A CNN panel on Friday appeared happy about former President Donald Trump’s possible discomfort in a New York courtroom, noting that the setting differs from his usual extravagant surroundings.
Trump is currently on trial for 34 felony counts related to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence about an alleged affair during his 2016 campaign. The panel consisting of host Dana Bash and CNN political director David Chalian appeared to be enjoying themselves as they contemplated how Trump may be feeling in the courtroom during jury selection.
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“Obviously it’s unprecedented that you have a former president, a presidential candidate sitting in a courtroom waiting to see who was going to decide his fate,” Bash said. “But the other part of this is that it’s Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is very much in a bubble of his own making. And it‘s not just because he’s a former president, it’s because he’s a wealthy guy who lives in Mar-a-Lago, who lives in his areas where he has people who are not necessarily critical of him. Let’s say it that way. And that’s not what he‘s enduring in this process.”
“It’s so true, Dana. It’s gotta be so just plainly uncomfortable for him,” Chalian said. “I know he complained that the room is freezing and that’s uncomfortable and the judge said today they’re working on the temperature in the courtroom. But, exactly to your point, I mean any president or former president lives in a bubble. That is true. But not every president has also been a CEO of a company and a billionaire living high in a New York City skyscraper for most of their lives on a top floor. It’s like he has lived such a life in a bubble for so long. And to deal with this reality of people who are expressing, in some parts, very unfavorable opinions about him feet away from him to his face as he’s watching and looking at them intently.”
Bash then read negative quotes about Trump that the former president heard while in the courtroom during jury selection.
All 12 jurors have been chosen for Trump’s trial and they consist of an investment banker, a security engineer with three children, a retired man from Lebanon who likes fly fishing, a speech therapist, a worker at an eyewear company, a California woman who works in product development and a physical therapist.
