Donald Trump has been leaning into that mugshot, a first for any American president. It didn’t take long after it went public for him to start fundraising off it. But he wasn’t always so into the idea. During an appearance on MSNBC (as caught by Raw Story), Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell told host Katie Phang that he really fought against the pic, though he ultimately found a way to make peace with it.
“Ultimately when the mugshot came he decided fundraising would be the way out for him to kind of distract from, really, the indignity and humiliation of having to get a mugshot,” Lowell said. “But from our reporting, speaking to people in his inner circle for the days and weeks leading up to this surrender he was trying to get his lawyers to get an exemption so he wouldn’t have to take this mugshot.”
Lowell said that Trump’s had a “shift in mindset” over the last six months, claiming he was “very gung ho” about being treated like a crook before his first indictment in March.
“He thought it would be cool if I can get arrested, put in handcuffs, get a mugshot taken looking defiant but that has changed through the [multiple] indictments and by the time he got to Georgia he really did not want an indictment, really did not want to get a mugshot,” Lowell said.
One thing Trump was adamant about keeping from the public was his personal details, including his weight. He pushed his lawyers to negotiate with the Fulton County, Georgia DA and sheriff’s office, and given that his weight and height were self-reported, they got that part, at least. Otherwise they didn’t get any special treatment, which was when, Lowell said, “they recalibrated and said, ‘Fine, if we have to do this we’ll fund-raise off it.’”
When Trump’s alleged weight was made public, at 215 pounds, few bought it, not the least someone who’s shared a bed with him. The former president’s weight was listed at 239 pounds in 2019 and 244 the following year. So maybe he did shed nearly 30 pounds in three years.
You can watch Lowell’s MSNBC appearance in the video below.
(Via Raw Story)