Cold and without Diet Coke, former president muddles through the dreary life of a defendant [View all]

I gifted this WSJ link so there is no paywall.

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/donald-trump-is-used-to-the-finer-things-in-life-at-the-courthouse-hes-miserable-e11fb86a?st=f3jcso7bojrjhyd&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Donald Trump, a billionaire accustomed to jet-setting between adoring campaign rallies and his Florida estate, has spent two weeks—with as many as six to go—sitting unhappily at the defense table in the city where he built his real-estate empire and his 2016 White House campaign. Though he fumes daily about the 34 New York felony charges he’s facing, the small indignities of being on trial are what appear to bother him most.

He’s freezing, he says, due to the building’s finicky heating system. In court he can’t eat or drink anything but water, robbing him of some of the multiple Diet Cokes he consumes in a typical day. He can use the bathroom only when the judge declares a break in proceedings. A panel of 18 New Yorkers—12 jurors and six alternates—have front-row seats to his every yawn, catnap and mutter.

Perhaps worst of all, Trump must remain silent in court as witnesses who swear to tell the truth recount his alleged crimes and sexual impropriety several feet away.

“He’s miserable,” said John Catsimatidis, the New York grocery-store magnate and a longtime Trump friend. “There is no more horrible thing than just having to sit there and be quiet.”