Trump Lashes Out at 'Vicious, Horrible' Lawyer Over Breast Pump Break

Donald Trump oppo research is in overdrive. The New York "All the News That's Fit to Print" Times launched the 'breast pump'  attack on Trump, which is a distortion. If you read the NYT account of the transcript of the deposition (They didn't actually post the transcript), there's a pretty good chance Trump saw the breast pump request as an attempt by the opposing counsel in the deposition to stall so she could gather her thoughts under the barrage of intimidating responses by Trump to her questions (which is a fair tactic in a deposition).  NYT, however, chose to ignore the possibility that it was a Trump tactic and paints it as a Trump emotionally out of control.

From NYT:

Donald J. Trump seemed irritated. He had been grilled for two hours in a lawsuit over a failed Florida real estate project, and he told the lawyer that her questions were “very stupid.”

When the lawyer, Elizabeth Beck, asked for a medical break, Mr. Trump and his lawyers objected, demanding that the deposition continue. Ms. Beck said it was urgent — she needed to pump breast milk for her 3-month-old daughter, and she took the pump out to make her point.

Mr. Trump erupted.

“You’re disgusting,” he told Ms. Beck, in a remark that is not disputed by either side. He then walked out of the room, ending the testimony for the day...

For Mr. Trump, a man accustomed to luxurious private planes and a solicitous staff, the dozens of hours of tedious testimony represented a humbling and, at times, aggravating concession to the American legal system.

His temper sometimes flared. Under questioning by Ms. Beck in 2011 in the Florida real estate case, he was insulting. “Do you even know what you’re doing?” he challenged her.

But when Ms. Beck insisted on pausing for an hour to pump breast milk, Mr. Trump, in the words of her husband, had “a meltdown” during a break in the deposition. In a letter at the time, Mr. Beck said Mr. Trump had called his wife “uptight” as well as “disgusting.”
Mr. Garten, the Trump lawyer, did not dispute Mr. Beck’s account of Mr. Trump’s language, but said it “was in no way a statement about her decision to breast-feed or pump.”

“It was solely the fact that she was appearing to do it in the middle of a deposition,” he said — although no one involved suggested that she had gone beyond displaying the pump.

Mr. Garten added: “In my 20 years of legal practice, I’ve never seen more bizarre behavior at a deposition. That is what led to his remark.”

Mr. Garten said that “every accommodation” had been made for Ms. Beck to take breaks, but that he believed she was seeking to buy time to come up with new questions for Mr. Trump.

That's how these guys play the game:

just a reminder that clippers owner donald sterling has the funniest deposition in the history of law: pic.twitter.com/2RNqx3wY2k

— josh androsky (@ShutUpAndrosky) April 19, 2014

Depositions can be fun.

Billionaires don't become billionaires by playing by other people's rules. They are not going to be intimidated by a lawyer in a cheap suit (or with a cheap breast pump), they are going to take the deposition where they want it to go.

That said, Trump is uncontrollable (and quick and smart, though he has no understanding of economics or social theory in general).  It's the uncontrollable that concerns the establishment. They want puppets in power that they can control, not a circus master.

Load up on the pop corn. There will be more of these attacks on Trump.

 -RW