Trump’s New Hampshire strategy – insults and court histrionics

CNN —

Donald Trump is unveiling a two-pronged strategy to claim a second big election victory in New Hampshire’s primary next week that he hopes will quickly end the GOP nominating race.

The former president is escalating his effort to use his legal problems to dominate attention and to rally his most adoring supporters. And he’s turning up the heat on his top rival in the state – his former Cabinet member Nikki Haley – who has her best chance there to win an early contest against her former boss and prolong the race.

Five days before the primary, Trump gave his most explicit sign yet that his legal defense and his presidential campaign are one and the same when he jumped directly from a Manhattan courtroom to a campaign rally in New Hampshire.

In this courtroom sketch, Donald Trump sits with arms folded beside his attorney, Alina Habba in Federal Court, in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024. Trump was threatened with expulsion from his Manhattan civil trial Wednesday after he repeatedly ignored a warning to keep quiet while writer E. Jean Carroll testified that he shattered her reputation after she accused him of sexual abuse.

Related article Takeaways from E. Jean Carroll’s testimony at a contentious Day 2 of the Trump defamation trial

First, the former president voluntarily showed up in court in New York to come face-to-face with E. Jean Carroll – the writer whom a civil jury has already found he sexually abused. Carroll on Wednesday was giving evidence for the first time in Trump’s presence, in a new trial to determine how much he will pay in damages for defaming her.

The former president publicly fulminated against Judge Lewis Kaplan as “nasty” and a “Trump-hating guy” and bucked courtroom etiquette. His