As his criminal trial prepared to begin anew yesterday, Donald Trump briefly addressed journalists, complaining once again about the lack of protesters at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. The defendant, however, had an explanation that seemed to make him feel better.
“Outside, it looks like it’s supposed to be Fort Knox,” the former president complained. “There are more police than I’ve ever seen anywhere — because they don’t want to have to anybody come down.”
George Conway, a lawyer with considerable experience in Republican politics, noted soon after, “This is an amazing lie, even for Trump. There is virtually complete freedom of movement around that courthouse.”
As a great many people have noted in recent weeks, there’s a park across from the courthouse. It’s open to the public. If the former president’s followers wanted to assemble and show their support for the defendant, they could do so, freely. The park does not resemble Fort Knox in any way.
I understand why Trump is lying — it bruises his ego that the park has been largely empty for weeks — but that doesn’t make his whining any less pitiful.
That said, it’s important to note that there were some protesters on hand at the courthouse yesterday, though they weren’t the ones the former president wanted to see. The New York Times reported:
Donald J. Trump has been joined in recent days by entourages of supporters who watch his prosecution in the morning and then give statements backing him outside the courthouse. On Monday, the daily news conference disintegrated into chaos, when anti-Trump demonstrators and hecklers surrounded the speakers, then effectively silenced them with shouts, whistles and the clanging of a cowbell.
The protester taunting the Trump surrogates with a “Bootlickers” banner stood out as especially notable.
Hard to hear anyone speaking over the hecklers and cowbells pic.twitter.com/RoLZVmEJyG
— Jacqueline Sweet (@JSweetLI) May 20, 2024
As the trial began in earnest last month, the defendant made no secret of what he wanted to see. In a message he published to his social media platform, the presumptive GOP nominee wrote, “GO OUT AND PEACEFULLY PROTEST. RALLY BEHIND MAGA. SAVE OUR COUNTRY!”
The Times reported soon after that Trump was “not happy” when few followed his directive, because “he wanted a circus to accompany his trial.”
Much to the Republican’s chagrin, the circumstances were familiar.
Circling back to our recent coverage, as Trump’s post-defeat legal woes intensified, his rhetoric about his supporters taking to the streets grew louder. In January 2022, for example, amidst speculation about possible indictments, the Republican said at a rally that if he were to face charges, “I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had.”
In September 2022, Trump delivered a related ominous message, saying that if he were indicted, the United States would face “problems … the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen.”
The vague predictions turned into directives last year. In March 2023, as the former president prepared for an indictment in New York, he turned to his social media platform, writing, “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” In case that was too subtle, Trump added a few hours later, “IT’S TIME!!! … WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. … WE MUST SAVE AMERICA! PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!” Around the same time, the Republican derided talk of “peaceful” demonstrations, while suggesting that if he were indicted in New York, it might cause “potential death [and] destruction” that “could be catastrophic for our Country.” Though it seemed as if Trump envisioned mass groups of red-capped followers taking to the streets, those calls were largely ignored. Some supporters turned out in Manhattan around the time of his first arrest, but the gatherings were, by any fair measure, underwhelming duds. After his classified documents scandal led to his second indictment, the former president again called on his followers to rally behind him — Trump wrote, “SEE YOU IN MIAMI ON TUESDAY!!!” on his social media platform — but the numbers were again small. Local law enforcement was prepared for crowds of up to 50,000 people. The actual crowd was closer to 500. Two months later, at a Trump arraignment in Washington, D.C., a “handful” of his supporters showed up to register their dissatisfaction. The good news is, some protesters finally showed up and were heard yesterday. The bad news, at least for the criminal defendant, is that they were there to heckle Trump’s sycophants as the Republican surrogates took steps to undermine the legal system. This post updates our earlier related coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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