All so obviously true

Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post talks about how it is absolutely clear that Trump acts the way he does in court not to win the cases, but to play to his "base":

We know he views courtrooms as campaign appearances where appeals are made for their political value, not legal strength. Trump would rather be in courtrooms than on the campaign trail. In the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, he was in a Manhattan courtroom for closing arguments in the New York civil case. He was not required to be there. But he makes more headway with Republican voters by appearing as an aggrieved defendant than by staging and attending campaign events....

Though Trump does not necessarily want to lose, he does not maximize his chances of winning. Legal experts Norman Eisen, Joshua Kolb and Andrew Warren, for example, pointed out at the Daily Beast that he did not make cogent arguments, let alone the best ones, in the New York fraudulent evaluation case. “Looming over the arguments made by both parties was what could have actually been Trump’s best argument against the intent to defraud: that any mistakes were accidental,” the authors noted.

Why spend time arguing irrelevant points or rearguing rulings the judge already made (e.g., the disclaimer on the evaluations doesn’t absolve him of fraud)? “The undisciplined and unhinged defenses Trump propounded today reflect the approach he has taken in the criminal cases,” they suggested. “Given the weakness of his legal position, it looks like Trump is aiming his arguments not at the court but at a different audience: the public. But that won’t be successful, in either the civil case or the criminal prosecutions.”  ...

Trump eagerly creates chaos, looks for opportunities to disrupt and continues to threaten judges, court personnel and witnesses. Indeed, in advance of the current trial, Carroll’s lawyer implored the judge to consider his outburst in the New York civil case and take steps to prevent another attempt to “sow chaos.” Trump is prohibited from rearguing the facts of the sexual assault — although he might try anyway. Expect outbursts in his criminal trials, ludicrous arguments (even those the judge already ruled on) and other stunts that a normal defendant might fear would be off-putting to a jury. That has always been his style: delegitimize entities and defy the rules because he seems to consider himself above the law.