The Unexpected Way Trump’s Hush-Money Trial Is Hobbling His Campaign

Donald Trump is finding campaigning for the 2024 presidential election more difficult than his last time around, and his criminal trial in Manhattan is a big reason why.

Jury selection began this week, which means that Trump is required to be in the courtroom. He’d much rather be out on the campaign trail fundraising, and as The Daily Beast reported Friday, it’s starting to have financial consequences.

The former president, accused of a hush-money scheme involving porn star Stormy Daniels, has already missed a major House GOP fundraiser in Texas because of the trial schedule, and will likely be forced to cancel on similar events for the same reason. His legal fees have driven him to all kinds of shady grifting, and Joe Biden continues to outraise him.

Trump’s campaign has attempted to bridge the donation gap by scheduling fundraisers in nearby states. Trump will use his weekend outside the courtroom to attend a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, and the campaign has scheduled another in New Jersey on May 11.

Media attention hasn’t been a problem for Trump, even as he spends most of the day in a courtroom. He’s been posting on Truth Social so frequently that the judge has asked him to put away his phone, and a campaign stunt at a bodega made headlines. But for any candidate, especially one as cash-strapped and with as much prior name recognition as Trump, funding is the lifeblood of a campaign. With the trial now scheduled to run longer than the originally planned two months, his money problems won’t be going away anytime soon.

In an unusual move, Judge Juan Merchan has refused to disclose the prosecution’s first three witnesses in advance to Donald Trump’s defense team in his hush money trial.

Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass revealed the move on Thursday, in response to a request from Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche. Steinglass pointed out how much Trump posts about possible witnesses and even jurors, which has already affected jury selection.

“I can’t fault them for that,” said Merchan, agreeing with Steinglass. Merchan is no stranger to Trump’s posting history, as Trump has attacked his daughter in previous weeks, resulting in a gag order. Trump’s defenders have also made the ludicrous claim that he has a constitutional right to attack witnesses and jurors.

Merchan’s decision is an unusual one, according to legal analyst ​and former prosecutor Renato Mariotti, who noted that it could be more effective than a fine.

Trump is facing 34 felony charges after allegedly paying off adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to cover up an alleged affair. The witness list in the case is said to include several of his former employees from the Trump organization, as well as his longtime White House aide Hope Hicks.

The witnesses who might have the most damaging testimony include Daniels herself, as well as Trump’s former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen, who allegedly made the payments on Trump’s behest. Cohen and Daniels have both been on the receiving end of Trump’s angry Truth Social posts, especially since trial proceedings began.

House Republicans are still going at it amid their continued failure to unite behind foreign aid packages. The newest target? Matt Gaetz.

Gaetz, who yesterday bickered with Wisconsin Representative Derrick Van Orden after the latter pushed to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson over his surprising Ukraine reversal, now faces more criticism from his own party, this time from New York Representative Mike Lawler.

Speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper Thursday evening, Lawler did not hold back when asked about GOP infighting over the aid bills.

“I look at this very simply,” Lawler said. “In October, the House was thrown into chaos by Matt Gaetz and seven useful idiots that teamed up with him within the Republican conference and 208 Democrats. And at this moment, when you see what happened in the aftermath of vacating the chair and Israel attacked in a terrorist attack a week later, to do that again would be detrimental to the country and global security.”

Lawler’s “useful idiots” comment is not even the first inter-Republican dig at a colleague’s intellect this week; Gaetz responded to Van Orden’s “tubby” comment by calling him “not a particularly intelligent individual.” It’s also not the first time Gaetz has been singled out as the GOP’s chief agent of chaos. Last week, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whom Gaetz helped oust, speculated about Gaetz’s motivations for the October motion to vacate.

Johnson has looked overmatched as speaker, unable to control a caucus held hostage by hard-liners like Gaetz, who has not yet called for Johnson’s ouster, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has. As a result, he hasn’t just failed to get aid packages through Congress; he’s allowing intraparty feuds between pro-aid members like Lawler and holdouts to fester.

Donald Trump is not known for restraint when it comes to social media, particularly regarding people he doesn’t like. And when one of his lawyers tried to deny it during his hush-money trial Thursday, the judge called him out.

Prosecutors warned Judge Juan Merchan that the former president would likely attack the prosecution’s witnesses against him during the trial, noting he appears to have violated his gag order seven times since the start of the week. Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche tried to promise his client would stop posting like that on social media, but Merchan saw right through it.

“That he will not tweet about any witness? I don’t think that you can make that representation,” Merchan said.

Merchan has a lot of evidence to back up that stance: Trump repeatedly attacks his critics on social media, dating back to his days on Twitter (now X). His posts on Truth Social have resulted in multiple gag orders against him, and he’s already attacked the prosecution, Merchan, and Merchan’s daughter in this case. He even posted Wednesday night about a liberal jury conspiracy he heard on Fox News.

The witnesses against him will likely include his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, as well as adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who allegedly received the hush money payment. Trump and Cohen have a long history of animosity, and we all know Trump doesn’t ever hold a grudge for a long time.

Trump already has been told off by Merchan for talking out loud in court, and has to attend a contempt hearing next week for alleged gag order violations. And, regardless of what his former attorneys say, witness intimidation and criticizing Merchan’s daughter are not protected in the Constitution.

During jury selection at Donald Trump’s hush-money trial on Thursday, a potential juror was excused for making an apt comparison: The former president reminded him of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The man, who is originally from Italy, said it would be “hard to be fair and impartial” because of the similarities.

Berlusconi and Trump do have some things in common: Both were business professionals who went on to be elected to political office, and both faced (and continue to face) criticism for unethical business practices, both in and out of office.

The major difference, though, is that Berlusconi seems to have been far more successful politically, as well as financially. He served as prime minister in four different governments for nine years, and he was the third-wealthiest person in Italy with a net worth of $6.8 billion when he died in 2023. His holdings included real estate (like Trump), the largest media company in Italy, and the soccer club AC Milan.

Like Trump, Berlusconi was also in legal trouble due to his business activities, with a long list of charges including fraud, false accounting, soliciting prostitution, bribery, and defamation. Unsurprisingly, he called these charges “judicial persecution” and said the goal was “subverting the votes of the Italian people.”

Trump, however, has never been upfront about his net worth, remarking in the past that it changes based on his daily mood. Lately, though, it seems to be dropping.

So far, Trump has only been elected to office once, and he didn’t even win the popular vote. And while Trump’s legal cases have only just begun, he can’t pretend to have the wealth and influence that Berlusconi used to skirt any serious legal consequences, regardless of the Republican Party’s influence over the Supreme Court.