality versus Trump’s version of it.
There were reports Trump may have fallen asleep in court, where cameras are not allowed in these types of cases. He responded forcefully on Truth Social that “I was PRAYING not sleeping!!!”
Trump had a misunderstanding about the jury selection process. It led him to post on Truth Social that the process is another example of “ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”
And Trump has broadly used a torrent of Truth Social posts and media interviews to paint a picture of both Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as biased and out to get him, a sentiment that has been taken as gospel and amplified by conservative media.
In fundraising text messages, Trump has also told supporters that he left the courtroom, which at no point during the week happened except during scheduled court recesses or when court was over for the day.
“I JUST STORMED OUT OF COURT!” read a fundraising text message from Trump’s campaign. “They think I’m finished, but I’LL NEVER SURRENDER!”
Trump also tried to raise political cash off the claim that he has been blocked from attending Barron’s graduation.
“THEY ARE FORCING ME TO SKIP MY SON’S GRADUATION,” Trump’s campaign texted. “I’LL BE IN COURT.”
“Heartless thugs,” it continued.
The trial-focused fundraising efforts have been breaking through the noise.
On the first day of trial, Trump’s campaign raised $1.6 million in small-dollar donations, a campaign official told NBC News. Trump raised that much online on only three days in the first three months of 2024, according to a recent campaign finance filing from WinRed, the Trump campaign’s online donation platform. Each of those three days came toward the end of March.
“Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat’s entire strategy to defeat President…
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