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FORMER U.S. President Donald Trump offered rare self-criticism on his appearance after seeing a courtroom sketch of himself during his fraud trial.
Trump, 77, spoke to the courtroom sketch artists during a break while seated at the defense table observing testimony in his civil fraud case in New York State Supreme Court on Thursday.
Trump stopped to check out the artwork of the sketch artists who news organizations hired instead of photographers, who had been banned from the courtroom.
“Nice,” Trump told sketch artist Jane Rosenberg, after viewing her depiction of him, she told ABC News.
The former president then turned to inspect artist Isabelle Brourman’s artwork, and said, “Wow, amazing.”
“It looks like I need to lose some weight,” Trump told them as he motioned at his neck, according to The Independent.
This is not the first time Trump’s weight has been raised as an issue.
In a 2019 medical examination during his presidency, Trump was found to weigh 243 pounds, putting him in the obese range.
His doctor encouraged him to lose 15 pounds by eating healthy and exercising, according to Reuters.
However, Trump is known to be a big fan of fast food, frequently starting and ending his day with McDonald’s.
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When he does not skip breakfast, he often starts the day with a McDonald’s McMuffin.
While dinner is “a full McDonald’s dinner of two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and a small chocolate shake – a total of 2,430 calories,” according to Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski’s book “Let Trump Be Trump.”
Trump is being sued, along with his sons and several Trump Organization executives, by New York Attorney General Letitia James for fraud.
Trump and his associates are accused of fraudulently inflating Trump’s net worth and assets in order to gain more favorable loan terms.
Judge Engoron has already found the defendants liable for fraud.
This trial will determine what additional damages and penalties they face, and whether the attorney general will succeed on other accusations such as insurance fraud and conspiracy.
Trump has used the trial to make headway for his 2024 presidential campaign, dismissing any allegations against him as a Democratic conspiracy and “election interference,” according to an email from his campaign.
The former president arrived at the courthouse and delivered a long rant to the waiting news cameras attacking the “very corrupt” trial, the judge, attorney general, and repeating his frequent catchphrase that the case is a “witch hunt.”
The day’s proceedings consisted of hearing the testimony in Trump’s defense from Eli Bartov, a professor of accounting at NYU, who was paid $520,000 to testify in the case against Trump.
Bartov said the case had “no merit” and claimed that “errors in accounting are inevitable” and were “inadvertent.”
Trump’s appearance also marked his first time in court since a gag order that blocked him from verbally attacking court staff was upheld by an appeals court, due to the alarming number of death threats and nasty messages they received following Trump’s social media attacks on Truth Social.
Trump is the last defense witness in the trial and is scheduled to testify on Monday, though a ruling from the judge is not expected until January.