Personal anguish, political defiance and a loss of control [Video]

NEW YORK — For 20 minutes Donald Trump campaigned like everything was normal. He made his way down a line of cheering fans outside a construction site at 6:30 a.m., pumping his fist, clasping outstretched hands and signing MAGA hats. “Election interference,” he grumbled about the criminal charges against him, reprising his year-long mantra.

But by 9:30 a.m., Trump was stuck in court, no longer narrating the legal saga intertwined with his run for president. He sat quietly for hours at a time Thursday and watched stone-faced as a longtime friend and former tabloid publisher recounted Trump’s agitation in 2016 when a hush money scheme failed to quash a story about an alleged affair with a Playboy model. His go-to outlet: brief …