Saturday, September 07, 2024

Counterpoint

With four of his lawyers already seated at their assigned table, Trump entered slowly, flanked only by four Secret Service agents and trailed by two of his most loyal legal and political advisers, Alina Habba and Boris Epshteyn. The Republican presidential nominee wore his classic business formal outfit: dark suit, white shirt, and a long, shiny red tie.

The Carroll case, on the other hand, plays right into the twin pillars of Trump’s messaging: martyrdom and misogyny.

And before the argument began, Trump did two notable — and chilling — acts. First, while still standing, he wheeled around and surveyed the gallery of assembled press and members of the public. Eyes narrowed, he glowered in an echo of trial days past. Then, taking his seat at the head of a table immediately behind his legal team, he turned to his right, seeming to appraise a tall blonde seated at a table directly across the room. But Carroll, in a nipped-waist skirt suit with her hair tied back with a girlish, satiny bow, stared straight ahead, just as she had for nearly all of her two trials.

Thus, even before the judges arrived, the scene was riveting. But a more fundamental question remains: Why did Trump come to court at all, especially given that this case involves his smallest outstanding liability and civil litigants are never required to appear?

Rubin's first answers to that question are: Trump as POTUS still can't dismiss or pardon his way out of the civil damages.  However, this was the appeal of the first Carroll case.  The second rested on that one, because the only issue, per stare decisis, was damages.  Knock out the first case, the second (with the $83.5 million judgment) falls.

Still, what does that have to do with Trump in the courtroom?

Yet my guess is that his wallet wasn’t the only or even primary reason Trump cared enough to visit yet another courtroom. Rather, it was his supporters' wallets that prompted Trump to go to court and then hold court at Trump Tower for nearly an hour.

Trump and his campaign advisers well understand the perverse relationship between his perceived victimization through the civil and criminal cases against him, on the one hand, and his popularity among his base, on the other. And they recognize that Trump’s fundraising peaks when he is — or simply portrays himself to be — in serious legal peril. 

True, MAGAts got to see Trump ramble and rumble (although they'll most likely see it in video clips) for an hour at Trump tower in front of flags, as he declared himself disappointed in his lawyers.  But they didn't see him walk into the courtroom and glare at the reporters and Carroll.  BECAUSE THERE WERE  NO CAMERAS!  Trump was playing to an audience of NONE. Even the panel of judges hadn't entered the room yet.

Which makes me wonder what was "chilling" about his little mob boss act?  I mean, if Rubin hadn't written this column, no one except those in the courtroom would have even known it happened.  Did that glare raise funds for Trump?  Did the "press conference" after, where he talked for an hour and took no questions?

We'll have to wait for the FEC to find out.  Meanwhile, Harris raised more than $300 million in August.  Trump raised only $130 million.  Oddly enough, the big boost Rubin references from Trump's fraud trial judgment was $60 million.  In context, not all that much; and I suspect Trump spent it all on lawyers, because he's barely campaigning now (campaigns DO cost money).

WaPo noticed, by the way: 

Just not that Trump was glaring "chillingly" in the courtroom. Well, I say that: We'll always have headlines....

So, did Trump get a "bump" from his stunt yesterday?  Eh, maybe.  But while Trump was grousing and grumbling in his Tower, Kamala Harris was out smiling and hugging people:
I'll take her sincerity over Trump's theatrics any day. He's raising money to pay his lawyers to come to Trump Tower to spew bullshit: That guy is neither a "close friend" nor a volunteer. He's getting paid to stand there and address the cameras for five minutes. Paid damned well. That's what Trump is fundraising for. And "glaring chillingly"? Trump? Don't make me laugh! He's not even a paper tiger. He's barely a cardboard cut out of a human being.
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