'It Was Just a Crazy Face': Lawrence O'Donnell Claims Donald Trump Stared Him Down in Manhattan Courthouse
When MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell went to Donald Trump's Manhattan hush money criminal trial, he claimed the former president stared him down with a "crazy look" in an attempt to be intimidating.
O’Donnell, host of MSNBC’s The Last Word, attended Trump’s trial on Thursday, May 2, to get a first-hand account of the court proceedings.
The former president is charged with more than 34 counts related to falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election. He allegedly made the hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to hide an alleged affair.
He has gone on to deny all criminal wrongdoing and has called the trial a "political witch hunt" orchestrated by President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
"When he was walking by my position at the aisle, he decided he was going to stare at me with what I’m sure he was hoping was some kind of intimidating look, but he was trying to load so much into it, anger, and hatred, that it just became a crazy look," O'Donnell told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing.
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"It was just a crazy face, and I was just, you know, lightly smiling back at him, hoping he could read my mind, which would have been if I had a question: how stupid does it feel that your life has ended up in this room in this way?" O'Donnell continued. "It’s something he likes to do. He likes to see who is there. Anderson Cooper was across the aisle from me."
The MSNBC host added, "That’s the kind of thing that Donald Trump likes to take in, and his eye movement was flawless in the way it stopped right at the line of the man sitting beside me and would never then move another half inch to take me in."
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As OK! previously reported, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman claimed that Thursday had the "most dramatic testimony" so far in the trial.
"Keith Davidson, the former lawyer for Stormy Daniels, testified for a long time, and Trump’s lawyers actually did get some dings into him on cross-examination," Haberman shared in an interview. "It got very tense. He got very flustered. He ended up sounding pretty weaselly as he was giving answers."
"But prosecutors played exchanges that [Michael] Cohen secretly taped," she continued. "One was with Keith Davidson and then the other was Michael Cohen and Trump, which you just played. And that tape is basically what jurors were left with as the most dramatic testimony for the day."