Former President Donald Trump's lawyers have a new way to keep their sleepy client awake in court, according a legal analyst sitting in on the trial.
" Trump walks in every day with a big stack of papers that appear to be news articles carefully culled for his own reading," MSNBC analyst Lisa Rubin said Friday. "Reading his good press is keeping him at least more energized."
The other tactic has Trump's lawyers playing musical chairs in the courtroom, Rubin said.
"He is always accompanied by one of his lawyers directly adjacent to him now when they go to these long and extensive sidebars," Rubin said.
"The strategy is twofold. One, to make sure he always has company and doesn't seem sort of diminished by his solitariness, and the second goal is to keep him awake."
"They actually shuffle over to make sure there's someone sitting next to him," added journalist Susanne Craig.
MSNBC Chris Jansing appeared baffled by Rubin's report and interrupted to clarify.
"I just want to clarify that point," Jansing said. "A lawyer will actually change seats to be sitting next to Donald Trump when the others may have gone up to the bench?"
Rubin's answer was a resounding yes.
"That's absolutely true," she said.
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Rubin then described Trump flipping through print-outs similar to those he awkwardly brandished outside his Manhattan criminal courtroom last week.
"These are all stories from legal experts saying how this is not a case," Trump said at the time. "The case is ridiculous."
Rubin posited Trump has specific plans for the peppy printouts he brings with him to court.
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"He seems to be flipping through them with a goal of sort of taking the best and adding them to his Truth Social account," Rubin said. "Although we can't see what's in his stack, you can imagine sort of that some of those things that he's been handed and in his social media posts and/or even in campaign emails later in the day."
The two tactics present a win-win, Rubin concluded.
"There is a political purpose there," Rubin said, "As well as a legal purpose, in keeping him awake."
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