It looks like the Trump family and their allies have learned something from Harvey Weinstein about how to put on the best defense possible in a high-profile court battle: Beg the courtroom sketch artist to make you look more attractive and, in Trump’s case, to give you “sizable hands.”
The disgraced Hollywood mogul asked artist Jane Rosenberg to give him more hair as she covered his rape trial in 2020, and Donald Trump Jr. recently asked the same artist to “make me look sexy” at his family’s civil fraud trial, which is taking place in New York City, as Insider reported.
Now, a Fox News host is urging former President Donald Trump to demand that a better sketch artist draw him as he appears at the trial, saying that the image produced Monday by artist Elizabeth Williams for the Associated Press, and disseminated to the media, was “a travesty.”
The GOP’s frontrunner for president was in court again today.
(Sketch by Elizabeth Williams – AP) pic.twitter.com/7DVMqM43N9
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 6, 2023
Then again, another Fox host reminded viewers of a long-time joke about Trump supposedly having “small hands” by saying that Williams’ image at least gives the 2024 Republican frontrunner “sizable hands.”
On the Fox News show, “The Five,” co-host Kayleigh McEnany, who was Trump’s White House press secretary, was asked how she thought her former boss did after he testified Monday in the fraud trial, according to Mediate and the Daily Beast, which shared a clip of the Fox News show.
By all accounts, Trump was highly combative on the stand, “belligerent and brash, unrepentant and verbose” and creating a “chaotic spectacle” in which he lashed out at his accusers and was repeatedly admonished by the judge, as the New York Times said.
McEnany told her colleague Greg Gutfeld that Trump should “keep doing what he’s doing” as he contests New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million lawsuit against himself, his adult sons and his company for allegedly overvaluing their real estate estates.
But McEnany also said: “Look, I would advise them to ask for a better sketch artist because that does not look like my former boss there.” McEnany called the sketch “a travesty” and said, “It looks nothing like Trump.”
Ex-Trump White House Press Secretary—and current Fox News host—Kayleigh McEnany declared Trump’s courtroom sketches a “travesty.”https://t.co/IUO7hMbhCJ
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) November 7, 2023
But Gutfield had a different take on the sketch. In response to McEnany, he put a positive spin on the sketch and quipped, “His hands are quite sizable.” Another co-host added “I noticed that, too!” Yet another added, “He’s never had a problem in that department!” Gutfield agreed, saying, “Never had a problem.”
Gutfield and his co-hosts no doubt were referring to the “small hands” insult that has followed Trump for decades, going back to when he first rose to national fame as a brash, attention-seeking real estate mogul in New York City. In the late 1980s, Trump was described as a “short-fingered vulgarian” by Graydon Carter, then the editor of Spy magazine, which covered American media and mocked New York high-society.
Carter, who later became editor of Vanity Fair, said in 2015 that he wrote the “short-fingered” comment about Trump “just to drive him a little bit crazy.” In July 2015, Trump launched his first campaign for president, and Carter revealed in his Vanity Fair editor’s letter that the comment continued to annoy the Republican Party candidate.
“Like so many bullies, Trump has skin of gossamer,” Carter wrote. “To this day, I receive the occasional envelope from Trump. There is always a photo of him—generally a tear sheet from a magazine. On all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers. I almost feel sorry for the poor fellow because, to me, the fingers still look abnormally stubby.”
Trump remained sensitive about hand jokes, especially when they were made by his Republican primary opponents in 2016, ABC News reported. During a campaign stop in early 2016, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio bought up the size of Trump’s hands in response to the reality TV star always calling him “little Marco.”
“He is taller than me, he’s like 6′ 2″, which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5′ 2″,” Rubio joked, ABC News reported. “Have you seen his hands? And you know what they say about men with small hands — ”
The crowd erupted in anticipation that Rubio was going to make a crass joke. Rubio instead finished, “You can’t trust them.”
But as Carter said, Trump couldn’t let go of the jokes about his hands, ABC News reported. At a rally in Detroit in March 2016, Trump said he would not sit back “when ‘little Marco’” talked about “the size of my hands.”
Trump held his hands up and said, “Those hands can hit a golf ball 285 yards.”
At a subsequent Republican debate, Trump also held up his hands to the audience and addressed Rubio’s implication that if his hands were small, “something else must be small.”
“I guarantee you there is no problem,” Trump affirmed.