Jon Stewart rips into Trump’s attitude in court: ‘Imagine committing so many crimes, you get bored at trial’

Jon Stewart ripped into Donald Trump on the first day of the former president’s unprecedented criminal trial in New York – after Trump appeared to start to fall asleep in the courtroom.

Trump was in court for jury selection for the first-ever criminal trial of a sitting or former president. Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in an alleged attempt to hide hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump denies the charges.

Despite the day’s proceedings, reporters noticed that Mr Trump appeared to doze off, sparking a slew of online jokes at the former president’s expense, such as naming him “Sleepy Don”.

Stewart had a theory that after so many courtroom appearances, he may have just gotten bored of all the proceedings.

“Imagine committing so many crimes, you get bored at your own trial,” Stewart said on The Daily Show.

Stewart referenced a clip of journalist Maggie Haberman of The New York Times, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper how Mr Trump “appeared to be asleep and repeatedly his head would fall down”. Ms Haberman also described what she saw as Mr Trump appearing “to nod off a few times”.

“His mouth going slack and his head drooping onto his chest,” she added.

Stewart joked: “Hey Jake, what part of ‘head down, eyes closed, drool coming out of his mouth’ do you not... get over here? He’s snoring.” Stewart also imitated the snoring sounds made by cartoon characters.

“There’s a piece of paper going up and down and up and down in his mouth,” Stewart further teased. “He’s asleep.”

Mr Trump’s campaign has furiously slammed the reports that the 77-year-old presidential candidate appeared to struggle to keep his eyes open, telling The Independent in a statement that “This is 100% Fake News coming from ‘journalists’ who weren’t even in the courtroom”.

One moment that Mr Trump was wide awake for, however, was when he staged an impromptu press conference outside the courtroom to lambast the trial and air his resentment for what he described as him being the subject of “political persecution”.

“This is an assault on America. Nothing like this has ever happened before. There has never been anything like it,” Trump told reporters outside the Manhattan Criminal Court.

“This is political persecution, this a persecution like never before. Nobody has ever seen anything like it, and again it is a case that should have never been brought. It’s an assault on America, and that’s why I’m very proud to be here,” Trump said.

“Well, it’s true,” Stewart reacted. “Trump is always very proud to be part of any assault on America.”

“Look... it’s not persecution. The guy’s not Nelson Mandela or Jesus,” Stewart added, before clips followed, including the time on Truth Social when he shared articles that compared him to Jesus Christ.

The Independent has contacted a spokesperson for Mr Trump for comment.