Have a great weekend!You made it through the week Stormy Daniels’ dramatic testimony, brain worm and I tried to kick him out and failed. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Today we’re covering another Trump trip to the courthouse, where he’ll meet with an unlikely proxy for the Biden administration’s aid to Gaza.
Donald Trump was running for president and was leading in the polls. He was spending a lot of time in New York. And he had a thorny legal issue that ended up in court.
I’m talking, of course, about President Trump’s 2015 jury summons.
Trump appeared in state Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan on August 17, 2015, shortly after clashing with Megyn Kelly on the debate stage and making lewd comments about her in the aftermath. He had a backlog of jury summonses. He wasn’t responding so it was time for him to make amends.
my colleague rebecca davis obrien has pondered this episode in light of Trump’s current situation as a criminal defendant in a courthouse right next door to the one where he appeared nine years ago.
Rebecca was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal at the time and was assigned to cover him that day. She later became part of a team that unraveled the story of her hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. This is a central element of President Trump’s cover-up of the sex scandal currently on trial. But she believes the story of his jury service is just as revealing about his rise as a politician and the issues he currently faces.
Rebecca told me about that strange day in August. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
No one wants to be called as a juror.and you had to go to someone someone else’s Jury duty. How did you feel about that?
It was a really hot day, and on a New York summer day, stepping onto the sidewalk felt like walking into someone’s mouth. I was very frustrated because I had to spend the entire day at 60 Center Street, and I was a little angry that Trump, who attended jury duty, had become such a media spectacle. . I wore a sundress and Birkenstocks as a sign of protest at having to sit in this stuffy courtroom.
When did you first meet Trump that day?
He arrived at the courtroom in a stretch limousine, but I was already in the jury room.
Mr. Trump came and sat down in a dark suit and striped tie. What immediately struck me was that he had nothing to read. He didn’t seem to have a cell phone. It was just him and his jury system.
Perhaps anticipating the great interest in his presence, clerk Irene Larracuenta urged everyone to mind their own business, saying, “I think we’re all famous in our own way.” I did.
But no one was paying attention to Trump. It was a very New York scene. People just wanted to get fired, put a stamp on their papers and get the hell out of there. I remember him sitting there, looking to the left, then to the right, peering into other people’s pages as if they were cheating on a test.
Trump looked bored. He turned around in his seat and looked around – then looked at me and winked.
Did he wink?
It was strange. I remember him thanking me for giving him the press pass, but he probably didn’t see it. Then there was a break for lunch. By that time, word had spread that Trump was in the courtroom, and all these hecklers showed up. When President Trump returned from lunch, a crowd had formed on the courthouse steps. I leaned into the security line behind him.
Did everyone have to go through security, including Donald Trump?
yes. He turned and looked down at me, and as I began to introduce myself, he interrupted me and said, And I thought, “She’s so beautiful, but she’s probably a reporter.”
I was surprised. I wasn’t offended, I was just like, “What the hell are you saying?” I also remember being very conscious of my Birkenstocks.
I pointed out that he didn’t have any reading material so far. “That was a mistake,” he said. This time his bodyguard was holding a stack of newspapers. When we got to the front of the security line, Trump emptied his pockets, but he only had one key.
got it. So he’s back in the jury room and stuck again, but outside of the courtroom he’s trying to be the leader of the free world. How did he get out of this situation?
The atmosphere began to ease as a group of respondents became convinced that they would not be called to serve on the jury. Mr. Trump sat in a seat at the back of the room, like a kid in the back of a classroom. Surrounded by reporters, including me, he continued an unguarded conversation on the record. He held up a newspaper and pointed out articles he didn’t like or didn’t like.
I used to be bored, but now I’ve created a situation where I can enjoy myself. People just kept coming up to him and asking questions. Someone asked if he had tried his own golf course in the Bronx.
I remember thinking at that moment that he had a chance to become president. No one else speaks like this to the press, especially the candidates he was running against at the time, like Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz. Trump didn’t care if he said the wrong thing or put his foot in his mouth. That’s when I realized why he seemed so popular. He manages to charm this stiff, hot room, especially the place where no one wants to be, and make it his own.
I also got my first glimpse of his dance with the media. That’s actually at stake in the current trial — his approach to media coverage is the crux of the case.
Jury service as a whole is subject to a certain sense of helplessness. You can’t leave until they tell you it’s okay to leave. And he seems to have found a way to exert some power over that room, or at least some control. How is that different from the situation he’s facing now?
Strictly speaking, Trump appeared by the rules. He was not selected to serve on the jury. After all jurors were released, he praised court officials and the entire operation. Still, he took advantage of the free time available on a Monday afternoon in August to create a little scene and turn his own boredom into a dominant force in his room.
Now he can’t do that. He can no longer hold court in court. Real potential consequences could befall him, including prison. He’s been detained in so many ways, for so many different reasons, and he’s so angry about it. The hot summer of jury duty feels far away.
reporter notes
Unlikely voices in Gaza
This morning, my colleagues Nicholas Nehamas and reed epstein Reported on communications between the Biden administration and Muslim and Arab American leaders.Those who have been deeply critical of the administration’s policies regarding Israel’s war in Gaza have all but broken up. Two mayors with whom White House officials said they had discussed the conflict declined to comment. A third person agreed to be interviewed, but he wasn’t the first person that came to mind. I asked Nicholas to tell me more.
Harvey Ward, the mayor of Gainesville, Florida, is neither Muslim nor Arab. Although the University of Florida attracts students and professors from both groups, Gainesville is not typically considered the center of Muslim or Arab American life in the United States.
But last year, Ward sent a letter to President Biden calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages taken by Hamas in the brutal Oct. 7 attack. White House officials called him soon after and continue to communicate with him.
“It was weird. Who am I to tell Joe Biden how to deal with international politics?” Ward said. “But it was something that my community felt really strongly about.”
The White House is currently describing Ward as one of three mayors across the country to discuss the war amid worsening relations with Muslim and Arab American leaders. (The other two mayors are Arab-American, one Muslim and one Christian, from Dearborn, Michigan and Paterson, New Jersey.)
“Mostly people ask me, ‘What about Gainesville?'” Ward said, adding that he has received “a handful” of calls from the White House about how people of all faiths feel about the war. That’s what it means. “How do people handle all this in our city?”
Ward said she is learning more about Islam, including how to pronounce Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. He attended an Eid event in Gainesville last month.
“It was a really great, fun celebration,” he said.
— Nicholas Nehamas
thank you for reading!I hope your weekend turns out like this solar storm. I’ll be back on Monday.
