While he has never been seen as a towering intellect, many have nonetheless viewed former President Donald Trump as a shrewd, cynical operator. Behind all the rants and outbursts is a certain logic and, for a time, you couldn’t argue with the results: a stint in the White House and the evasion of all consequences for acts that might have landed someone else behind bars.
Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial is testing that thesis. So far, the 77-year-old’s antics – attacking potential witnesses and intimidating jurors, in the courtroom and on Truth Social – are looking less like a master at work than the actions of a man who simply can’t control himself. It’s even looking like it might cost him.
