Trump allies concerned about 'physical toll' of trial on elderly ex-president: DC insider

Donald Trump has apparently dozed off during each of the first two days of his criminal trial, and MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire said allies are concerned about the "physical toll" of sitting through hours of courtroom proceedings on the 77-year-old former president.

Judge Juan Merchan has already told the ex-president he must attend the trial or face potential jail time, and those who know Trump understand that he lacks discipline and will likely find it hard to control himself in the courtroom during a trial that's expected to last for more than a month.

"He has a legendary short attention span, ricocheting from one thought to the next, would frustrate his business advisers and his White House staff," said Lemire, who hosts "Way Too Early" and also serves as Politico's White House bureau chief. "He's been, best I can tell, disciplined only a handful of times in his life – the last week of the [2016] election, he was convinced to stay off Twitter, and we know that helped him win in the last few days with an assist from FBI director [James] Comey, but that's certainly the exception rather than the rule. He is undisciplined."

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"I was speaking to someone in Trumpworld last night who did acknowledge that, that the physical toll this is taking on Trump already," Lemire added. "A couple of times we have seen him close his eyes, potentially asleep. Though he's been in courtrooms a lot in recent months, most of those appearances relatively brief, an hour here, a couple of hours there – lots of breaks. He never had to be there for eight, nine hours at a time, and he's going to have to do that each and every day. He gets today off but he'll be back tomorrow, he'll be back Friday. He'll be back Monday, and there's concern in Trumpworld about the physical toll this will take on him."

The time commitment will also cut deeply into his campaign schedule, keeping Trump off the road and forcing him to campaign in his hometown that has already strongly rejected him in both previous elections.

"His campaign schedule already has to be curtailed inherently because of the time commitment to New York," Lemire said. "They wonder, will he be up for it? Will he be able in his free moments to hit the road? He made a brief appearance at a local business yesterday. His aides are talking about having more New York City events. There's a limit to how much he'll get politically out of those. He's scheduled a rally in North Carolina this weekend. Between the physical toll and the lack of money and the need to be in the courthouse, this may be a dramatically smaller campaign than we're used to for Donald Trump."

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