Former President Donald Trump was abused a lot in the first six days of his hush money trial in New York.
“We will call him ‘President Trump’ out of respect for the office he held from 2017 to 2021,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche told the jury during his opening statement Monday. “And as everyone knows, this is the position he is currently running for. He’s the Republican candidate.’
David Pecker, a longtime tabloid publisher who testified that he conspired with Trump in 2015 and 2016 to “capture and kill” stories that could harm Trump’s election efforts, told the court that if they spoke, “I would call him Donald to call.’
Judge Juan Merchan greeted the former president on Tuesday with a standard address for a defendant: “Good morning, Mr. Trump.” That is also the form preferred by prosecutors.
The what’s-in-a-name question is just one of the unusual aspects of the first criminal trial of a former US president, but highlights points of tension for Trump and his defense team.
Blanche has a difficult balancing act between the audience of one at the defense table and the audience of twelve in the jury box — and between Trump as once the most powerful man in America and now as a common defendant.
Trump, his world-famous shock of orange-blonde hair screaming against the drab palette of a wood-paneled courtroom and the dark sea of suit-suited lawyers and court officials, demands that his employees call him “president.” That’s not unusual for former presidents, whose aides typically use “Mr. President” or “the President” long after their terms have expired.
But there are other reasons why Trump’s lawyers call him that. First, his broader legal and public relations strategy for the more consequential federal charges he faces rests on the argument that he should be immune from prosecution for actions he took as president. A separate group of his lawyers will make that claim before the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday.
And while New York’s defense team would certainly want jurors to conclude that Trump was too powerful to be bothered by the details of how an aide was repaid for silencing a porn star, Blanche suggested Monday that he was aware of the risk that a jury may become alienated if the suspect appears to think he is above the colleagues who must judge him.
After explaining why he would call Trump “the president” — and reminding jurors that he is now the presumptive Republican nominee for that office — Blanche immediately tried to portray his client as a normal man.
“But – and this is important – he is not just our former president. He is not just the Donald Trump you have seen on TV, read about and seen pictures of,” Blanche said. ‘He’s a man too. He is a husband. He is a father. And he is a person, just like you and just like me.”
There is nothing new about a lawyer humanizing his client; it is an important part of any competent criminal defense. There can be little doubt that Trump likes this formulation as well. None of his family members have appeared in court with him, even though he has made frequent use of the former first lady Melania Trump and his adult children on the campaign trail for all three of his presidential campaigns.
Whatever prosecutors or defense attorneys say, it will be a challenge for jurors to look past the fact that they will be judging a former president, a leading candidate for the Oval Office and a politician accused of making false financial statements to hide an alleged affair so he could win an election.
Trump is perhaps the most recognizable man on earth.
And yet the jurors will have to decide whether this Trump, by any other name, would be equally guilty or not guilty.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
