'He loves it' - Trump takes 2024 bid into the courtroom

The blue suit, white shirt, red tie, and American flag pin looked familiar. So did the TV cameras following every move and reporters hanging on every word. So did the wild hand gestures as he unleashed a torrent of incendiary rhetoric about the elites supposedly out to get him.

- David Smith

But this was not Donald Trump at a rollicking campaign rally. This was the former US president standing outside a New York courtroom, with uniformed officers looking on, during a civil fraud trial accusing him of grossly inflating the value of his businesses.

The incongruous spectacle was proof, if any more were needed, that Trump's court appearances and White House campaign woes have essentially merged. The legal woes that would distract or destroy most candidacies have become a defining feature of his 2024 presidential run.

"Every time he's in a courtroom, he's campaigning," said Joe Walsh, a former Illinois congressman who challenged Trump in the 2020 Republican primary. "The courtroom has replaced his rallies and that's what the next 14 months are going to look like. He's a showman; he loves this shit. This will be his campaign and it could work."

Trump is facing 91 criminal charges in Atlanta, Miami, New York and Washington. But last week he had to deal with a civil fraud case brought by the New York Attorney General Letitia James that accuses Trump and his company of deceiving banks, insurers and others by overstating his wealth by as much as $3.6bn.