The wild moments from the Trump trial that I can’t stop thinking about

The jury in former President Donald Trump’s secret trial in New York will soon be officially released to deliberate. They’ll be expected to consider boring things, like “34 counts of falsifying business records” and whatever “class E felony” is (it’s not a class Y felony, with all this porn, okay guys I’m really sorry for typing this).

But I? I can envision whatever I want. Because while Donald Trump may have slept through the vast majority of his felony trial, I didn’t.

So here are the parts of the trial that may not be important to the jury, but I’ll never stop thinking about:

DAVID PECKER, FORMER NATIONAL ENQUIRER PUBLISHER

The first prosecution witness was the former editor of National investigator, David Pecker. And I’ll say it, it’s just a little too blunt. It’s like in the old days when you were given the name of your profession. Make good cakes? Your name is Baker. Do you like forging things out of iron? We’ll call you Smith. Spend your career buying stories about sex scandals to help Donald Trump get elected and then talk about it on the witness stand? Thank you for your service, Mr. Pecker.

TRUMP CALLS STORMY DANIELS “HONEY BUNCH”

According to her testimony, the former president referred to adult film star Stormy Daniels as the “Honey Bunch.” Really, sir? Swarm of bees.

In my opinion, the only time it is appropriate to use the term Honey Bunch is when you are helping a swarm of bees come up with a name for their a cappella band. “Buzz, you’re on tenor. Bee-trice? Viola line and beatboxing.

ONE HOLE PORN SPONSORS

During her testimony, Stormy Daniels told the jury that she met Trump because his porn company sponsored one of the holes at the golf course.

Check your biases, because one of the things I learned from this essay is that porn stars make jokes too! It’s unfair because they are also sexy and apparently good at sex. If they turn out to be really good at The New York Times Connections puzzle, so I even finished trying.

“YOU REMIND ME OF MY DAUGHTER”

Daniels also testified that before having sex, Donald Trump told her that she reminded him of his daughter. “She’s smart, blonde and beautiful and people underestimate her too,” he was quoted as saying.

This isn’t new information, but it’s one of those things you see in the news that makes you think, “You know, maybe life would have been better if I’d never learned to read. Of course, The Rye Catcher It was great and all, but was it worth it?

Perhaps second only to the rudeness of the comment itself is the fact that we all read it now and say, “That seems about right.” Oh sure, he told an adult film star she was like his daughter shortly before they had sex. It’s just one of his personality quirks: like randomly putting capital letters in his social media posts or threatening to jail his opponents. What an amusing little rascal this man is!

But perhaps the saddest thing here is the fact that not a single one of us thought he could have been talking about Tiffany.

Mean Tweets

During jury selection, lawyers shared potential jurors’ posts on social media in an effort to get them dismissed for bias against the former president. What this means in practice is that Donald Trump had to sit back while lawyers shared a video in which a Trump AI said, “I’m stupid as fuck.”

For just a split second, it felt like Donald Trump might have some idea of ​​what many people really think of him. It was so satisfying! Of course, in reality, he was probably staring at the screen wondering, “Who is this handsome man and why does ‘I’m stupid as fuck’ sound so awesome when it comes out of his mouth?”

ALLEGEDLY PAYING FOR RIGGED POLLS

I’m just a naive guy, but I’m still shocked that the Trump campaign that allegedly paid $50,000 to rig online polls doesn’t have a bigger story.

In all honesty, there are so many stories and they can’t all add up to one story. So I understand. But in a different world — where politicians’ careers are ruined for shouting too enthusiastically — a presidential candidate paying tens of thousands of dollars to a company to rig a vote would be a real scandal. Unfortunately, we live in 2024, where all-out nuclear war would probably be mentioned quickly on the 10 p.m. news just before we learned which Instagram dogs are secretly on Ozempic.

Of course, it turned out that Michael Cohen kept some of that $50,000 for himself, so the cheater becomes the cheater. Or does the cheater become the cheater?

Look, the fact is that the Trump campaign was so corrupt that even its corruption was interrupted by an entirely separate act of corruption. This is a real Russian nesting doll scam.

ZZZZZZZZZZ…

Of course, I’m writing this for all of you who haven’t had time to follow the intricacies of the former president’s trial. But I’m also writing it for another person who missed much of what was happening in the courtroom: Donald Trump himself. Because for a man who calls his opponent “Sleepy Joe,” he sure has taken a lot of naps on the field.

However, as someone who can’t fall asleep if someone in the next room is breathing too much, I have to say I’m a little jealous of Trump here. Imagine falling asleep to the soft tones of Michael Cohen talking about his merch sales.

This is how the super-rich are different from us. We fall asleep to old episodes of Law and order. They, much more intelligent and rich, fall asleep to their own criminal trials.

The first Trump trial had a difficult time. Times when we laughed. Times when Hope Hicks cried. Times when we all wish we could rub sand in our eyes. Will I miss it? In a way, yes. But don’t worry, we have three more coming.

Jill Twiss won multiple Emmys and Peabody Awards as a senior writer on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. While on the show, she wrote A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, a #1 New York Times bestseller.