Donald Trump brings his campaign to the courthouse as his criminal hush money trial begins - The Boston Globe

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

66% : Trump is already well practiced in the art of campaigning from the courtroom.
56% : The trial is expected to last at least six weeks and Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is required to attend every day court is in session -- a schedule that will dramatically alter his daily life and his ability to campaign in battleground states.
55% : During the first day of his trial, Trump said just five words on the record -- "Yes" once, and "Yes, sir" twice -- as he was read his so-called "Parker warnings" informing him that his right to be present at the trial could be revoked if he acted out and that he could be sent to jail for disruptive behavior.
48% : As he entered the courtroom, Trump "paused for a split second" and "licked his lips" before walking up the courtroom's center aisle.
48% : Trump has often talked about wanting to campaign in his home state, even though New York remains overwhelmingly Democratic.
44% : During those hearings, Trump was often admonished by the judges, who instructed him to be quiet or answer questions more succinctly.
43% : Those two trials did not end well for Trump: The former president was found liable in both cases, and now owes over half a billion dollars, including interest.
41% : "This is political persecution," he steamed after arriving with a phalanx of lawyers and several senior aides, but without his wife or other family members.
40% : But inside the courtroom, which was closed to TV cameras, Trump was a different man -- reserved and muted in a stark departure from his feisty approach to other legal troubles.
36% : In the courtroom, Trump was introduced to jurors not as president -- as his aides still call him -- but "Mr. Donald J. Trump" -- and faced restraints, including the prospect that he might not be granted permission to attend his youngest son's high school graduation.
36% : While Trump has complained about being taken off the campaign trail, he has been keeping a relatively light schedule of public events since he locked up the GOP nomination last month, with most of his rallies scheduled on weekends anyway.
35% : When he was introduced as the defendant, Trump turned and gave prospective jurors "a little tight-lipped smirk."
32% : So Trump instead brought his campaign to the courthouse, delivering statements before and after the day's proceedings, which he again cast as nothing more than a politically motivated effort by his rivals to hinder his campaign.
32% : But during other stretches, Trump slouched forward, casting his gaze toward the ceiling, or leaned back in his chair with his arms folded and his eyes closed.
31% : Half of Americans say they would consider Trump unfit to be president if he is convicted in the case, according to new AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
30% : Trump is now the first former president ever to stand trial on criminal charges and faces the prospect, if he loses, of becoming the first major American presidential candidate in history to run as a convicted felon.
28% : The judge has not ruled on the matter, but did bar Trump from traveling to Washington next Thursday, when the Supreme Court will take up his argument that, as a former president, he is immune from prosecution.
26% : On Monday, Trump did not.
26% : Campaign officials said Monday that they will instead focus on continuing to present a political split-screen between the two men, with the president focused on governing and Trump focused on himself.
25% : With Trump stuck in New York for the foreseeable future, aides have been planning rallies and other political events on weekends and on Wednesdays, when court is not supposed to be in session.
24% : Trump also openly sparred with the judge in his civil fraud case, including from the witness stand.
20% : At one point, the judge in the Carroll suit threatened to kick Trump out of the courtroom for speaking loudly.
19% : But the case is widely see as posing less of a legal risk to Trump than his other cases, which accuse him of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election and of charges under the Espionage Act over his hoarding of classified documents that could lead to serious jail time.
16% : Trump is accused in the case of falsifying business records to hide alleged hush money payments made to a porn star to keep her from going public during his 2016 campaign with allegations of an affair.
12% : Later, when he exited the courtroom for a break, Trump glared at a New York Times reporter who earlier had reported Trump had fallen asleep in his chair.
4% : In addition to appearances related to his four criminal trials, Trump this year voluntarily attended most days of his civil fraud trial as well as a defamation case brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who had accused Trump of rape.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.