Speaking of "melting down" ...
Trump Privately Rages About His Sketch Artist, Courtroom Nap Reports
The former president’s anger during the first week of his New York hush money trial was “maxed out, even for him,” a source tells Rolling Stone
BY RYAN BORT, ASAWIN SUEBSAENG, CATHERINA GIOINO
Donald Trump, if you take it from him, is cherishing the opportunity to stand trial on criminal charges related to a hush-money payment to a porn star. “I’m very proud to be here,” he told reporters before heading into court on Monday, calling the proceedings an
“assault on America” that his presence, presumably, would serve to expose. “I’m very honored to be here,” the former president added.
Trump hasn’t been taking to martyrdom very well behind the scenes, though, three sources with knowledge of the matter tell
Rolling Stone. He has privately raged over everything from reports that he
can’t stop dozing off, to how the court
sketch artist is rendering him, to late-night talk show hosts joking about his legal troubles. The former president is reaching levels of fury over the judicial process and all it entails that are “maxed out, even for him,” says one source who has had to personally endure Trump’s recent rantings about his trial.
The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee has a lengthy track record of getting volcanically angry, and often allowing his rage to dictate political, legal, and policy
decisions. But with the
historic first criminal trial of an American president now underway, his public and private wrath has become particularly multi-faceted, and sustained to the point that longtime confidants have taken notice.
Among the heavily recurring topics in Trump’s private sniping this past week — according to the source, another person familiar with the situation, and a different Trumpworld figure briefed on the matter — is the former president’s bitterness towards
New York Times reporter
Maggie Haberman, who reported in
print, online,
and on CNN that Trump was visibly nodding off while in court. “He appeared to be asleep,” she told the network. “He didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest, and his mouth kept going slack.”
The observation immediately went viral, provoking an irate denial from Trump’s campaign and reigniting the former president’s antipathy towards Haberman, who has been reporting on him for years. The resentment lasted the entire week, the sources add. It did not help Trump’s denial that ....
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