Donald Trump and his eldest son, Don Jr. put out a TikTok on Wednesday night that saw the duo sitting together in a back room at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse concocting their next mean tweet.
Judge Juan Merchan wrapped up his instructions to the jury on Wednesday as they retired to consider their verdict, but he had one last order for the former president, his legal team and the prosecutors.
‘I do direct all of you to be please here,’ he instructed. You cannot leave the building.’
It means for that for the first time in several weeks, Trump has time on his hands.
Sitting together with his son in one of the courthouse’s white-walled meeting rooms, accompanied with a bottle of Diet Coke and several boxes of chocolates, the pair turned the camera on themselves to create a short clip.
Donald Trump and son, Don Jr., posted a TikTok from a back room at the court on Wednesday
Former President Donald Trump returned to the courtroom as jurors began deliberations for his criminal trial at the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York
‘Hey guys, I’m with your favorite president’, Don Jr. starts the 14 second TikTok.
‘We’re cranking out a couple of mean tweets at the court course,’ he says with a smile. ‘Why don’t you read that last one?’ he asks his father.
‘No, I think I’m going to put it out instead of reading it,’ Trump says taking charge.
‘I know my son’s doing very well on social media. I’m proud of him,’ the former president says, lavishing praise on 46-year-old.
‘Stay tuned it’ll be a doozy,’ Don Jr. teased to his 45,000 TikTok followers.
Around the same time as the video was posted, Trump took to Truth Social to share this thoughts on an interview between Fox News anchor Shannon Bream and Alina Habba.
‘I never knew Shannon Bream was so “naïve.” In her interview with my representative, Alina Habba, Shannon just suggested that Crooked Joe Biden was not involved in my Show Trial. HOW STUPID!
‘Not only is he involved, he is virtually leading it, and all of the other trials as well – Meaning, his people, because he’s not mentally sharp enough to lead anything!
‘Just take a look at the DOJ/White House Thugs involved, and everything else. Biden is incompetent, and feels that Weaponization is the only way he can win. He’s counting on the Shannon Breams of the World to get him there. Bad day for Shannon!’
Don Jr.’s TikTok video was the third the former first son has posted to the platform, but created a brief light-hearted distraction while the seven men and five women of the jury continue their deliberations.
The duo filmed a 14-second video where Don Jr. joked about crafting mean tweets
Trump struck a pessimistic tone after leaving the courtroom following the reading of jury instructions, repeating his assertions of a ‘very unfair trial’
Trump is stuck each day on the 15th floor of the courthouse where his aides have complained about the state of the restrooms and where an ‘asbestos abatement’ warning is pinned beside the elevators.
It is a very ordinary setting for a real estate mogul who made his money in glittering Manhattan towers and whose surname became a byword for luxury.
Trump remained inside the courthouse during deliberations, where he posted on his Truth Social complaints about the trial and quoted legal and political commentators who view the case in his favor.
In one all-capital-letters post, he proclaimed that he didn’t even ‘know what the charges are in this rigged case,’ even though he was present in the courtroom as the judge detailed them to jurors.
The jury deliberated for four and half hours on Wednesday before being sent home for the night by Judge Juan Merchan at 4pm.
‘It is not my responsibility to judge the evidence here. It is yours,’ Judge Juan M. Merchan told jurors earlier in the day, reminding them of their vow during the selection process to judge the case fairly and impartially.
Jurors in Trump’s hush money trial began deliberating on Wednesday on whether to return the first criminal conviction of a former president – a momentous decision that could upend the November presidential election
Don Jr joined his father in the courtroom on Wednesday as deliberations began
The jury asked to rehear a slew of testimony from a key Trump Tower meeting, where the prosecution alleges that a ‘capture and kill’ scheme was devised to bury negative stories, and from tabloid king David Pecker, the then publisher of the National Enquirer.
It’s unclear how long the deliberations will last. A guilty verdict would deliver a stunning legal reckoning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as he seeks to reclaim the White House while an an acquittal would represent a major win for Trump and embolden him on the campaign trail.
Since verdicts must be unanimous, it’s also possible that the case ends in a mistrial if the jury cannot reach a consensus after days of deliberations.
Trump denies 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels just ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Trump supporters were out in force in front of the courthouse on Wednesday
Twelve jurors will decide Donald Trump’s fate after sitting through six weeks of testimony
The prosecution alleges he directed a plot to buy up negative stories, using his fixer Michael Cohen and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker to seek out and sign up women to stop them going public.
In contrast, the defense has argued that Trump simply wanted to protect his family and was not thinking about hiding damaging information from voters.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and contends the Cohen payments were for legitimate legal services. He has also denied the alleged extramarital sexual encounter with Daniels.
Trump struck a pessimistic tone after leaving the courtroom following the reading of jury instructions, repeating his assertions of a ‘very unfair trial’ and saying: ‘Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we’ll see. We’ll see how we do.’
‘These charges are rigged. The whole country’s a mess, between the borders and fake elections, and you have a trial like this where the judge is so conflicted he can’t breathe,’ he said on Wednesday at lunchtime.