After Trump Complains That Courtroom In His Hush Money Trial Is Too Cold, Judge Refuses To Turn Down The A/C

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly moaned about how the courtroom in his New York hush money trial is too cold.

“I’m sitting here for days now, from morning [until] night, in that freezing room,” Trump told a crowd of reporters standing in the hall outside the courtroom. “Freezing. Everybody was freezing in there.”

“And all for this,” he added, showing a large stack of printed-out articles and opinion columns about the hush money case. “And this is your result. Look at that. Each one of them is a story. And it’s very unfair.”

It is noticeably chilly inside 100 Centre Street, the 17-story Art Deco facility built during World War II, which is home to the Manhattan Criminal Court. 

It is also cold in the 15th-floor courtroom and even the overflow room a few doors down, where media members started bringing their winter coats with them in the morning to view the day’s proceedings.

“Is it cold enough?” the former president jokingly asked the reporters sitting in the last row while the court broke for lunch on April 18.

The climate inside the courtroom has become a topic of discussion among almost everyone—not just Trump. Lawyers, prospective jurors, the media and even Judge Juan Merchan have complained about this issue.

Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, raised this issue at the bench, asking if the court could turn up the heat in the “freezing” courtroom.

“It’s chilly in here, no question,” Merchan responded.

Despite pointing this out, the judge refused to change the thermostat because doing so would have made the room considerably warmer.

According to a pool report, Merchan stated that an increase of just one degree would mean the temperature within the courtroom could increase by 30 degrees.

The judge told the room that he would prefer it to be too cool rather than too warm in the courtroom. He then apologized to the potential jurors about the extreme temperature differences.

This issue was brought up again as jury selection turned to picking the alternates. 

“We’re also working on the temperature,” Judge Merchan stated.

On April 15, Merchan warned Trump that he would be arrested if he disrupted or skipped trial days.

Judge Merchan told the former resident that if he disrupted the proceedings, he might be imprisoned, and the trial would proceed in his absence. The judge warned Trump that he may face arrest if he skipped his trial for no reason – a statement given to defendants in New York known as the Parker Warning.

On April 19, Trump’s day in court ended with Judge Merchan ordering him to stay seated until he left the room. 

While Merchan had been reviewing the details of a contempt hearing for Trump’s frequent violation of a gag order, the former president suddenly stood up. The judge immediately ordered him to sit back down.

The former president then sat down right away until he was dismissed from court.