Stuck in court, Trump turns his criminal trial into his campaign

The last place Donald Trump wants to be is seated at a defence table, muted, in a courtroom in New York City, surrounded by reporters, for six to eight weeks.

A man who is used to spending his days golfing, surrounded by loyalists at his Florida resort, raging at network news, and traveling to makeshift arenas for rallies where his name is everywhere is instead entering the second week of witness testimony in the first-ever criminal trial of an American president.

But like his civil fraud trial down the street from the downtown Manhattan courthouse where he is on trial for allegedly falsifying business records, the former president is relying on the cameras staged in the adjoining hallway to cast himself as a victim of political prosecution, the defining feature of his 2024 presidential campaign.

That rhetoric is amplified in his campaign’s messages to supporters in increasingly absurd and false characterisations of what’s happening in court, where he pits his word against the reporters in the room and the official court transcript.

Moments after Manhattan prosecutors asked a judge to fine him at least $10,000 for a series of posts allegedly violating the trial’s gag order, his campaign fired out an email titled “I’m being held hostage!”

The day before, the campaign warned that “all hell breaks loose in 24 hours” and that Mr Trump “COULD BE THROWN IN JAIL AT THAT VERY MOMENT!”

Hours later, another plea: “My farewell message.”

“If things don’t go our way,” it said, “I could be thrown in jail.”

In another message, clicking “yes” or “no” on “WILL YOU VOTE FOR ME IF THE DEEP STATE THROWS ME IN JAIL?” sends supporters to a donation page.

While his campaign falsely tells his supporters that he’s being held “hostage” by