British television embraces return of the 'Trump circus'

Wall-to-wall coverage as former US president is arrested and charged

Television crew across the street from the New York criminal court where former US president Donald Trump heard the charges against him on Tuesday. EPA

A bland courthouse corridor, a 16-page PDF and a brief shot of Donald Trump pushing open a door.

This was hardly the obvious television moment of the year but British media gave it the full works.

Mr Trump’s court date earned non-stop coverage from broadcasters including the BBC and Sky News as the world waited for news of his arrest.

Newspaper headline writers had some fun with “Donald in the dock” and “In the eye of the Stormy” as the drama dominated front pages.

From cameras in a courthouse to words like “district attorney” to the sight of a billionaire president in the dock, there was an air of Britain watching something alien.

UK leaders Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak may have been hit with police fines, but their offences were comparatively minor and carried more political than legal weight.

As Mr Trump remained out of view, the BBC had an explainer of terms like felony and arraignment that would sound strange or dated in a British case.

But British presenters had deeper questions: how serious were the charges, and how damaging for Mr Trump’s election prospects?

Names from the recent past appeared on the airwaves to offer answers.

There was Anthony Scaramucci, Mr Trump’s short-lived communications chief, saying pundits were being too clever by half if they thought the indictment would help the former president.

Then there was Michael Wolff, the author of tell-all books on the Trump White House, saying Mr Trump felt no sense of having done anything wrong as he sat in the courtroom.

The phrase “a sad day for America” was uttered several times as viewers were solemnly told Mr Trump was in the custody of the state of New York.

Another refrain was that hush money and dodgy receipts may not be the world’s most dire allegations but that Mr Trump might have more legal peril coming down the track.

Presenters barely knew what to say when the photo filtered through of Mr Trump in the courtroom. The image spoke for itself on the front of Tuesday’s Guardian, Daily Mirror and Daily Express.

TV channels scrolled through the 16-page charges once they were released by the Manhattan prosecutor, bringing such legalese as “to wit” and “the grand jury aforesaid” to British television screens.

One former MP found it all a bit much. “Does anyone in the UK really care that much, to justify this endless coverage, giving Trump exactly what he wants?,” asked former Middle East minister Alistair Burt.

Donald Trump appears in court - in pictures

Mr Trump is a disliked figure in Britain. He drew protests when he visited London as president and a poll in December found that 70 per cent in the UK had an unfavourable view of him.

But he found some defenders on the right-wing GB News channel, hosted on Tuesday evening by Trump ally and former Brexit campaigner-in-chief Nigel Farage.

While Mr Farage asked viewers to sympathise with Mr Trump, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg referred to “trumped-up charges” and a “kangaroo court”.

“The British judicial system is far superior to the American one, even though they tried to base it on ours,” said Mr Rees-Mogg.

Another right-leaning channel, TalkTV, summed up with a mixture of views at 8pm.

While pundits Russell Quirk and Jan Halper-Hayes thought the indictment would backfire on Democrats, left-wing consultant Mike Buckley thought it would hasten Mr Trump’s demise – “and that’s a good thing”.

Few editorials took Mr Trump’s side. The Daily Telegraph wrote of the return of the “Trump circus” and said the tawdry details of the scandal could damage Mr Trump’s standing among religious conservatives.

Writing in The Times, US editor David Charter said Mr Trump “remained strongly placed to be on the ballot” in 2014 despite his legal troubles and a “lacklustre campaign”.

The story remained at the top of the bulletin when radio listeners awoke to the BBC’s Today programme on Tuesday.

By this point, Mr Trump had spoken from his Mar-a-Lago base and the BBC felt forced to add a disclaimer that his speech “contained many falsehoods and untruths”.

It was one more familiar taste of the chaos of Mr Trump’s 2017-21 presidency.

Bringing the bulletin to an end, presenter Nick Robinson reflected on Mr Trump’s warning that America was “going to hell”.

“If it is, historians may note that that journey began with politicians going to war with each other about whether people could trust their legal system and could trust the rules of their democracy,” he said.