Vintage Trump remarks after convictions renew dilemma for news media and voters alike

Former President Donald Trump stood in the lobby of Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan Friday morning looking somehow ill at ease in his own building.

He wore his signature suit, shirt and tie and stood alone at a lectern with five American flags and a cold stone wall behind him. Gone was the usual human backdrop of flag-waving supporters seen at MAGA rallies. He stood alone, without script or teleprompter, armed only with two sheets of paper and a look of barely controlled rage.

It was billed as a press conference to respond to the jury verdict that had convicted him on 34 charges the day before. But it was more a speech than a press conference. A contingent of reporters with cameras stood a few yards away, but Trump spoke without interruption and took no questions.

Not far off, a small crowd of supporters including some family members applauded and cheered at intervals. Trump never quite settled on which group he was addressing, connecting only sporadically with the live TV broadcast camera. Some of the TV news channels eventually cut away while he rambled on for a total of 33 minutes.

It was the same location Trump spoke from nine years ago this month when he descended “the golden escalator” to the same lobby and announced his first campaign for the Republican nomination for president. The scene that day featured Melania and Ivanka Trump, both all in white, and a forest of cameras held aloft beneath Trump’s elevated stage. Everything about those theatrics described a different time in a different world.

Trump would recall that occasion on Friday when he almost immediately started attacking immigrants, as he had in 2015.

But first, he had to deal with the moment — and the reason he was here.

“This is a case where if they