Trump juggles legal, political schedules in final stretch before Iowa voting

For weeks, former President Donald Trump's campaign teased a ramp-up in events in the new year ahead of the Iowa caucuses next Monday.

Yet, with only four weekend rallies scheduled, the Trump campaign continues to hold limited events, facing multiple hurdles, including weather delays, canceled surrogate events and, now, two voluntary courtroom appearances.

Though Trump will be back in the state Wednesday for a Fox News town hall, he doesn't have any public campaign appearances until Saturday — holding two events on Jan. 13 then, and two events on Sunday — on the eve of the Iowa GOP caucus day.

Rather than spending time in the state in the final stretch of the Iowa caucuses, Trump instead has chosen to make two court appearances this week. While he wasn't required to be present in the courtroom, Trump was attending Tuesday's appeals court arguments on his efforts to dismiss the federal election subversion case over presidential immunity. He has also said he wants to attend closing arguments in his New York civil fraud trial expected to conclude this week, though he isn't required to do so either.

As Trump deals with 91 felony charges across four indictments and multiple civil cases — in all of which he has denied wrongdoing — his legal schedule and campaign schedule are anticipated to continue to collide after that, forcing him to choose between court appearances and campaign appearances at pivotal moments in the election cycle.

On Jan. 16, the day after the first GOP contest of the year — just as Trump is expected to start campaigning for the first in the nation primary in New Hampshire on Jan. 23 — another civil trial is set to start in a second defamation case to determine damages Trump would have to pay after a jury found