Trump: A bad judge of judges

By BRUCE LOWITT

Donald Trump, calling Todd Blanche, “a pussy, and I mean that negatively as opposed to pussy I like to grab,” said he wants to dump the lawyer representing him in his hush-money trial and replace him with Judge Juan Merchan.

The former president said Blanche “should be attacking the witnesses more forcefully and going after the judge and the jury and especially the guy running the air-conditioning system. This courtroom is fucking freezing.”

“If you ask me, the only guy around here with any balls is Merchan,” Trump added. “Did you hear how he ripped into Blanche, saying he’s lost all credibility? And he fined me for contempt of court. Me! A former president! Forget the court. I have contempt for everybody!

“Merchan, that’s the guy I want defending me. I want a bloodbath, not Blanche, this mealymouthed shyster. I want my Roy Cohn,” a reference to the viciously ruthless attorney who represented Trump early in his business career – and disgraced Sen. Joseph McCarthy earlier – before being disbarred and dying of AIDS in 1986.

Trump said he’d have been “a great attorney, the best, a hell of a lot better than Blanche or any of the other jerks milking me for cash” if he’d gone to law school “after wasting my time learning about finance at Wharton. I could’ve gotten rich keeping other people out of jail instead of paying … well, okay. Fine. I’m not paying.”

He said he sent a handwritten note Tuesday morning to Merchan, the New York County Supreme Court Justice overseeing his trial, asking the judge if he’d be willing “to switch sides, just this once. I’ll make it worth your while.”

Merchan, who said he would not be responding to Trump’s request, briefly delayed the resumption of the trial Tuesday. A court officer guarding Merchan, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the judge had to make a quick change “after reading something he told me was so funny that he wet his pants.”