Arraignment day brings the Trump circus to town

Hurricane Trump has hit Manhattan

Protesters outside Trump arraignment
(Image credit: Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump arrived at a Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday to be arraigned for his role in allegedly falsifying business records as part of a coverup of hush money payments made to former adult film star Stormy Daniels. His appearance — the first-ever instance of a former president facing criminal charges — follows a series of bombastic statements made by Trump against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, presiding Judge Juan Merchan, and a host of other perceived antagonists and political irritants.

In keeping with the same sense of bombast modeled by Trump in his social media preamble to Tuesday's arraignment, protesters and revelers alike spent the day celebrating and denouncing the former president outside the courthouse. The scrum helped return the former president to the spot where he's most comfortable operating: at the center of everyone's attention. Serious legal jeopardy notwithstanding, Trump has managed to leverage his pre-and-post arraignment appearance into a pseudo-campaign rally to energize his base, replete with fodder for a new round of lucrative fundraising. And although Trump was uncharacteristically demure during the arraignment itself, where he pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, the overall atmosphere of the day — which Trump himself helped stoke — was hyperbolic and electric.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Rafi Schwartz, The Week US

Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.