lysgaardjohannessen5918

It’s where the “art of the deal” could presumably be uncovered because the “art of the steal.”

Donald Trump couldn’t stay away from the opening of his civil fraud trial in New York on Monday. But the choreographed motorcade of Secret Service SUVs, rants about politicized persecution and courtroom scowls went deeper than his now acquainted attempts to turn his dates with justice into fodder for his 2024 campaign.

This time, the real estate shark was again in his old hunting grounds to defend his threatened empire, the Manhattan skyscraper bearing his identify in big gold letters and finally the mythology of his career as a billionaire tycoon that nurtured his fame and rebel rise to the White House. Being impeached twice is https://pastelink.net/p423mntj . Facing 91 legal expenses is terrible. But the fraud case in New York threatens to shred Trump’s cherished self-image as an ultimate winner. That could also be worst of all for the ex-president who still touts his golf resorts, resorts, planes and companies in campaign speeches as proof of what he sees as his stellar business acumen.

“It’s a scam, it’s a sham. Just so you know, my financial statements are phenomenal,” Trump mentioned before the trial opened.

Former President Donald Trump, right, sits within the courtroom at New York Supreme Court, Monday, Oct. 2, 2023, in New York. Trump is making a rare, voluntary journey to court in New York for the start of a civil trial in a lawsuit that already has resulted in a judge ruling that he dedicated fraud in his enterprise dealings. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) Takeaways from Day One of the $250 million Trump fraud trial The paraphernalia of wealth is not merely about boosting Trump’s shallowness. It is integral to his political appeal. While his history of bankruptcies, legal reversals and scandals has punctured his image among voters who disdain him, Republicans who love Trump still buy into his iconography as a tough charging businessman. That image was despatched into overdrive by NBC’s “The Apprentice,” which helped turn the star of a actuality present right into a president and fashionable American demagogue. Taking children on helicopter rides at the Iowa state truthful or directing pilots of his personalized 757 to circle the sector earlier than airport rallies as audio system blare the theme to the film “Air Force One” are all part of the theater that Trump concocts to portray himself as the ultimate word self-made man who got wealthy despite elites spurning him for years.

This thought was encapsulated by considered one of his attorneys in court on Monday, who argued that far from inflating his wealth, her shopper may have performed it down by not including the worth of his image. “There would have been the brand, the identical brand that obtained that man elected president,” Alina Habba mentioned. “There’s lots of people in this room that probably don’t like that, and that’s why we are right here.”