A juror in Donald Trump’s hush money trial who indicated he gets news from the Trump-owned social media platform Truth Social is assumed a likely supporter of the former president, but he never actually claimed to have a Truth Social account and instead said he gets a majority of his news by following people “on both sides” of the aisle.
Former president Donald Trump awaits the start of proceedings in his criminal trial at Manhattan ... [+]
As prosecutors and Trump's defense attorneys worked to pick the 18 people selected as jurors and alternates, the potential jurors were each asked a series of questions that included an inquiry into which media they consume most often and where they get their news—one person, juror No. 2, selected Trump-owned social media platform Truth Social as a source.
Since then, commentators on both sides of the aisle have referenced the “Truth Social juror” and largely assumed he’s a likely pro-Trump vote on the jury (Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz tweeted "LFG Juror #2!" and the Citizen Free Press called it "Good news for Trump"), but notes from trial pool reporters suggest the juror doesn’t personally use Truth Social.
That same juror selected one other source of news on the questionnaire—Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter—and courtroom pool reporters from the third day of jury selection reported he told the court he only follows Truth Social posts “via X.”
The juror also reported he follows Michael Cohen, the attorney at the center of Trump’s trial, on X and listens to the "Mueller, She Wrote" podcast, an investigative podcast about Russian meddling in the 2016 election hosted by a woman who later claimed she was fired from her Veterans Affairs job because her podcast was critical of Trump.
When asked about following Cohen on X, the man said he also follows former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway and "other figures on both sides," according to pool reporters.
“If one of the jurors uses Truth Social as one of the only sources of news, I’ve got to believe that that’s likely a Trump voter,” NewsNation host Dan Abrams said Wednesday.
Several trial reporters have said there seems to be one juror who favors Trump and the defense based on body language, but it's not clear which juror that is. Reporter Marc Caputo on Wednesday claimed the juror's "face lit up" when Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who believes Trump committed "no crime," walked into court and reportedly smiled when Cohen tripped up in his testimony. “There are eight people on that jury who definitely hate Trump. If there’s one person who doesn’t, it’s [this]
Jurors on Thursday entered their second day of deliberations in Trump’s hush money case, in which the former president has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors say Trump misidentified a series of payments made to Cohen as payments for legal services, when he was actually repaying his attorney for money he paid adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair before the 2016 election. Trump has denied that he committed the crime and also denies the affair with Daniels. Closing arguments in the case, which has lasted for six weeks, finished on Tuesday and jurors began deliberations Wednesday.