Donald Trump isn’t known for letting slights pass. Yet for weeks, the famously combative presumptive Republican presidential nominee has sat silently in a sterile lower Manhattan courtroom amid a barrage of insults and accusations. Through it all, Trump has spent the majority of his time as a criminal defendant sitting nearly motionless, for hours, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed — so zen he often appeared to be asleep. Trump’s demeanor inside the courtroom has, in many ways, been dramatic for its very lack of drama. And it is at least, in part, a strategy in response to warnings that behaving like he has in past trials could backfire.
