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MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courthouse on Monday, declared that Donald Trump appeared “old and tired and mad” as she delivered observations about the ex-president on trial for 34 counts of falsification of business records in the alleged pursuit of election interference to protect his 2016 presidential run.

Trump “seems considerably older, and he seems annoyed. Resigned, maybe, angry. He seems like a man who’s miserable to be here,” the journalist told MSNBC viewers Monday afternoon.

“I’m no body language expert,” she conceded, “and this is just my observation. He seemed old and tired and mad.”

The New York Times’ Susanne Craig, inside the courthouse Monday morning, reported: “Trump is struggling to stay awake. His eyes were closed for a short period. He was jolted awake when Todd Blanche, his lawyer, nudged him while sliding a note in front of him.”

The Biden campaign was only too happy to pick up and report Craig’s observation, adding “feeble.”

Former Obama senior advisor David Axelrod, pointing to his piece at The Atlantic, wrote of Trump: “He has charmed & conned, schemed & marauded his way through life. He was bred that way. But the weariness & vulnerability captured in courtroom images betray a growing sense in Trump that he could wind up as the thing his old man most reviled:

A loser.”Watch Maddow's video below.

Reacting to an angry rant delivered by Donald Trump when he showed up for court on Friday morning, CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig noted the former president looked "frazzled," which could be a clue to prosecutors that they are getting to him after only three days in court.

Speaking with host Kate Bolduan after the former president had already been admitted into the courtroom, where he will tried on 34 felony counts in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial, Honig noted that Trump seemed agitated as he addressed the press and listed off a series of grievances.

"Elie, from just watching how Donald Trump was in speaking to reporters before he went in, he was — he was definitely at least projecting that he was angry and frustrated, if he wasn't actually angry and frustrated," CNN's Bolduan prompted her colleague. "If you're a prosecutor and you're watching him act the way he did this morning, what do you think? Do you already think you are winning?"

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"So he definitely looked frazzled," the legal analyst replied and then added, "I think that's a good word we can use for this."

"If he's frazzled now, just wait until week three because I think what Donald Trump is learning is that it is enormously stressful to be on trial," he continued. "I've never even had, of course, the experience of being the defendant, I've just done it as a lawyer."

"It's incredibly stressful," he elaborated. "It's long days, it's excruciating. It can be boring. We saw him nodding off during jury selection and it will get to him.

"And I think, if I'm the prosecutor — I'm not so into the head games in the psychology of it all — but I do think I would see someone who's perhaps fraying a bit at the edges and, who knows, that may lead to poor strategic decisions by Donald Trump or other behavior that could be self-destructive."

Watch below or at the link.

CNN 04 19 2024 09 33 00 youtu.be