I was heading out for an appointment at 4:45 when I thought I’d check, for the dozenth time, for updates on the Trump hush money trial, taking place 12 blocks from my house. Well, damn, the jurors had reached a verdict. Hustling past the buckets of live fish on Division Street, I made it to the courthouse just before the verdict was read. As they have since Tuesday, several hundred Trump supporters lined the streets outside of the courthouse. Aside from the guy shouting, “Fuck you! And fuck your mother!” and holding a giant TRUMP 2024 sign, the supporters were nearly subdued; there were no boobs flashed, no hue and cry when the verdict came down: Guilty on all counts.
“But where did you read that?” asked a young man with one bead in his short beard and a red MAGA cap. I showed him my New York Times app. That he didn’t seem put out by it matched the mood of many in the crowd, who told me, variously, that it didn’t matter; that the verdict has only assured him the election; that they’re remaining calm because they were expecting this and that they were not worried.
There was some shouting, especially when a Biden supporter wandered into the mix, but overall, it was pretty chill, at least when I was there. Currently I can hear some sirens, and there may be some chaos coming. As a Politico reporter told me, “It’s already a powder keg, it just takes one spark. It’s going to be a long night.”
Indeed, flag-guy did direct, at no one in particular, a “Fuck Antifa! Fuck Alvin Bragg! Fuck Leticia James and fuck you, too,” just as I was skedaddling.
Yesterday, in an exquisite bit of timing or maybe we’re prescient about this stuff, Sarah Hepola and I had the brilliant stone-fox Olivia Nuzzi on the Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em podcast. Olivia is the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, and a total fox, not that it’s AT ALL relevant to the work she does, which is top-tier. She began her career as a teenager at an alt-weekly in New Jersey and worked on the Anthony Weiner campaign (oh boy), and a story she wrote about that experience brought her to prominence. These days, she’s a rock-star writer with bylines in Politico, GQ, Esquire, and The Washington Post, and she was a finalist for the 2023 National Magazine Award for feature writing. She’s been covering the recent Trump trial from the courtroom — until she got kicked out, that is — and her insight into that uniquely American character has made her reporting a must-read. “Trump is not really there if he’s not being looked at by other people.”
Also discussed:
“It’s certainly ‘Weiner.’”
How an obsession with comedy led a political beat
The peculiar power of being professionally curious
Olivia did not steal Corey Lewandowski’s photo album!
The journalist’s question: What the fuck is going on here?
How to NOT bribe a cop
Donuts as micro-aggression
Is Trump sleeping during his trial, and if so, why?
The beige oppression of a courtroom
Why Trump needs a beauty blender
Stormy Daniels: “I slept with THAT?!”
Trump as the classic American striver
“Bimbo eruptions”
But ARE we living in a simulation?
The greatness of Eddie Pepitone
“Just because something is not true doesn’t mean it can’t be a problem”
Olivia is named after who?!
Plus, how being unable to say “More Ovaltine, please” changed the course of Olivia’s career, one of the great movie soundtracks according to Sarah, Olivia’s predictions about the trial and the 2024 election, and much more, including after the break.
Cross-posted at Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em
