'We will call him President Trump': Defense lawyers vacillate between honorifics
Former President Donald Trump has been called a lot of names in the first six days of his New York hush-money trial.
Former President Donald Trump has been called a lot of names in the first six days of his New York hush-money trial.
"We will call him 'President Trump' out of respect for the office that he held from 2017 to 2021," Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told the jury during his opening statement Monday. "And as everybody knows, it’s the office he’s running for right now. He’s the Republican nominee."
Longtime tabloid publisher David Pecker, who testified that he conspired with Trump in 2015 and 2016 to "catch and kill" stories that could harm Trump's election effort, told the court that when they spoke, "I would call him Donald."
Judge Juan Merchan greeted the former president Tuesday with a standard address for a defendant: "Good morning, Mr. Trump." That's also been the form favored by prosecutors.
The what's-in-a-name question is just one of the unusual aspects of the first criminal trial of a former American president, but it points to tension points for Trump and his defense team.
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