It will be interesting to see whether former president Donald J Trump has the impulse control to sit through his New York hush-money trial without being penalized by the presiding judge, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan. Just to be clear, Merchan’s demands of Trump – that he refrain from commenting in the courtroom or on Truth Social about witnesses, trial lawyers and staff and their families – are not exceptional and should not be difficult for a fully functioning adult. So in that respect, whether Trump is able to maintain Merchan proscriptions will be another test of whether he is actually suffering from dementia that makes him truly incapable of controlling his outbursts.
According to journalists present at the trial, Trump was quiet today, so maybe he’ll be all right. But we have a couple of weeks of trial ahead of us, and it will be a good test of the degree of Trump’s dementia. Knowing full well that Judge Merchan will penalize him heavily, will Trump be capable of appropriately controlling himself?
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