On Monday, in Manhattan Criminal Court, a “conservative Christian rapper” identifying himself as “Shawn DVS 7.0” awaited the arrival of Donald Trump.
“Sometimes I have disagreements with Trump, but no one compares,” he said, resting a life-size American flag pole on his shoulder. Democrats, he added, “couldn’t have it with collusion, they couldn’t have it with all the other things before, so now they’re going for all these side angles.”
He was one of about 50 anti-Trump protesters who gathered for the start of jury selection in the first of Trump’s four criminal trials. Holed up outside 100 Center St., they carried signs reading “Trump 2024, Save America” and “The Purge Begins Tuesday, November 5.”
They were vastly outnumbered by the phalanx of journalists and police, which disappointed at least one of them.
“I thought there would be more people here,” said the woman, who only gave her first name, Sophia. She had taken the subway an hour and a half from Queens to lower Manhattan to witness, in effect, the first-ever criminal trial of a former president.
“When they end up taking away our freedom of expression and screwing us over, no one has any interest in talking about it,” she added. “Shut up, you didn’t fight for your rights.”
The courthouse sideshow included familiar Trumpworld figures, including a far-right conspiracy theorist. Laura Loomer and Andrew Giuliani, the son of former Trump lawyer and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Asked about the low turnout in the street, the younger Giuliani replied: “I’m more worried about what’s happening in this courtroom than outside.”
Andrew Giuliani in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Spencer Platt/Getty
There was a small crowd of counterprotesters who marched around 9 a.m., carrying signs reading “Election interference is a crime” and chanting, “No one is above the law.” They stopped briefly at the barricades before being rushed by police, earning little more than a few snide comments from Trumpers.
A pro-Trump protester and a counter-protester briefly got into a physical tangle on the sidelines of a news conference given by Loomer and Giuliani. No one was arrested. (“Pushing is not assault,” a police officer who witnessed the altercation told the counterprotester, an older woman from New York who identified herself as Bebe.)
Loomer didn’t seem to notice the mini-skirmish, telling the crowd through a megaphone that their job was to make sure the media didn’t just cover the left-wing protesters – which seemed unlikely given the number of journalists in the pro-Trump pen. were more numerous than the demonstrators themselves.
“If anyone is committing election interference, it’s these corrupt communists,” Loomer said, referring to the counter-protest signs, before leading the crowd in chanting “Fire Tish James, fire Alvin Bragg.”
Bragg is, of course, the Manhattan prosecutor prosecuting Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with secret payments he allegedly made and hid to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in exchange of his silence on an adventure. Bragg alleges the payments were part of a broader strategy to influence the results of the 2016 election.
Officers escort an anti-Trump protester away from pro-Trump protesters.
Adam Gray/AFP via Getty
Unsurprisingly, MAGA supporters believe the trial itself constitutes election interference — a, shall we say, fabricated case designed to sink a man running for re-election. And they have all kinds of theories about what Really in progress.
Shawn, for example, believes that Michael Cohen, the Trump lawyer who made the secret payments to Daniels and later turned against him, was the one who was having an affair with Daniels. (One of Shawn’s biggest hits on Spotify is a song called MAGA Vibe,” whose lyrics include: “Somebody go get the grill and the deer kill Trump Jr..”)
Trump appears to be trying to turn his criminal trial, which will keep him stuck in a courtroom for six weeks, into a surrogate campaign event, telling his supporters on Truth Social on the eve of the trial that he will “See you tomorrow.” .
But the rally outside the courthouse had neither the turnout nor the energy of a typical Trump rally. Most appeared to have arrived an hour or two before the trial began, and Loomer and Giuliani left shortly after the former president’s sullen entrance at 9:30 a.m.
“I notice there are more media members here than actual patriots,” said Patrick McAndrews, who said he was there to support Trump and to “network” for his events newsletter conservatives. “I would have liked to see a larger turnout, but we are all sitting idly waiting for Trump to announce his big rally in New York.”
A committed group camped in the enclosure for hours as jury selection progressed and the day grew uncomfortably hot. Someone took out a portable speaker and started playing music; a sign reading “COVID-19: A Super War That Toppled President Trump” was erected. Two members of the far-right Proud Boys party held out until around 12:45 p.m., when they became hungry. “Let’s go get some tacos,” one of them urged his friend.
For those with non-Trump cases in the courtroom, the tight security and media attention were mostly an inconvenience. One woman, upon learning that the crowd was there for Trump, sighed and said, “Is this why I can’t attend my trial against my landlord today?”
Only one person seemed truly pleased with the events of this morning. Standing on a park bench in the middle of Trump’s enclosure, wearing a sign around his neck saying, “Trump is a narcissistic liar,” an older man named Marc Leavitt loudly played “God Bless America” on a flute.
When asked why he had come that morning, he smiled and told a reporter: “This is a great day for the rule of law. »
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