As the witness parsed his incriminating words for the jury, Trump made sure everyone in the courtroom could see his mind was elsewhere. He was ostentatiously reading from a sheaf of papers he had carried with him into the courtroom. He plucked up the next page and leaned back in his chair, allowing me to catch a glimpse of a familiar set of red and blue bar graphs. It was the latest New York Times poll of battleground states. Before coming into court in the morning, Trump had waved the Times story accompanying the poll in front of reporters in the hallway, saying it “shows us leading everywhere by a lot.” Up by three in Pennsylvania, seven in Arizona and Michigan, ten in Georgia, 12 in Nevada. “I think we’re leading in New Jersey,” Trump said, citing as evidence the size of his rally over the weekend in Wildwood.

Let the star witness testify, Trump seemed to be saying. He was winning where it mattered.

He has griped that Mr. Blanche, a former federal prosecutor and veteran litigator, has not been following his instructions closely, and has been insufficiently aggressive. Mr. Trump wants him to attack witnesses, attack what the former president sees as a hostile jury pool, and attack the judge, Juan M. Merchan.