First Day of Trump Hush-Money Trial: Trump Speaks and Crowds Arrive

DOnald Trump was defiant and frustrated as he left the first day of his trial in New York. It was also the first day a former president was tried in 246 years of American history. But Trump did not dwell on the historical significance of the moment.

Instead, he launched into a litany of complaints and excuses. He called the hush money case a “scam” and a “witch hunt” and attacked Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the trial, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges.

Trump faces 34 counts of fraudulently entering into business transactions to cover up payments he made to a porn star to buy her silence in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Trump says he did not have an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels and whether declared innocent in the case.

“We have a real problem with this judge,” Trump said after court adjourned on Monday, wearing his iconic wide red tie and an American flag pin pinned to the lapel of his suit jacket. “We have a real problem with a lot of things related to this trial, including the prosecutor, because you go out there and people get mugged and killed all day and he sits here all day with about 10 or 12 prosecutors for nothing, You’re welcome.”

A week earlier, Judge Merchan had extended a gag order against Trump, saying he could not criticize the judge’s family, jurors or court staff. But Merchan and Bragg were still easy targets for Trump’s criticism. And, on the first day of the trial, Trump took advantage.

See more information: Your Questions About Trump’s Hush-Money Trial, Answered

As jury selection began, Trump questioned the rigorous schedule of being a criminal defendant that will keep him in a Manhattan courtroom, away from campaign and other commitments, likely for more than a month. Trump complained that Merchan would not agree to let him sit out proceedings next week during Supreme Court oral arguments over whether presidential immunity protects him from federal charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith in one of the other three criminal cases against him. Trump said he would miss his son Barron’s high school graduation if Merchan did not give him permission to be absent for the next few weeks.

But that wasn’t all. Trump also said that being in court over the next few weeks would keep him out of the campaign and the key states he needs to win November’s presidential election. “I can’t go to my son’s graduation, and I can’t go to the Supreme Court of the United States, or I’m not in Georgia, or Florida, or North Carolina campaigning, as I should be, it’s perfect for the radical left Democrats. That’s what they want – this is election interference, that’s what it’s about,” Trump said. He did not answer any questions from reporters and turned and walked down the hall with his entourage.

Trump spent most of the day sitting in the stuffy courtroom as his lawyers argued with prosecutors over how the trial should be run and the makeup of jurors on the panel that will decide Trump’s fate. Some of Monday’s initial decisions didn’t go Trump’s way. Not only did Merchan say that Trump cannot go to the Supreme Court next week and deny Trump’s request that he recuse himself, the judge also ruled that Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also claims to have had an affair with Trump, can testify in the case and that the prosecution can present as evidence National Inquirer 2016 articles critical of Trump’s opponents as a way of showing a pattern of how the publication allegedly helped Trump by buying rights to negative stories and suppressing them.

One decision that went in Trump’s favor was when the judge ruled that prosecutors cannot play footage from the Access Hollywood tape of Trump depicting the grabbing of women’s genitals. But prosecutors can tell jurors what Trump said.

Outside the courthouse, a crowd of about 100 people milled around under the thin canopy of trees at Collect Pond Park. A man had been playing the flute on a bench since early in the morning. Some people were there to cheer on Trump’s prosecution. Others came to enjoy the historic moment. But most were there to show their support for Trump. One man wore a black T-shirt emblazoned with a glowering photo of Trump that read: “Never Surrender!” At the top was a flag that said: “Keep America Trump 2028”.

See more information: In the Hush-Money trial, Trump’s election hangs in the balance

Ariel Kohane, 53, wanted to be in court on Monday to show “my unwavering love and support for President Trump.” Kohane, who wore a “Jews for Trump” t-shirt, predicted that the lawsuits against Trump would generate more support for him and “backfire on the Democrats.”

Standing nearby, Lou Valentino, 27, thinks Trump is being judged unfairly and has been targeted because he is running for president. “A lot of the people you see here are frustrated people, or people who have been supporting Trump for a long time, or people like me who just started supporting him,” says Valentino.

Some came to show they welcomed Trump’s trial. Nadine Seiler, 58, traveled 250 miles from Waldorf, Maryland, to protest Trump. She arrived outside the courthouse at 6:30 a.m., expecting to see a crowd of people supporting her prosecution, and was surprised to find that the crowd of anti-Trump protesters had swelled to just over a dozen by the afternoon.

Sieler says she is disappointed by what she sees as a general lack of concern about Trump and his potential return to office. She thinks people have become more apathetic in recent years. “When democracy disappears and we can’t protest, we’ll think, ‘How did this happen?’” she says. “I feel like the reason Trump can get away with what he does is because people are not participating in the process.”

Whether Trump likes it or not, he will have to participate in his trial for many weeks.